Impact of unethical behavior

Unethical practices and behavior in accounting may often go unchecked because the actions may be the result of upper management and even senior executives. Employees fearing negative reactions from management or their peer group may remain silence if they are aware of a person doing unethical things, causing the employee to turn a blind eye. Falsifying or altering business documents such as sales receipts, or tampering with accounting reports is unethical practices for a company to engage in. Among the most common unethical business behaviors of employees are making long-distance telephones calls that are personal in nature but they are placing them on business lines, duplicating business software such as Microsoft Office so they can use it at, falsifying the number of hours they worked duing the week, or much more serious and illegal practices, such as embezzling money from the business, or doctoring expense reports so that they make money in the process. Among these examples there is embezzlement of funds by an accountant from their employers for financial gain, or accountants receiving corporate pressure from their client to report false information on profit and loss statements and having unrealistic objectives and deadlines. An accountant may decide to work for a company even though a conflict of interest may exist. If the accountant is owed money or has a significant stake in a firm, he or she may not be the ideal individual to prepare certain companies ' financial statements.” (Jacobsen, 2008, para. 10).
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 is legislation enacted for the protection from the unethical behaviors. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act puts rules in place to hold executives accountable for the accuracy of their organization’s financial statements. The rules that are put in place achieve harsher punishments and criminal penalties for failure to comply. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act does its best to ensure financial statements are valid and correct. The Sarbanes-Oxley

References: Jacobsen, R. (2008, January). Unethical Behavior In The Workplace. EzineArticles, (), . Retrieved from http://ezinearticles.com/?Unethical-Behavior-In-The-Workplace&id=954264