SIA Case: The Junior Accountant's Dilemma You are a junior accountant who have just started your career two months ago with Integrated Accounting Services (IAS). Being a small practice, IAS has only six staff including you. Despite being new in the firm, you are bound to take a one-week leave to complete your professional accounting examination. The management of the firm has been made aware of this need for you to take leave at the acceptance of your employment. However, you have been told by your manager that, before you go on leave, you must complete some complicated reconciliation work left behind by a colleague who has been on sick leave for the past two weeks. The work is past overdue and the client, who is a major contributor to the firm's income, is pressing the firm for result. You hesitated to accept the work given the complexity of the work and the unrealistic deadline pushed by the client. You strongly feel that being new in the firm, you are not sufficiently experienced to complete the work. You negotiated with your manager to assign you with a more senior partner to supervise your work, but were told that everyone else was fully occupied. Your manager comforted you by promising that he himself would supervise your work. However, knowing his busy schedule, you know that there is no chance that he would be able to do so. Hesitantly, given no choice, you proceed to work with the reconciliation of the client's financial figures. While preparing the reconciliation, you face difficulty in reconciling the financial figures due to incomplete information provided by the client. When you approached the manager for advice, he told you to just do 'what is needed to be done as long as the client is happy. You are pressured as the examination is just around the corner and you cannot afford to spend more time in doing the reconciliation. Consequently, you just complete the work within the timeframe but you know that the work is far from meeting the expected quality and standard. You are anxious thinking about the possible repercussions that you could face when you return from study leave. Required: Do you think the decision 'YOU' have chosen in the above case is ethical? Discuss and evaluate your findings using the SIA Framework. STEP 2 The 5-Question Approach by Graham Tucker 12 marks Tucker's model can be considered as a powerful tool for determining the most ethical outcome in a given situation. The proposed decision should be moralistic, on the other hand, profit should be made in an ethical way, not to benefit the corporation alone but to overall stakeholders. The 5-Q by Tucker Is the decision PROFITABLE? (market values/who benefits?) (discussion may be based on a short/long-term perspective) Is the decision LEGAL? (legal values) (Does decision go against any stipulated Act/Rule/Regulations?) Is the decision FAIR to all stakeholders? (social values) Is the decision offend the RIGHTS of any stakeholders and the decision-maker? (rights of decision-maker and the rest of the stakeholders should be respected) Does the decision provide the highest benefit to all & would it benefit stakeholders in future? Would it bring about future SUSTAINABILITY development or environmental sound) Discuss & Evaluate your thoughts (2 marks each) Is the proposed decision Ethical/Unethical Conclude your analysis: Referring to responses to all the 5 questions above, is the proposal Ethical or Unethical? (In order for the proposal to be ethical, all 5 answers should be ethical) (2 marks) STEP 2 The 5-Question Approach by Graham Tucker 12 marks Tucker's model can be considered as a powerful tool for determining the most ethical outcome in a given situation. The proposed decision should be moralistic, on the other hand, profit should be made in an ethical way, not to benefit the corporation alone but to overall stakeholders The 5-Q by Tucker Is the decision PROFITABLE? (market values/who benefits?) (discussion may be based on a short long-term perspective) Discuss & Evaluate your thoughts (2 marks each) Is the proposed decision Ethical/Unethical is the decision LEGAL? (legal values) (Does decision go against any stipulated Act/Rule/Regulations?) Is the decision FAIR to all stakeholders? (social values) Is the decision offend the RIGHTS of any stakeholders and the decision-maker? (rights of decision-maker and the rest of the stakeholders should be respected) Does the decision provide the highest benefit to all & would benefit stakeholders in future? Would it bring about future SUSTAINABILITY development or environmental sound) I Conclude your analysis: Referring to responses to all the 5 questions above, is the proposal Ethical or Unethical? (In order for the proposal to be ethical, all 5 answers should be ethical). (2 marks) SIA Case: The Junior Accountant's Dilemma You are a junior accountant who have just started your career two months ago with Integrated Accounting Services (IAS). Being a small practice, IAS has only six staff including you. Despite being new in the firm, you are bound to take a one-week leave to complete your professional accounting examination. The management of the firm has been made aware of this need for you to take leave at the acceptance of your employment. However, you have been told by your manager that. before you go on leave, you must complete some complicated reconciliation work left behind by a colleague who has been on sick leave for the past two weeks. The work is past overdue and the client, who is a major contributor to the firm's income, is pressing the firm for result. You hesitated to accept the work given the complexity of the work and the unrealistic deadline pushed by the client. You strongly feel that being new in the firm, you are not sufficiently experienced to complete the work. You negotiated with your manager to assign you with a more senior partner to supervise your work, but were told that everyone else was fully occupied. Your manager comforted you by promising that he himself would supervise your work. However, knowing his busy schedule, you know that there is no chance that he would be able to do so. Hesitantly, given no choice, you proceed to work with the reconciliation of the client's financial figures. While preparing the reconciliation, you face difficulty in reconciling the financial figures due to incomplete information provided by the client. When you approached the manager for advice, he told you to just do 'what is needed to be done as long as the client is happy. You are pressured as the examination is just around the corner and you cannot afford to spend more time in doing the reconciliation. Consequently, you just complete the work within the timeframe but you know that the work is far from meeting the expected quality and standard. You are anxious thinking about the possible repercussions that you could face when you return from study leave. Required: Do you think the decision 'YOU have chosen in the above case is ethical? Discuss and evaluate your findings using the SIA Framework