The importance of ethics in accounting profession: The case study of Olympus scandal

Ethical rules are the basic principles that professional accountants choose to comply with in order to improve their professions, protect public trust and show honesty and fairness. It is seen that professional accountants who participate in professional organizations have tried to protect the reputation of the profession. Professional ethics of accounting involves both strict adherence to rules and careful consideration of special circumstances requiring professional judgment. Understanding ethical frameworks for independence, honesty, confidentiality and professional competence helps to decide and maintain the reputation of the area. Professional ethics is the most important issue that people should focus on. In particular, it is seen that there is a fundamental responsibility for the accountants to prepare a financial statement containing the actual profit and loss information. Adherence to the ethical principles and rules of the accounting profession, providing clear and comprehensible information to the public, providing a healthy business is of great importance for economic and social life. If accounting professionals exhibit reliable and moral behavior, they will be successful in their profession and thus develop a healthy society. Adhering to the ethical principles and rules in the accounting profession, providing public information, providing a healthy business have great importance for economic and social life. Accounting professionals will not only appear in appearance, but in fact, if they exhibit reliable and moral behavior, they will be successful in their profession and thus develop a healthy society. In this study, the importance of accounting professional ethics is determined by literature review. In this context, the importance of accounting ethics in the context of the Olympus scandal, which was introduced in 2011 in Japan, was investigated with case analysis method. Within the scope of the research, the reasons for this scandal, including management, conflict of interest and accounting fraud, are analyzed in detail. The implications and consequences of Olympus' use of accounting fraud to conceal great harms have been discussed. This study contributes to the literature and it is important in order to determine the importance of professional accountant ethics by using literature review method and to determine the results when ethical principles and rules are not followed. In the national literature review, it was observed that the Olympus Case was not examined in terms of professional accountant ethics rules. Therefore, this study contributes to researchers, academics, students, readers and future studies on the Olympus Case. Keywords: Accounting, ethics, professional accountant ethics, Olympus Case.