Sarah Russell was from a small town in Kansas. She was at the top of her graduating
Question:
Sarah Russell was from a small town in Kansas. She was at the top of her graduating class in high school and very active in sports and volunteer activities. After graduating, she attended the University of Kansas and studied accounting. She had an excellent transcript with only two B’s. She was offered a staff accountant position at a Big Four accounting firm in her final year. She accepted the position in the employer’s Chicago office. In her first year, she participated in six audit engagements for various clients and received high performance appraisals from her supervisors. Additionally, she passed all sections of the CPA on her first attempt and wanted to become a senior auditor as soon as possible.
R. J. Bell was an audit partner that had been with the firm for eight years. It was rumored that he would soon become the new office managing partner. Bell liked to provide new accountants with lots of support in order to help them adjust to their role. Some of this support included hosting dinner at his home for small groups of staff accountants several times a year. Sarah Russell was no exception to this type of support. In fact, Bell not only invited her to these social gatherings but he also gave her free tickets to cultural and sporting events and helped her obtain a car loan.
After her first year with the firm, Bell’s support increased to personal phone calls after work hours, frequent invites for one-on-one drinks and two unannounced visits to her home in the evening. Sarah was very uncomfortable with Bell’s behavior and became very stressed and felt powerless. She didn’t want to discuss her feelings with coworkers because she didn’t want to start rumors and she was too embarrassed to discuss with her family. She was concerned that she had inadvertently encouraged his behavior but after continually racking her brain, could not think of any instance that would welcome his actions.
After about six weeks, Sarah met with Bell to discuss his behavior. She stated that she wanted their relationship to remain strictly professional. He responded by stating she must have misinterpreted his actions. He said, “I go out of my way to be as friendly and sociable with as many members of the audit staff as I can.” Finally, he informed her that she would no longer be assigned on any of his audit engagements and that was the last interaction she had with him. She eventually returned to her home state of Kansas and is now the CFO of a charitable organization (Knapp, 2018).
Advise the parties involved.