Chief Financial Officers' Perceptions Concerning the IMA's Standards of Ethical Conduct

Abstract

Do chief financial officers (CFOs) of publicly held corporations agree with the Institute of Management Accountants' (IMA) Standards of Ethical Conduct and are they willing to adopt them? To address these issues, a survey was conducted concerning the Standards. The IMA issued the Pronouncement of Standards in June, 1982.

In November, 1992, 790 survey questionnaires were mailed to chief financial officers (CFOs) of corporations listed in Forbes. These CFOs held the positions of vice president of finance and controller. Completed questionnaires were received from 208 CFOs representing a 26.3% response rate. The questionnaire employed a 5-point Likert scale and included seven demographic questions to facilitate the interpretation of the findings.

The surveyed CFOs agreed with the majority of the Standards. However, many CFOs commented that some of the Standards of Ethical Conduct were difficult to implement in the real world. The CFOs critically commented that all the Standards were too general, too vague, or did not cover the grey areas that occur in real world situations.

Ironically, the more years of experience acquired by CFOs, the less they believed in the Standards. Surprisingly, only 41.3 percent indicated that their corporations experienced ethical issues or problems.

From the survey, 98.6 percent consider the Standards reasonable, 96.6 percent comply with the them, and 88.4 percent have implemented their own code of ethical conduct standards within their organizations. Thus, 10.2 percent of the CFOs believe the Standards are reasonable but have not implemented any code of ethical conduct standards within their organizations. Also, 8.2 percent of the CFOs comply with the Standards but have not implemented them as policies in their organizations.

Interestingly, 11.6 percent of the CFOs that have not implemented their own code of which 60 percent believed that their organizations should adopt a code of ethical conduct. The other 40 percent expressed no plans to adopt any code as policy.

Evidence indicates that the less CFOs support the Standard to "Recognize and communicate professional limitations . . .", the more ethical issues and problems occur within their organizations. Also, the organizations with codes of ethical conduct support two particular Standards more than organizations without codes. Finally, CFOs with CPA certification supported the Standard to "Prepare complete and clear reports after appropriate analysis of relevant and reliable information" less than CFOs without the certification.