The social relevance of ethics education in a global(ising) era: From individual dilemmas to systemic crises

Abstract

Ethics in accounting and business education must be considered in the contemporary context of neoliberal economic globalisation. Official responses to corporate scandals have included new laws and regulations, and some have argued that these scandals illustrate the need for change at an individual level, but this paper argues that the problem is manifested at a system level and that greater attention must be paid to the wider economic and social system within which individuals operate. Contemporary accounting education tends to treat ethics as an add-on component that itself may be justified in instrumental ways, such as a claim that it may enhance corporate profitability. In accounting and business education programs, case study scenarios utilising codes of ethics and ethical decision-making models are typically prominent in ethics components of accounting courses. This model of teaching is critiqued in this paper, and it is agued that it is necessary to transcend the individualised conception of ethics implicit in such approaches. Accounting and business educators have a special responsibility to examine ethics in the broader context of globalisation because it is at this level that many relevant ethical concerns arise. These concerns are directly connected to accounting education and practice. University academics (as intellectuals) should balance the humanistic/formative and vocational aspects of education. In relation both to developments in globalisation and the systemic crises of which accounting is a part, accounting educators should actively consider their positions in relation to the global hegemonic balance. As mediators in the intellectual realm, accounting educators can do more to make accounting education relevant to the lived experience of students, to the multifaceted global(ising) context in which we live, and to the capacities of graduates to act meaningfully in and on the world, individually and collectively. … we can see no possible ethical or intellectual justification for much of what currently passes as accounting education … (Gray et al., 1994, p. 63).