Ethical Ideology and Ethical Judgments in the Portuguese Accounting Profession |
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Authors: | Pedro Augusto Marques José Azevedo-Pereira |
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Institution: | (1) Instituto Politécnico de Tomar, Tomar, Portugal;(2) Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal |
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Abstract: | The purpose of the present study is to examine the attitudes of Portuguese chartered accountants with respect to questions
of ethical nature that can arise in their professional activity. Respondents were asked to respond to the Ethics Position
Questionnaire developed by Forsyth (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
39(1), 175–184, 1980), in order to determine their idealism and relativism levels. Subsequently, they answered questions about five scenarios
related to accounting practices, with the objective of measuring their ethical judgments. Based on the idealism and relativism
levels of our respondents, they were classified into one of four groups, representing different ethical ideologies (absolutism,
exceptionism, subjectivism, and situationism). The results indicated that age was the major determinant of relativism. Contrary
to previous research, older respondents revealed themselves significantly more relativistic than younger ones. Gender seems
to be the most important determinant of ethical judgments; against expectations, men evidenced significantly stricter judgments
than women in two of the five scenarios. Findings also indicated that respondents’ ethical judgments did not differ significantly
based on their ethical ideology, supporting the idea that ethical ideology is not an important determinant of ethical judgments. |
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Keywords: | accounting business ethics ethical decision-making ethical ideology ethical judgment ethics |
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