Book Review

Vincent J. Love, CPA

The authors of Understanding Accounting Ethics, Second Edition, take a different, but complementary, approach to addressing ethics to that of Ethics for CPAs, a book I reviewed in the January 2003 CPA Journal. That book lays out all of the relevant rules contained in the various professional and regulatory codes of conduct. Understanding Accounting Ethics, on the other hand, equips readers with a framework to measure the ethical character of their actions outside and above the rules to determine if they are “doing the right thing.” It does this by addressing the value of ethical behavior to the profession, discussing the broad concepts and then applying ethical principles to actual situations, and analyzing the actions of the parties from the perspective of ethical underpinnings. The result is a framework that can be used to appropriately handle any ethical dilemma one might encounter as a CPA. These two excellent books on ethics are companion pieces that should be in every CPA's library.