Ethics in Accounting

ETHICS PROJECT : PLEASE USE ANY AMOUNT OF RESOURCES FOR PARTS 1-2. PART 1 1. Personal ethics – What is meant by being ethical? Describe what is the basis for your personal ethics of behavior. Who or what has been responsible for developing your values. What have you experienced in your life that may have influenced your beliefs and values. 2. Ethics in Business and Society – Is it important for businesses to develop special “rules” for people to follow? – yes or no; why or why not. Identify ethical situations that you may encounter within your course of study/major. (FOR PART 1 QUESTION 2 MY MAJOR IS CRIMINOLOGY.) PART 2 Do some research online, and select an article from a reputable news source written within the past 2 years about an ethical situation in business, preferably related to your major. Copy and paste the actual article (with title, date, source and author listed) into a word document (NOT PAGES or PDF). Write a summary of the article as well as to why you chose the article, and then incorporate how it relates to your major and to the specific Chapter 4 content. Be sure to read Chapter 4 and then incorporate its relevance to your major and the article you have selected. You do not need to cite the source (the article will be included). A minimum of 2 pages NOT including the actual attached article. PART 3 For each of the situations listed below – write a short statement of how you would approach or handle that ethical dilemma. Be prepared to discuss in class. 1. A rich man and a poor man commit the same type of crime. The rich man is fined $10,000 while the poor man is sent to jail for one year. Is this fair? 2. You are on a country road and see two neighboring farm houses on fire. One is yours and the other belongs to a new couple who just moved in. Your wife and child are at home as are your neighbors. You can only save one house. Which one do you save? 3. You run an orphanage and have had a hard time making ends meet. A car dealership offers you a new van worth $15,000 for free if you will falsely report to the government that the dealership donated a van worth $30,000. You really need the van and it will give you an opportunity to make the children happy. Do you agree to take the van? 4. You are shopping and notice a woman stuffing a pair of stockings into her purse. Do you report her? 5. You discover Bill Gate’s wallet lying on the street. It contains $1000.00 Do you send it back to him? 6. It is 3 a.m. and you are late getting home. As you approach the intersection you notice that no one is around. Do you drive through the red light? 7. As a nurse, you are the last person to see Mr. Doe before he dies in hospital. You believe that he has become mentally incompetent in the last few hours and in that time he has rewritten his will. In the new will he viciously attacks each member of his adopted family and reveals that he actually was born a woman. He then cuts every family member out of the will leaving his fortune to a Psychic Chatline . Mr. Doe asks you to make sure that the new will gets to his lawyer. Knowing that the document will most likely be thrown out of court but not before the damage to Mr. Doe’s family is done, do you carry out Mr. Doe’s last request? 8. You are on a boat and nearby are two large rocks filled with persons waiting to be rescued; there are five people on one rock and four on the other. Assume that you cannot rescue both groups and that you are the only one able to rescue either group. Which group do you rescue?