ABSTRACT
The purpose of this chapter is to examine the historical development of the code of ethics of the US public accounting profession over the last century in relation to Foucault’s concept of “codified discourse.” The code of ethics of the US profession has been one of the principal means through which the ethical discourse of the profession has been communicated to its members. The question addressed is whether the code of ethics has been primarily directed toward protecting the public interest or serving the private interests of the profession. I argue that changes to the code of ethics have been prompted primarily by market forces and the accounting profession’s desire to expand its scope of services for its private economic interests. I demonstrate that the ethical discourse of the profession can be found more in the self-forming practices of the profession rather than its code of ethics. These self-forming practices commence early in the career of a prospective accountant and shape the accountant into an idealized ethical being; not an ethical being who complies with a code of ethics, but rather an ethical being who is self-regulated and self-formed into an ideal member of the profession. The managing partners of public accounting firms and the leaders of the organized public accounting profession ought to be more aware of the informal ethical discourse that is communicated to entry level and junior accountants so as to achieve a higher level of congruence between the aspirational aspects of the published code of ethics and the informal ethical discourse of the profession.
