The Routledge Handbook of Accounting Ethics

15ETHICS AND ACCOUNTING INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Richard B. Dull and Lydia F. Schleifer

Introduction

“The world needs a huge injection of ethics.”

(Luciano Floridi 2015, 165)

The most basic interest in the study of ethics is related to identifying the “right” thing to do. It is almost a universal belief that it is ethical to do right and unethical to do wrong.¹ With the ubiquitous nature of information systems, the universality of connectivity among devices, as well as the speed with which technology changes, it can sometimes be extremely difficult to determine what is the right thing to do. In addition, there is a big difference between the outlooks reflected by “it is unethical to misuse big data and harm the rights of individuals” and “it ...