| It has now been over a decade since the financial crisis 2007–08 that was brought on in particular by unscrupulous banking practices – including those linked to fraud and corruption – underpinned with an unprincipled use of accounting technologies, which led to the worst global recession since the great depression of the 1930’s. What had started as a sub-prime mortgage crisis in the USA quickly became an international banking crisis and eventually led to the collapse of financial systems in several countries and ongoing austerity policies in many Western countries (Bracci, Humphrey, Moll, & Steccolini, 2015). The ramifications for corporates (Lehman Brothers, AIG, Northern Rock and General Motors), and indeed countries (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, Spain − PIGS), that faced bankruptcy, humiliation and if lucky bail-out led to an increased awareness of the social and partisan character of accounting in the face of fraud, corruption or just shoddy business practices. This is epitomised to some degree by the Integrated Reporting Council (IRC) calls to have a more sustainable basis to accounting (Adams, 2015). Of course such calls for accounting to move beyond the economic towards ethical, social and environmental concerns are not new and have a rich legacy, especially since the 1980’s and 1990’s (Hopwood, 1983; Burritt and Lehman, 1995; Fiedler and Lehman, 2002; Gray and Laughlin, 2012). These issues emphasise the problems when accounting is used to mask what is reported and consequently what is the bottom line, especially in cases of corruption. Some of the problems concern the concept of auditor independence, the circularity of the audit process and the expectations gap between the interests of the public and the accounting profession. Accountants have been criticised for assuming that if the ‘figures’ are constructed in line with current mandatory and legislative requirements, then the accounts are true and fair. Yet what is reported often apparently bears little relation to a reasonable view of the true financial health of the company. These concerns are universal and not unique to Western countries such as Australia, UK and USA. Indeed, researchers from across the globe from countries as diverse as Brazil, China, India, and Nigeria to name but a few are investigating the social and environmental dimensions of corporate behaviour, and the implications of corruption. In the past, ethics, environment and social responsibility have been deemed too difficult to be of concern to accountants, whose primary responsibility has been couched in narrow technical terms − For instance how to report corporate profit with even issues of fraud and corruption relegated at best to secondary considerations. Ethics has been treated in conceptual framework projects in a technical as opposed to a social, philosophical, manner. For today’s student a narrow and technical education is no longer a “meal ticket” for a long, lucrative and prosperous career. Research indicates that today’s students will be expected to not only exhibit the skills of a “practising accountant”, but also follow good ethical principles involving an appreciation of the social nature of accounting. |