INTRODUCTION Institute of Management Accounting’s (IMA) mission is to provide a forum for research, practice development, education, knowledge sharing, and the advocacy of the highest ethical and best business practices in management accounting and finance.
The IMA has strongly enforced ethics since it’s inception. Their ethics committee was one of the first committees established in 1919, at their very first meeting. It was call ‘The Standard of Ethical Conduct for Management Accountants. This shows that the IMA is extremely serious when it comes to the professionalism required by it’s members. This guideline has been revised twice, once in 1979 and then again in 2005. Upon the last revision, the code of ethical conduct became the IMA Statement of Ethical Professional Practice.
All members must take an oath and adhere to the Institute of Management Accounting (IMA) Standards of Ethical Professional Practice. The are four main principles of this code of ethical conduct.
They are: I. Honesty II. Fairness III. Objectivity IV. Responsibility
It is the responsibility of every accountant to comply with these standards to avoid any type of disciplinarian action.
According to the IMA each member must be professional. Many of the areas of professionalism to be maintained includes a commitment to education. This is the section of the IMA Statement of Ethical Professional Practice that requires all accountant members to stay abreast of the many laws, regulations and technical standards. Due to our everyday landscape and the continual changes in accounting, taxes, etc., the IMA has a continuing education (CE) requirement. All accountants must take a certain amount of CE classes so that they’ll be able to provide sound advice to their clients. This does not only keep them knowledgeable, it also keeps them aware of their professional limitations.
Another part of an accountant’s responsibility is to respect the