Can money and ethics mix?: Changing horizons for the accounting profession

According to a recent opinion poll conducted by the Gallup Organization measuring the honesty and ethics of different professions, business executives scored a lowly 25 percent. Accountants fared little better at 41 percent. The poll tells a story of the severe damage that has been done to business by the spate of accounting scandals which have shaken corporate America to its very foundations. In a December 2002 article on the New York Times Web site, Floyd Norris declared: “For the accounting industry, 2002 was the year of capital punishment, in both senses of the term. But will prosecutorial vigor lead to real reforms in an oligopolistic industry?” And this question of reform is on everybody’s lips. Can the profession restore its credibility, and if so how?