Ethics. Mary Jones is controller of the Non-Ferrous Metals Division of Southeast Manufacturing Incorporated (SMI) in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Last year, she served as her division’s representative on an SMI corporate-level task force charged with developing spe¬ cific objectives and performance specifications for a new computer system that is to be purchased this year. Due to her pivotal role on that task force, she has just been named to a new SMI corporate-level committee charged with reviewing, evaluating, and ranking the 10 to 20 proposals that SMI expects to receive from com¬ puter vendors now that SMI has put the proposed sys¬ tem out for bids.
A single parent, Jones expects to incur over $400,000 in medical expenses resulting from treatments for her youngest child, who has contracted a potentially fatal disease. Approximately $150,000 of that amount will not be covered by insurance. Due to this personal financial situation, Jones has investigated some career opportunities that would involve higher salary and more generous insurance benefits, but no position has been offered to her. Her most recent interview was for the controller position at Crimson Systems, a supplier of large-scale computer hardware and custom-designed software.
Crimson Systems’ vice-president for finance declined to offer Jones the controller position, but instead said, “We’re offering you a temporary consulting engage¬ ment—Sunday afternoons for the next four months— helping us write our proposal for the SMI job; your fee will be $500 per hour.”
Required:
(1) Which of the 15 responsibilities in the Standards of Ethical Conduct for Management Accountants apply to Jones’ situation?
(2) What might Jones have done in her interview with Crimson Systems to precipitate this problem?
(3) What might Jones have done differently to avoid or mitigate this problem?
(4) In addition to her ethical responsibilities to SMI, what other ethical responsibilities does Jones have to consider?