Accounting for the Public Interest Perspectives on Accountability, Professionalism and Role in Society

This volume explores the opportunities and challenges facing the accounting profession in an increasingly globalized business and financial reporting environment. It looks back at past experiences of the profession in attempting to meet its public interest obligation. It examines the role and responsibilities of accounting to society including regulatory requirements, increased emphasis on corporate social responsibility, accounting fraud and whistle-blowing implications, internationalization of public interest obligations, and providing the education needed to be successful. The book incorporates an ethical dimension in making these assessments. Its focus is a conceptual, theoretical one drawing on classical philosophy, the sociology of professions, economic theory, and the public interest dimension of accountants as professionals. The authors of papers are long-time contributors to the annual symposium on Research in Accounting Ethics sponsored by the Public Interest Section of the AAA.

Table of Contents

Introduction

List of Contributors

List of Reviewers

Monograph Papers

Section 1:         Professionalism in Accounting: Myth or Reality?

Chapter 1:        Call of Duty: A Framework for Auditors’ Ethical Decisions by Michael K. Shaub and Robert L. Braun

Chapter 2:        Professionalizing the Tax Accounting Profession: Fulfilling Public-Interest Reporting Responsibilities by Martin Stuebs and Brett Wilkinson

Chapter 3:        The Bloom is Off the Rose: Deprofessionaliztion in Public Accounting by Timothy J. Fogarty

Section 2:         An Ethic of Accountability, Societal Responsibilities, and Accounting for the Public Interest

Chapter 4:        Taking Pluralism Seriously Within an Ethic of Accountability by Jesse Dillard and Judy Brown

Chapter 5:        Social and Economic Implications of Increasing Income Inequality: Accountability Concerns by Sue Ravenscroft and Christine A. Denison

Chapter 6:        Professionalism, the Public Interest, and Social Accounting by Gordon Boyce

Section 3:         Defining the Public Interest in Accounting

Chapter 7:        Alternative Perspectives on Accounting in the Public Interest by C. Richard Baker

Chapter 8:        The Public Interest According to the IFAC Framework by Paul F. Williams

Section 4:         Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Reporting

Chapter 9:        Developing Corporate Reporting in the Public Interest: The Question of Mandatory CSR Reporting and the Potential for Its Integration with Financial Reporting by Cynthia Jeffrey and Jon D. Perkins

Chapter 10:      Environmental Disclosure as Legitimation: Is it in the Public Interest? by Dennis M. Patten

Section 5:         Virtue and Public Interest Considerations of Bribery and Whistle-blowing

Chapter 11:      Facilitation Payments in International Business Transactions: Law, Accounting and the Public Interest by Cindy Davids

Chapter 12:      Whistle-blowing in the Classroom: The Influence of Students’ Perceptions of Whistleblowers by Richard A. Bernardi, Evan S. Goetjen, and Jennifer M. Brax