The impact of perceived ethical intensity on audit-quality-threatening behaviours

Although there has been significant interest among researchers in audit-quality-threatening behaviours (QTBs), the decision process through which staff auditors engage in those behaviours has received relatively little attention. It seems likely that the ethical intensity of the behaviours perceived by auditors may play an important role in that process; to date, this has not been tested. This study examines the mediating role of perceived ethical intensity in the relationship between perceived ethical culture of the firm and the auditors' ethical evaluation of, and intention to engage in, three different forms of QTBs. A multi-item measure of ethical intensity is developed and the findings provide the first empirical evidence of a direct relationship between perceived ethical intensity and ethical decision-making regarding QTBs. Moreover, the findings show that perceived ethical intensity fully mediates the relationship between perceived ethical culture and ethical decision-making. Implications of the findings for accounting firms and for researchers are discussed and areas for future research on the mediating role of perceived ethical intensity are suggested in the paper.     

The economic crisis in Southern Africa: Some perspectives on its origins and nature

The crisis of development in most of Southern Africa has come to be regarded as an inevitable outcome of the failure of post‐independence development policy in those countries. That policy failure eventually led to the need for policy reform, which emerged most dominantly in the form of structural adjustment programmes. This article, which is a comparative analytical review, examines the origins and nature of the economic crisis in Southern Africa and the policy framework giving rise to it, drawing on country examples to illuminate and illustrate the analytical perspective.