IMA® (Institute of Management Accountants) has long been at the forefront of advocating for the highest ethical business practices in management accounting and finance. And there are a variety of resources available to our academic members in the field of ethics.
Commenting on IMA’s ethics offerings, Ed Manley, CPA, chair of the IMA Committee on Ethics, said, “We encourage our academic members to take advantage of the ethics resources that IMA makes available. Our ethics materials – including cases, online study programs, textbooks, and more – are perfect for classroom teaching and can help lend real-world insights into this topic for students.”
Resources include:
Carl Menconi Ethics Case Competition
This annual competition is named in memory of Carl Menconi, who held leadership positions within IMA for many years and also served as chair of IMA’s Committee on Ethics. The competition’s overall goal is to develop and distribute teaching cases focused on business ethics with specific application to management accounting and finance issues. More information can be found at Carl Menconi Ethics Case Competition.
This year’s winning entry was “To Break Boats or Not to Break Boats” by Paul R. Goodchild, Ph.D., CPA, assistant professor, University of Central Missouri.
Dr. Goodchild’s case will be featured in an upcoming issue of Strategic Finance magazine, and he will be recognized at the Awards Luncheon at the IMA Annual Conference & Expo in Indianapolis in June 2018, as well as receive a $500 cash prize.
Honorable mention went to “Gladys and the Narcissistic Knight” by a team of professors from John H. Sykes College of Business, University of Tampa: Teresa M. Pergola, CMA, DBA, associate professor of accounting; Mary Keener, Ph.D., associate professor of accounting; and L. Melissa Walters, Ph.D., associate professor of accounting.
Curt Verschoor Ethics Book
Corruption, conflicts of interest, fraud, and other unethical behaviors seem to be headline news far too frequently. To discourage these activities among businesses and in recognition of the importance of ethical behavior, IMA has published Curt Verschoor On Ethics – Timely Columns from Strategic Finance. The book is a compilation of Verschoor’s highly regarded monthly columns in Strategic Finance, IMA’s flagship magazine. Verschoor is a recognized authority on ethics in management accounting. The topics covered include:
- Case studies of fraud
- Sustainability and integrated reporting
- Whistleblowing
- Ethics of executive compensation
- International ethics standards
Visit the IMA bookstore for ordering details.
Online Learning
IMA offers a variety of educational resources on the topic of ethics, all available on IMA’s website.
The most recent course offering is titled “IMA Ethics Series: Misplaced Trust | Devastating Fraud,” based on a real-life case study published in IMA Educational Case Journal (IECJ)®. The course examines the COSO internal control framework and how management accountants can contribute to ensuring strong internal controls, fraud prevention, and excellence in organizational governance.
On the IMA Ethics Center page, academics can find information on the confidential Ethics Helpline and the IMA Statement of Ethical Professional Practice, the standard to which all IMA members must abide and a useful tool for sparking classroom discussions.