How the U.S. accounting profession got where it is today: Part II.

Accounting Horizons, December, 2003 by Stephen A. Zeff

A Gradual Degeneration of Professional Values

By 1980, a deterioration in professional values appears to have set in. At the Institute's annual meeting in October, outgoing Board Chairman Wm. R. Gregory, a practitioner from Tacoma, Washington, vividly warned members of the increasingly fractious climate in the profession:

It seems that the effects of the phenomenal growth in the profession and competitive pressures have created in some CPAs attitudes that are intensely commercial and nearly devoid of the high-principled conduct that we have come to expect of a true professional. It is sad that we seem to have become a ...