Question

Accounting Ethics:

You never thought you would be selected for an internship, but you did succeed. You, along with your classmate Olya Kvalevcka, were spending the summer together, completing the final weeks of your coveted internships with PrizeWaterhome, CPAs. The only problem was that the firm intimated that, due to a slowdown in business, it would only give a permanent job offer to one of you.

While waiting in a partner's office, you happened to see Olya's resume on his desk. The resume was sitting plainly in front you, so you began to kill time looking at it. Upon reading it, you noticed that Olya had misrepresented several things about herself. She stated that she was the Beta Alpha Psi vice-president, but she was only the vice-president in charge of guest speakers, not the overall vice-president. She also said that she was Professor Salcedo's teaching assistant, but you knew that this was false because you were Professor Salcedo's teaching assistant…and he only employs one! Finally, her resume says that she was selected as the “top student in Intermediate Financial Accounting” and you have never heard of that award.

You could barely sleep last night, thinking about whether you should tell someone in authority at PrizeWaterhome about these lies. What should you do?

Answer 1

According to me, if I found her lying by presenting wrong informations in her resume, I would definitely try to being the fact to the organization.

But it may be possible that I would be wrong in certain situations by not having accurate information about her. And if in this case I complaint against her in the organization and later on proved wrong, this would not be resulting good.

Therefore, the best possible step taken by me would be to make the company officials aware of the fact that, the officials of the compamy should ask for proofs for whatever has been mentioned in each one's resume. Thus would be an ethical step to follow.

This way it will also help the company to discover the truth and accurately judge whom they should be offering the job.

Giving no hints to organization and keeping quite in knowing that something is being done, is also not ethical. Moreover by doing this, I would be loosing a fair opportunity of being offered the job which I would have been more deserving.

Therefore, the best step taken is to make the officials of the organization check all the documents related to the informations presented in the resume. And this way I would not have been accusing someone for something which he has not committed.