Nilai Etika & Standar Profesi

Sesi 1 – 21 Februari 2023

Purwatiningsih Lisdiono
 Chapter 4
Accounting As a Profession:
Characteristics of a Profession
US Commission on Standards of Education and Experience for Certified
Public Accountants issued a report that listed the following seven
characteristics of a profession:
1. a specialized body of knowledge
2. a recognized formal education process for acquiring the requisite specialized knowledge
3. a standard of professional qualifications governing admission to the profession
4. a standard of conduct governing the relationship of the practitioner with clients, colleagues, and the public
5. recognition of status
6. an acceptance of social responsibility inherent in an occupation endowed with the public interest
7. an organization devoted to the advancement of the social obligations of the group
• It is obvious that accounting meets the first two characteristics.
• Accounting is a complicated discipline that requires formal study to become an expert.
• To become a certified public accountant usually requires a bachelor’s degree in accounting, as well as passing the
rigorous Certified Public Accountants (CPA)
• In meeting the third standard, the accounting profession is like many other groups that have banded together to
serve the general public from a position of expertise.
• Doctors, attorneys, teachers, engineers, and others form professional groups dedicated to serving their clientele.
• These groups generally determine the qualifications necessary to obtain membership.
• Continued membership requires abiding by the group ’ s standards of behavior, including the requirement to act in
the client’s best interest.
• Only individuals who meet the qualifications will be admitted into the profession, and individuals can be expelled
from the profession if they do not live up to its standards.
• The fourth characteristic states that a profession needs “ a standard of conduct governing the relationship of the
practitioner with clients, colleagues, and the public.
• ” But what should be included in that standard of conduct?
• Standard six specifies the need for “ an acceptance of social responsibility inherent in an
occupation endowed with the public interest.
• ” But what social responsibility does the accounting profession owe to the public?
• We can find answers to these questions in the analysis of ethical standards of professionalism
developed by Doctor Solomon Huebner, the founder of The American College.
• Huebner established the college to provide advanced education for insurance salespeople.
• His goal was to elevate insurance salespeople into professional agents.
• Several years before he founded the college, Huebner delivered an address at the annual
meetings of Baltimore Life and New York Life Underwriters, in which he laid out his vision of what
it means to be a professional, as acceptable a statement of what it takes to be a professional as
exists.
Huebner cited four characteristics of the
professional:
1. The professional is involved in a vocation useful and noble enough to inspire
love and enthusiasm on the part of the practitioner.
2. The professional’ s vocation in its practice requires an expert’s knowledge.
3. In applying that knowledge, the practitioner should abandon the strictly selfish
commercial view and keep in mind the client’s advantage.
4. The practitioner should possess a spirit of loyalty to fellow practitioners, of
helpfulness to the common cause they all profess, and should not allow any
unprofessional acts to bring shame upon the entire profession.
• Clearly, accounting is a useful vocation; modern organizations could not function without
accounting skills.
• What about nobility?
• According to the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) code of ethics, “ The
accounting profession s public consists of clients, credit grantors, governments, employers,
investors, the business and financial community, and others who rely on the objectivity and
integrity of certified public accountants to maintain the orderly functioning of commerce. ”
Contributing to the orderly functioning of commerce certainly makes the accounting profession
noble.
• But the most interesting of Huebner’s characteristics of the professional is the third, for it
prescribes the standard of conduct that should govern an accountant and the social responsibility
inherent in the occupation of accounting.
• It requires the professional “ to abandon the strictly selfish commercial view and ever keep in
mind the advantage of the client. ”
• As noted earlier, the Commission on Standards of Education and Experience for CPAs states that
membership in a profession demands a standard of conduct that governs the member’s
relationship with clients, colleagues, and the public and an acceptance of social responsibility that
is central in an occupation committed to the public interest.
• Advancing the concept of professionalism brings ethical behavior to the world of business.
• In short, making a commitment to a profession involves taking on ethical responsibilities that
require rejecting a strictly selfish commercial view.
• What is a strictly selfish commercial view?
• It is the view of those for whom the business’s only concern is making money or increasing profit.
• It is the view that extreme advocates of the free-market system voice in echoing economist
• Milton Friedman and others insist that “ the primary and only responsibility of business is to increase profit.
”
• Such a view distorts the position of Adam Smith, the 18th-century economist – philosopher, and father of the
capitalistic, free-market economy.
• Smith argued in The Wealth of Nations that a great deal of good derives from a system that allows people to
pursue their own interests.
• His doctrines became the theoretical foundation and justification of the capitalist free-market economic
system.
• Smith, however, did not adopt a strictly commercial point of view in that he asserted that the pursuit of self-
interest is constrained by ethical considerations of justice and fairness.
• “ Every man is left perfectly free to pursue his own interest, his own way, ” said Smith, “ and to bring both his
industry and capital into competition with those of any other man, or order of men, as long as he does not
violate the laws of justice. ”
• Thus, there are times when justice and ethics demand that the professional sacrifice his or her own interests
for the sake of others.
• The strictly selfish sh commercial view, on the other hand, encourages the pursuit of self-interest
with no limits – a quest that inevitably leads to selfishness.
• There is a distinction between behavior that is entirely acceptable (self-interested behavior) and
ethically inappropriate behavior (selfish behavior).
• The New Testament teaches that we should love our neighbor as ourselves, thereby reminding us
that if we don’t have healthy self-love and self-interest, we do both our neighbors and ourselves a
disservice.
• Nevertheless, if we pursue our self-interest at the expense of another, we act unethically.
• In an ethical world, occasions arise in which we must sacrifice our own interests for others or for
the common good.
• We can argue that it is precisely because of the professional ’ s specialized knowledge that this
view should be abandoned.
• Whenever specialized knowledge is required to provide services to other people, it creates an
asymmetry of knowledge and thereby an asymmetry of power.
• This results in a dependency relationship, whereby one person needs to rely on the word and
advice of another.
• The potential exists to abuse the position of power and take advantage of a dependent person.
• For example, a doctor seeking extra compensation could recommend a procedure that a patient
does not need.
• The patient would depend on the doctor’s recommendation because the patient does not have
the doctor’s specialized medical knowledge.
• The ethics of our society mandate that those with superior knowledge have an obligation not to
abuse that knowledge or to use it on the unknowing to gain an unfair advantage.
• Hence, the professional must adhere to ethical precepts. But what specific obligations must the
professional follow?
• As a professional, the accountant has the following three obligations:
1. to be competent and knowledgeable about the art and science of accounting
2. to put the interests of the client before the accountant’s own, avoiding the
temptation to take advantage of the client
3. to serve the public interest
• A distinguishing mark of a profession is acceptance of its responsibility to the
public.
• The accounting profession’s public consists of clients, credit grantors,
governments, employers, investors, the business and financial community, and
others who rely on the objectivity and integrity of certified public accountants to
maintain the orderly functioning of commerce.
• This reliance imposes a public interest responsibility on certified public
accountants.
• The public interest is defined as the collective well-being of the community and
institutions the profession serves.
• The laws that require publicly held companies to be audited impart a special responsibility to the
accounting profession.
• Accountants are the public’s designated gatekeepers; because they hold that privileged position,
therefore, they are answerable to the general public.
• This brings us to Huebner’s last characteristic of a professional: “ The practitioner should possess a
spirit of loyalty to fellow practitioners, of helpfulness to the common cause they all profess, and
should not allow any unprofessional acts to bring shame upon the entire profession. ”
• This corresponds to the AICPA s seventh characteristic of a profession: “ an organization devoted
to the advancement of the social obligations of the group. ”
• Thus, the AICPA and its members have a critical responsibility to society.
• Because of their joint responsibility to various groups – clients, colleagues, and the public – it is
inevitable that accountants will sometimes face conflicting pressures.
• How can the accountant handle these pressures? The AICPA code of ethics says, “ In resolving
those conflicts, members should act with integrity, guided by the precept that when members
fulfill their responsibility to the public, clients ’ and employers ’ interests are best served. ”
• This passage presents an intriguing motivation for behaving ethically.
• Because doing what is right for the public best serves clients and employers, the passage
suggests, there cannot be a substantial conflict between the public, clients ’, and employers ’
interests.
• Thus, if an employer pressures a management accountant to cook the books, the accountant
should refuse – not only is altering financial information not in the public’s best interest, but it is
also not in the employer’s best interest.
• The AICPA code assumes that honesty is always the best policy and that ethical business is always
good.
• This means that an action that appears to be in a client’s or employer’s interests cannot be if the action is not in
the public’s interest.
• Appearances can be false and misleading.
• Consider this: Would Enron have been better off if its accountants had exposed some of its more opaque
transactions?
• Because accountants are charged with maintaining the orderly functioning of commerce without succumbing to a
strictly commercial point of view, the public has a right to expect accountants to act with ethical probity, as
mandated by the AICPA code:
• Those who rely on certified public accountants expect them to discharge their responsibilities with integrity,
objectivity, due professional care, and a genuine interest in serving the public.
• They are expected to provide quality services, enter into fee arrangements, and offer a range of services – all in a
manner that demonstrates professionalism consistent with these Principles of the Code of Professional Conduct.
• Joining a professional group such as the AICPA is tantamount to promising to abide by the group’s
ethical standards.
• As such, that promise must be kept.
• The code specifically points out that joining the AICPA places an ethical burden on the member: All
who accept membership in the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants commit themselves
to honor the public trust.
• In return for the faith that the public reposes in them, members should seek continually to
demonstrate their dedication to professional excellence.
• An interesting question remains: If being a professional requires membership in an organization, but all
accountants are not CPAs and therefore do not belong to the AICPA, are all accountants professionals?
If not an AICPA member, is the accountant bound by the same ethical obligations?
• It seems evident that all certified public accountants fulfill the criteria of being professionals.
• They are admitted into the CPA fraternity by meeting professional qualification standards and passing
the rigorous CPA exams to demonstrate that they have the requisite expertise.
• But what about accountants who have not acquired the CPA designation?
• They may have the necessary expert knowledge without passing the CPA exam or becoming AICPA
members.
• They deal with clients and thereby have the same obligation to those clients as CPAs do.
• Thus, they should be subject to some of the other professional standards, such as abiding by the
provisions in a code of ethics, whether it is the AICPA code or another professional code.
• The standards of behavior do not rest on the code itself.
• Rather, codes specify universally valid standards of conduct that accountants should follow.