A) Background of Interviewee

We have conducted a short interview with a professional accountant, Ms. Ng Hui Lee,
who has 11 years of working experience in accounting industry.Shecome from Penang, and is
already 33 years old. Ms. Ng came into contact with the accounting industry since she was 22
years old. She has a strong interest in accounting which drive her takes the Bachelor of
Commerce (Hons) Accounting and successfully graduates in UTAR. After graduation, she stared
her first job in CRIB Technologies SdnBhd, which located at Petaling Jaya.She has worked for
the company for 9 years and she decided to resign last two year. Now, she has her own business
and already opened a small accounting firm in TelukIntan which is Kobe Enterprise with her
husband.

B) Case Study 1
You are a qualified accountant. You have been asked by your line manager, to complete a costing
exercise with a very short deadline and limited resources. You think that the president of the
company is planning to use this information to restructure the company, including making some
of your close colleagues redundant. You are worried that your work cannot be robust enough to
be used for such a big business decision, but your line manager is putting you under a lot of
pressure to complete the work quickly.
1) Would you continue to perform the work or give up?
2) How can you find some ways to solve this limited resources problems in a short deadline
3) Should you approach the president directly?
4) Is there a senior finance officer who could advise you, or another member of the board with
whom you can discuss your dilemma?
5) Is there you will fear for asking for question when in a meeting for this problem?
6) As a professional accountant, what should you do to ensure this kind of problems?
7) Is that ethical or unethically?
8) What decision you can make after you receive these kinds of challenging?
9) Who will be affected if you didnt perform it job well?
10) In your opinion, what the effective ways you can use to solve this problem?

The interviewees answers

Question 1:
After we finish to survey with our interviewer, we have gained a lot of information and
learn some knowledge from it. According to our case study, the case study is about the company
was given a important task to the staff with the limited resources in order to expand the company
within a limited time period. After consult with our interview, we found that we should able to
solve this problem as a professional accountant. According to the interview, if the manager is
given this kind of tasks, as an accountant (interviewer), she will still continuous to perform the
tasks and work in team to complete it. Although it is a challenging for her, she wont think to
give up and resolve it with different kind of ways.
Question 2:
From this situation, the account (interviewer) will try to find out the ways to solve it. She
will try to ask the other professional accounts in detailing of this problem. Besides that, we found
that as an account, when this kind of situation was coming to us, we must face it and put more
effort to complete it, not just assigned the responsibilities and tasks to other. As an accountant,
the best way to solve this is work in team with other member in different divisional or functional
in the company in order for the tasks to complete quickly for improving the performance.
Question 3:

If she unable to solve it with some problem, she will take the chance for asking to the
president. Although it takes a lot of time for making appointment with the higher level of
president, she still will wait until get a satisfied resolution. Instead of waiting the manager for
providing the information, she will try to take the opportunity for asking the higher level within
the company in order to receive the feedback from the president. It may able to perform the tasks
for the limited resources within the time period.
Question 4:
Furthermore, she said that it was also effective to meet with a senior finance officer. It is
good in meet or consult with the senior because of having more experience in financing and face
a lot of this kind of situation before and able to provide the more efficient way to solve the
limited resources problem in order to complete the tasks assigned by manager. A senior finance
officer will be more expert on financial planning and controlling that will more helping for the
accountant (interviewer).
Question 5:
For the interviewer, as a professional accountant, she wont fear for providing the opinion
when holding a meeting. Although it seen that the manager is putting her under a lot of pressure
to complete the work quickly, she still will stand up for giving the different point of view through
the tasks that she handled. It the responsibilities for her to handle and take charge for it through
this challenging work. Moreover, she able to take the chance to grown up in the socialable
society and found that there is not such easy things will come without putting any efforts. The
imformation and details provided by her may quite useful for restructure the company.

Question 6:
Based on this situation, when this kind of problem occur from us, as a professional
accountant (interviewer) should negotiated prior to the manager and discuss with the manager
about your range of the working capacity so that the manager can assign part of the task to your
colleagues or can work as a team with your colleagues. So, the work can be done accurately and
quickly. This is because the more people we have the more strength to done the work.
Question 7:
Based on the survey with our interviewer, the accountant (interviewer) thinks that this
situation is not ethical with them. Because the manager assign the task for the staff with the
limited resources and need the staff to done the job with the limited time. The manager also gives
you under a lot of pressure to complete the work quickly. So, as an accountant, you need to
discuss with your manager about this kind of problem. In my opinion, manager should provide
more resources to their staff and also give them more time to complete the job, so that they can
do the job well.
Question 8:
If this kind of challenging received, as an accountant, the best way is we should try our
best to do well and putting more effort to do this plan. We also should prepare adequate
information and resources even if the time is limited and crash. Moreover, if we really cannot
done it, so we should directly discuss with the manager about this problem and you also can

request to the manager to add more people to help you complete the work. But, if the manager
disagrees so we should directly report to the company about this situation.
Question 9:
Moreover, if the accountant (interviewer) did not perform the job well it will affect us and
the company. The accountant might be dismissed by the company so that will be a loss for the
company. So, if the company need us to do well in a job that should cooperate with us.
Therefore, the company will not be affected if them cooperate with us and give us more time and
resources to done the job quickly, so we can improve the company profit and this problem also
will be solved.
Question 10:
From the interviewer, as an accountant, the effective way to solve this problem is to
discuss with manager about the limited time and resources. So we should request to the manager
to have more time and resources to complete the work well. Also, told the manager that if he
insisted their way to do, it would create a lot of consequences for the company. Furthermore the
manager should consider the request from us, so that, we can help the company to do well the job
and also help the company to earn more profit.

Case Study 2
You are employed as an accounting systems manager in a company that manufactures clothing.
You and the financial controller both reports to the finance director. During your work, you
overhear the financial controller saying that he has not been disclosed certain things to the
external auditors. These include the fact that a recent acquisition has resulted in a large piece of
machinery becoming redundant and of very little value. You are unsure whether to believe this or
not, but you are concerned that the culture within the finance department appears to be one of
antagonism towards the external auditors.
1) As an accounting systems manager and has a close relationship with the financial
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)
8)

controller, will you take any action? Why?

Do you think it is ethical or unethical? Why?
Will you advise him or her to surrender? Why?
Will you be prevented from exploring the accuracy of information received?
Will the audit work be affected? Why?
If company discovered the truth, what action will be taken by top management?
If you do not report to finance director about this problem, will you be affected?
Will the companys image or reputation be affected if this kind of problem continues to

happen in the company?

9) When he or she interview for a new job, will he or she hire with the other company?
Why?
1) In your opinion, what are the effective ways in preventing and solving this problem
occurring in the company?

The interviewees answers

Question 1:
Yes. As an accounting systems manager, I will try to discuss with he or she about whether he
or she has done such unethical behavior. If that is true, I will advise he or she about the action
on receiving bribe is a wrong behavior as a responsibility and professional financial controller
and stop him or her from doing this kind of things continuously before I report to the finance
director of the company since I have a close relationship with the financial controller. But I
will not stand by and allow such a thing happened because it will affect the whole company.
Question 2:
I think this behavior is very unethical because he or she only think about the benefit or
advantages that they can take by receiving the bribe, but ignore the responsibilities they should
have as an employee for the company. They should always think of their companys profit, but
not become selfish and think about their behalf. They should know this action will not only
affect their image, but the image of the whole company.
Question 3:
Yes. As an accounting systems manager, I will advise him or her to surrender if he or she has
really done this kind of action before I report to the finance director. This is because as a close
friend with the financial controller, I should think about he or she behalf, if he or she do not
surrender to the finance manager, then if the finance manager know after he or she overhear
from another employee, at that time, he or she will discharge from the financial controller
position and kick out by the company since the company will not retain the employee who are
doing the wrong things and do not surrender and tell the truth to the finance manager to
express penitence for his actions on receiving bribe.

Question 4:
Yes. I will prevent me from exploring the accuracy of information received about the bribe
since this kind of action is not done by me but is done by other employees. Since I dont have
authorities to check and explore the accuracy of information received, such as the things of
accepting the bribe, although this action will affect my work in doing and checking the
financial statement of the company but it is not part of my responsibilities as an accounting
system manager in the company. If I have authorities that given by the finance manager, I will
help the finance manager to investigate the fact of this bribe happened.
Question 5:
No. The audit work will not be affected by the bribery case because not the company gives
bribe to the others, but is the employees receive the bribe from others. Since the work of
auditing is to review and exam the company and organizations account to ensure the financial
records are valid, legal, reliable and accurate, give the recommendation about the possible risk
aversion measures and the cost savings that could be made by the organization to make sure
the cash flow of the organization are correctly recorded and processed. Therefore, the bribe
will give negative effect to the one who receive it such as a damaged image of him or her, do
not employ by another company because the less trustfulness and confidence in his or her
working behavior because the company will worry about he or she will do this again without
regret.

Question 6:

When the company discovered that financial controller had done such unethical behavior, the
company will let him or her to resign or might be given a conditional discharged and ordered to
pay compensation.Besides, he or she also might be facing criminal charges. It is because when
he or she decided to hush up some important information, it is considered as betrayer of the
company. This hided information also leaded to additional paperwork and careless errors that
result in the task having to be completed again. These entire problems caused the company
making losses.
Question 7:
No. If I do not report to finance director about this unethical problem, I will not be affected. As a
responsible accounting systems manager, my jobs responsibilities is to complete all my jobs such
as analyzing accounting records, computing taxes, developing budgets and so on. However,
reporting someone who are doing unethical behavior is not my job responsibility. Therefore,
when I conceal the truth, I also will not be charged by the company or faced any criminal
charges.
Question 8:
Yes. The companys image and reputation will be affected if these kinds of problems continue
happened. If a lack of ethics in a business becomes public knowledge, our company will suffer
loses credibility. However, company survives public knowledge of a lack of ethics through
reimaging and advertising campaigns, it also many lose a key customer base. Even if our
company recovers from news about its lack of ethics, it takes a lot of time and money to restore
its image and consumer confidence.

Question 9:

No.He or she will not be hire by any company when him or her interview for a new job. When a
financial controller exhibits a lack of ethical behavior, he or she will faced losing the respect of
his or her employees and other company. It is difficult to have a successful business without
well-respected leaders. A lack of ethical behavior can also cause tension among employees, with
some employees resenting those who do not play by the rules and still manage to get ahead.
Unethical behavior in the workplace also has the potential to lead to a lack of trust among
employees, which is detrimental to a business that relies on collaboration and a sense of
community. Thus, other companies will not hire an unethical financial controller into their
company.
Question 10:
In my opinion, often a lack of ethics appears because of poor planning and faults elsewhere in
the business. To prevent unethical behavior, the company must set realistic goals for employees.
If employees are expected to meet unreachable quotas and goals, they could engage in unethical
behavior to attempt to reach those goals. Thus, the head of company should consistently monitor
employee performance. Employees left unmonitored sometimes slack in their performance and
take credit for completing tasks that were left uncompleted. Besides, it should properly train all
employees. It is because untrained employees often cut corners and make excuses for not
completing work up to the standards the company requires. Through these way, the unethical
behavior of employees can be prevented and solve effectively.

C) Advice from the interviewees regarding work ethics and emotional intelligence
After we conduct the report by interviewing a professional accountant, we gain some of the
knowledge regarding about the work ethics and emotional intelligence.
First and foremost, the interviewer has told us some of the other knowledge about the
emotional in social work ethics and education. Emotions are relevant for moral decision-making
and therefore social work ethics training and education should pay attention to emotions.
Emotions intelligence influence moral decision-making.
It advices us the usefulness of emotions is about discussed, illustrating that emotions can be
beneficial for moral decision-making. Although emotions are supposed to be partial, and not
under the control of the moral agent, a variety of authors argue that emotions can also be
informative and may act as a moral marker and motivator.
Therefore, interviewer said that emotions are relevant to the process of moral decisionmaking, and social workers should reflect on the moral significance of their emotions.
Furthermore, the interviewer informs us that we should be ethically in doing the job and be
clever for it in the future society.
D) Personal reflection and opinions
It is a huge change after the interviewing; we can know the different situation it may be
occurring in the society. As a professional accountant, it may not easy for them to pass through
the life. We learn from them that we should be ethic and must control our emotional intelligence
in the workplace areas. Must think about the other emotion and feeling, and also work it properly
among each other. We also think that we must be able to overcoming all the challenging in
different ways and think about is that ethically or unethically before taking action.