The collapse of Arthur Andersen in 2002 is often
viewed as having generated considerable stress on
accountancy. Sense-making endeavors pertaining to
the debacle of the accounting firm have tended to
identify a variety of potential causes – one of them
being a gradual deterioration of accountants’ ethics.
Under the latter perspective, individual accountantsare assumed not to have been rigorous, in a number
of situations, in applying their profession’s ethical
standards of auditor independence – which basically
emphasize that auditors need to maintain emotional
distance from auditees. Most people today agree
about the decline in core ethical values in the
accounting profession; the present study is no
exception.