Professional Ethics and Their Role in Maintaining Accounting Integrity

Abstract

This research investigates the complex interplay between codified professional ethics and
the maintenance of accounting integrity, proposing a novel, multi-layered framework that
moves beyond traditional compliance-based models. While existing literature often treats
ethics as a static set of rules to prevent malfeasance, this study posits that integrity is a
dynamic, system-level property emerging from the interaction of individual moral reasoning, organizational culture, and institutional design. The paper introduces the concept of
’Ethical Friction’—the productive tension between formal ethical codes and informal professional norms—as a critical mechanism for reinforcing integrity. Through a qualitative, crossdisciplinary methodology blending computational text analysis of disciplinary case archives
(1995–2004) with insights from moral philosophy and institutional theory, we map the latent
structure of ethical reasoning in accounting practice. Our findings reveal that integrity breaches
rarely stem from simple rule ignorance; instead, they correlate strongly with systemic failures
in what we term the ’Ethical Support Infrastructure’—the interconnected processes for deliberation, mentorship, and consequence navigation. The results demonstrate that the most
robust integrity is found in environments where prescriptive codes are actively interpreted
and contested, not merely followed. This challenges the prevailing audit-centric paradigm of
ethics management and suggests a shift towards fostering deliberative communities of practice.
The study’s primary contribution is a reframing of accounting ethics from a defensive, riskmitigation tool to a proactive, value-creating component of professional identity and organizational resilience, offering a new theoretical lens and practical diagnostic toolkit for assessing
and strengthening the ethical foundations of financial reporting.