What a value conflict is, and the decision ladder

A conflict between values, not people

A value conflict is a situation in which two things you value cannot both be satisfied by the same act. Loyalty to a friend against honesty to a marker. Meeting a deadline against getting the number right. Keeping a manager happy against keeping a document true. Notice what it is not: it is not a disagreement between people (two people can disagree with no value in tension), it is not "any difficult decision", and it is not the same as an illegal act (most value conflicts sit well above the legal floor). The memo and email rubrics both carry a line for this — the ethical or value issue addressed explicitly and professionally — and the first thing that line requires is naming the two values in tension.

The five-rung ladder

This course resolves value conflicts with a decision ladder of five questions, asked in order. If the act fails a rung, the decision is made — but you finish the ladder anyway, because the lower rungs are where the habit of judgement is built, and because the rung that fails tells you which rule to cite when you explain the decision.

1. Is it legal? If no, stop.
2. Does it break a code or policy that binds me — the CPA Code, the Student Code, Policy 71, the firm's policy? If yes, stop.
3. Does it break my own principles — the standards I would want to be known for?
4. The feelings test — how would I feel explaining it to someone whose respect I want: a parent, a mentor, the partner?
5. The front-page test — how would an objective reporter describe it on tomorrow's front page?

The ladder is ordered from the most external standard to the most personal, so that "it's legal" — the classic incomplete answer — is only ever the first rung cleared.

Worked example — the spreadsheet the night before

A classmate asks for your AFM 112 Excel file "just to see the structure — I won't copy the numbers", at 11 pm the night before it is due. The values in tension: loyalty to a friend under pressure, and honesty toward the marker and the classmates competing for the same grades.

• Legal? Yes — sharing a spreadsheet breaks no law.
• Against a code or policy? Yes. The assignment is individual; sharing the file is unauthorised collaboration under Policy 71, and it exposes both of you — the giver of the file is as much in breach as the taker. Stop: the decision is made.
• My principles? Finish the ladder for the habit. The professional you are training to be does not hand over work that will be passed off as someone else's.
• Feelings test? Explaining to the course instructor why your file structure appears in a classmate's submission — not comfortable.
• Front page? "First-year students share assignment files the night before the deadline."

The decision: no — and a proportionate alternative that honours the loyalty value as far as honesty allows: offer to talk through the approach in words, or point to the model in the course notes. A value conflict rarely ends in "refuse and walk away"; it usually ends in "refuse this act, and do the version of it that survives the ladder".

A workplace scenario to run yourself

Your manager asks you to move a $9,000 invoice from March into April "so the quarter looks the way the bank expects". Legal? Recording a March transaction in April misstates the period — potentially a false document. Code? Rule 205, misleading documents. It fails at the first two rungs; finish the ladder, then plan the response with the next lesson's five steps. The exam item below asks you to run a similar case and write the ladder out.