'High ethical road' is the right path.

• Author: Porter, Grover L.
• Position: Letter to the Editor

Dear CEO Sayther:

I was pleased to read your editorial "When Crisis Meets Opportunity" in Financial Executive [July/August 2003]. I wholeheartedly agree that the preparers of financial statements must take the "high ethical road" for financial executives to regain our once-lofty stature.

As a member of our major professional organizations (AICPA, FEI and IMA), however, I find the same basic flaw in all our codes of ethics. The codes are more corporate-friendly than employee-friendly. The codes emphasize "confidentiality" over "integrity," to the detriment of investors.

I believe that our codes of ethics should not suggest that an employee who blows the whistle on individuals involved in illegal or unethical activities is an unethical person. As a member of the IMA Committee on Ethics, therefore, I have for nearly a decade tried to get the following whistleblowers statement included in...