Sarah Lindsay is a certified public accountant (CPA) and staff assistant for Kim and Horkin, a local CPA firm. It had been the policy of the firm to provide a holiday bonus equal to two weeks' salary to all employees. The firm's new management team announced on November 25 that a bonus equal to only one week's salary would be made available to employees this year. Sarah thought that this policy was unfair because she and her co-workers planned on the full two-week bonus. The two-week bonus had been given for ten straight years, so it seemed as though the firm had breached an implied commitment. Thus, Sarah decided that she would make up the lost bonus week by working an extra six hours of overtime per week over the next five weeks until the end of the year. Kim and Horkin's policy is to pay overtime at 150% of straight time.
Sarah's supervisor was surprised to see overtime being reported, since there is generally very little additional or unusual client service demands at the end of the calendar year. However, the overtime was not questioned, since firm employees are on the "honor system" in reporting their overtime.
Discuss whether the firm is acting in an ethical manner by changing the bonus. Is Sarah behaving in an ethical manner?