Discuss the view that increased regulation will not necessarily lead Essay

Discuss the view that increased regulation will not necessarily lead to higher ethical standards - Essay Example According to Milton Friedman, â€Å"There is one and only one responsibility of business- to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game†. Therefore, it clearly says that increased regulations will result in higher ethical standards. However, on the other hand, Albert Camus says that ‘Integrity has no need of rules’ which reflects that it is up to the organization to become more ethical then the regulations. The relationship between regulation and ethical standards is not as easy as it looks. Increasing regulations may or may not lead to increase in ethical standards. If it would have been the case then companies to maintain the conduct of its employees ethically sound would have been competing on number of regulations than their effectiveness. This essay will explore and analyse the view that increased regulation does not lead to increase in the ethical standards. On developing the g eneral argument, this essay will also attempt to develop support from variation in accounting and auditing treatments with level of compliance to financial regulation and ethical standard. ... Concerns regarding the ethical conduct of business have gained increased attention since recent past, when corporate scandals, mainly Enron scandal, were unveiled and it resulted in huge fines, reputational loss and even jail sentences (BBC News, 2002). It proved to be the earthquake in trust of stakeholders on the validity of information presented by firms and increased distrust about the accounting practices worldwide (Enderle, 2004). The question was posed to entire mechanism that remained incapable of indentifying the deceiving accounting practices were given least or no punishments (Enderle, 2004). In the mentioned case, it was desirable to correct the existing regulation with focus to eliminate the flaws. This exercise presumably was expected to have more constructive results. The role of auditors in particular became a question mark after this scandal. Moreover on adoption of the corrective measures, the impact of current financial crises was also expected to have been mitigat ed to some extent (Argandona, 2012).Contrary to this and without taking lessons from Enron case, increased regulations were imposed on businesses. Increased regulation provided more options to business professionals than ever to use various shades to protect businesses - in both fair and unfair ways. As a result, the newer shock in form of economic downturn took high intensity wave and pushed the entire economy to the verge of survival. Ethics appear to be a relative term being adjusted in relation with the domain in which it is being discussed. Here comes the biggest dilemma of ethics. Since there is no separation of boundaries, it gets easier to develop