MORALITIES AND ETHICS. THE PARADOX OF THE PARABLE OF THE UNJUST STEWARD AND THE PARADOX OF CREATIVE ACCOUNTING

Abstract

The paper targets the approach of the implications regarding the compliance or non-compliance with ethical principles in the accounting profession, the interest for this debate being the profound crisis we are experiencing which makes us come back to fundamentals, the current world trying to discover them morally and ethically. In order to reach the purpose of our research, we have carried out an exploratory research, as a specific research method, using the analysis of secondary data. In this view, starting from the behaviour of the characters of the controversial biblical parable of the unjust steward bringing it into the context of our days, we can notice that the wit of the above mentioned steward mentioned above, it cannot be underestimated and we cannot, even now, underestimate the creativity of a “good” accountant when he has “to solve” a problem or to reach a certain purpose. Also, we have used a descriptive research, too, the research method used being the survey. In making up the surveys, we used the 5 level Likert scale, this type of scale targeting aspects related to the relation ethics-morality-religious values with which, the respondents, in our case represented by a sample made up of the managers of large enterprises and those of the SMEs in the Bihor County, agreed or disagreed. This paper shows that, from a philosophical and spiritual point of view, the contemporary crisis is a conscience crisis and a crisis of the humanity’s moral values, emphasising the idea that humankind must enter a phase of new humanism, meant to cultivate the features of a morally developed man, endowed with responsibility regarding the choices that he makes as well as the capacity to suffer the consequences of his choices. In our opinion, the parable mentioned has in view the accentuation of the moral aspects of the steward’s behaviour and, extrapolating, of the accounting professional in creating a solid basis for an ethical behaviour. Thus, the solution for the economic, political, or environmental problems we identify in the world we live in, depend, to a high extent, to the way in which the moral problem is solved, a problem depending, in our opinion, on the spiritual problem.

Keywords

• ethics, morality, creative accounting, economic crisis