CASE 4.6

ARVEL SMART, ACCOUNTING MAJOR

Synopsis

This brief case involves an ethical issue that many future accounting graduates have faced in recent years.Internship programs are an important facet of the recruiting efforts of large accounting firms.Those accounting firms typically offer internships to students that they hope to hire on a permanent basis when they graduate.Accounting majors enrolled in five-year accounting programs may have an opportunity to take two internships before they graduate. In this case, Arvel Smart served an internship with a Big Four accounting firm during the summer between his third and fourth years in a five-year accounting program.By the end of his fourth year of college, Arvel had decided to accept the job offer that firm had given him at the conclusion of his internship.But, Arvel delayed accepting the job offer so that he could take a second internship with another firm during the summer between his fourth and fifth years in college.The key issue in this case is whether Arvel acted unethically by accepting the second internship when he ultimately intended to accept the offer for a permanent position that he had received as a result of his first internship.

Arvel Smart, Accounting MajorKey Facts

1.Arvel Smart's parents were CPAs who had their own accounting firm in a small town in southeastern Missouri.

2. Like his parents, Arvel attended the University of Missouri at Columbia and majored in accounting.

3.During the summer between his third and fourth years in Missouri's five-year accounting program, Arvel served an auditing internship with a Big Four practice office in Kansas City.

4.At the conclusion of that internship, Arvel was offered a permanent position with the Big Four firm; the job offer would be open until the end of the following summer.

5.Because he wanted to spend the summers between his fourth and fifth years in college with his girlfriend who had accepted an internship with a Big Four practice office in St. Louis, Arvel interviewed for an internship that summer with two regional accounting firms based in St. Louis.

6.Before accepting an internship offer from one of the two St. Louis firms, Arvel decided that he would accept the Big Four job offer at the conclusion of the second internship.

7.Arvel experienced some degree of guilt when he accepted the internship with the St. Louis firm because he realized there was only a remote chance that he would consider accepting a full-time position with that firm.

8.Arvel cleared his guilty conscience by rationalizing that it was the responsibility of the St. Louis firm to demonstrate that it offered more opportunities for him than the Big Four firm from which he had an outstanding job offer.