Wyatt argues that the introduction of non-audit
services, primarily management consulting
work, into large public accounting firms shifted the
reward structure away from adherence to professional
standards and ethics toward commercial gain.
Bailey (1995) suggests that professional ethics and
values are the product of a ‘‘golden age’’ of professionalism
that has since passed, and that key ethical
standards have not been successfully translated on the
workplace to the younger generation. Simply stated,
these critics suggest that changes in the context of
professional work have made the accounting
profession more susceptible to a logic of commercial
gain than professional independence and objectivity.
In spite of the rhetoric, there are few empirical tests
of any of these assertions