Infusing Ethics in Managerial/Cost Accounting Classrooms: A Teaching Resource

• In Event: Breakfast with Research Round Table Forum

Abstract

The role of management accountants is to provide relevant and timely accounting information for both internal and external stakeholders of an organization. Thus, management accountants must advocate a high level of ethical standards in all functions. Accordingly, it is important to train students, as they are future management accountants, to develop ethical values and to expose them with the available resources that can help them identify and resolve ethical dilemmas. Case studies are a learning platform that can be used for ethics training in classrooms. The nature of case studies allows students to develop their analytical skills and provides opportunities to perform class discussions.
The objective of this project is to provide a teaching resource for faculty to administer ethics training and discussion using an existing Managerial / Cost Accounting case studies database. We reviewed all of teaching cases that are available and published in Institute of Management Accountants or IMA’s Educational Case Journal (ECJ). Then, for each case, we add ethics related questions and discussion topics that faculty can use in addition to the assignment. Therefore, faculty can use each of the cases that are aligned with their syllabus and include an ethics discussion for each topic.
We exclusively use IMA’s ECJ for several reasons. First, this database is free for accounting faculty. Thus, our teaching resource is accessible for faculty at no cost. Second, the journal offers a wide range of Managerial / Cost Accounting topics that can coincide with the curriculum. The final outcome of the project is an index of ethical questions and discussion on each of teaching cases published in the IMA’s ECJ. In addition, the index provides recommendations to adjust the case questions so that the case can be applied to students from the introductory level to the advanced courses. Last, we offer suggestions on how to develop ethics discussion in an existing case studies.

Authors

• Deidre Liedel, University of Toledo

• Ira Annisa Abdullah, Robert Morris University-Pittsburgh

• Karen Green, University of Toledo