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Behavioral Aspect of Accounting: the Need to Emphasize on Ethics

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Behavioral Aspect of Accounting: The Need to Emphasize on Ethics ------------------------------------------------- Ahmad Zubair Chedi
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Abstract Accounting plays a vital role in providing information that permit economic decision, therefore the information has influence on its users. The financial statements that serve the basis for the economic decision are drawn up, not by the users, but by the enterprise’s accountants under the authority and control of the enterprise’s management. Ideally the preparers should take as their objective the fulfillment, (to the best of their ability) of the users’ needs. However the preparers have their own objectives, which often are quite different from those of the users. The financial statements can play a very important role in helping the enterprise’s management to achieve its objective. If the accounts show that the enterprise is doing well, the shareholders will be happy also the market price of the company’s shares will remain high. Since the accounts are prepared under the direction of the management there is a temptation for the management not to present the full truth about the enterprise in the financial statements, particularly when the company is doing badly. The paper examines the behavioral aspect of accounting with emphasis on the need of ethics; the methodology used is purely content analysis, using secondary data. The study reveals that unethical behavior is less prevalence in the organization that has adopted corporate code of ethics. Therefore, it is recommends that corporation without formal code of ethics should adopt it in order to mitigate the unethical behavior while users of financial report should possess analytical ability in order to have a better understanding of financial information and use it wisely for optimal decision, Key

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