A key question that remains to be addressed is the
cause of such lapses in professional ethics. Many
critics have pointed to the growing influence of
commercial greed over professional objectivity as a
key reason for the ethical lapses in accounting.
Macey and Sale (2003, p. 1167), for example, argue
that the internal governance structures of large
accounting firms made the ‘‘modern accounting
industry […] more like a business than a profession.’’
Arthur Wyatt, a former managing partner of Arthur
Andersen and now a prominent critic of the
accounting profession, maintains that ‘‘simple greed’’
can explain the observed deviation from core ethical
values among accountants (e.g. Wyatt and Gaa,
2005). Wyatt argues that the introduction of nonaudit
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.