Professional Values and Ethics as a Factor of Increasing Trust in the Profession of the Accountant

Abstract

Accounting is one of the foundations of the business in modern world and an accountant is a specialist whose level of professionalism must be impeccable. Today in Ukraine there is a “crisis of confidence” in the profession of an accountant, caused primarily by violations of ethical standards by specialists and neglect of professional values. The problem is aggravated by the users of accounting services themselves, who try to influence the accountant, satisfying their interests at the expense of others. The purpose of the article is to substantiate the importance of compliance with the basic ethical principles of behavior by accountants in order to restore user confidence in accounting and reporting data, identify the reasons for violation of the code of ethics by accountants and determine the main directions of work of the professional community, the state and the accountants to eliminate the identified problems. It has been determined that compliance with the basic ethical principles by accountants contributes to: the formation of professional values and the development of a conceptual model of accountant behavior at all levels of education (secondary vocational, higher, additional education, advanced training); the implementation of the national code of ethics for professional accountants by adapting it to Ukrainian practice, internal codes of ethics of professional organizations or accounting services; the creating a mechanism for identifying unethical behavior of accountants and introducing an effective system of sanctions for violation of the code of ethics. However, the ways of solving the problems described in the article will give a positive result if the comprehensive work is carried out to ensure compliance with the norms of the code of ethics – from the professional community, the state and the accountants. Most efforts will be fruitless until users of accounting services – employers and clients, as well as the public – begin to place real demands on the ethical behavior of accountants.

Keywords

• accountant
• professional ethics
• crisis of confidence
• code of ethics for accountants
• professional values
• accounting