Organisational and professional commitment of early career accountants: do mentoring and organisational ethical climate matter?

This study assesses the effects of mentoring and organisational ethical climate (OEC) on the organisational and professional commitment (PC) of early career accountants (ECAs) (i.e. accounting graduate recruits with three or less years of working experience). The empirical data are based on a questionnaire survey from 86 ECAs in Australian public accounting firms, and hypothesis testing utilises partial least squares analysis. Our results indicate when a career development style of mentoring is adopted there is greater organisational as well as PC. By contrast, a social support mentoring style has no significant impact on organisational commitment (OC) and a negative effect on PC. Further, our data also reveal OEC to be positively associated with OC, and OC in turn having a positive impact on PC. The results imply that fostering a career‐focused mentoring environment and an OEC can increase an ECA's OC and PC. These results have various implications for human resource management at both the accounting firm and professional levels.     

Ethics and accounting education in the UK — a professional approach?

Although the expectation of accountants is that they will always employ high ethical standards, empirical evidence suggests that individual accountants are, at best, no more ethically aware than average. This gap between expectation and reality could be the result of inadequate education. Universities cannot be relied upon to teach accounting ethics to prospective professional accountants principally because too few accountants have an accounting degree and because of the surface nature of accounting students' learning. The professional bodies pay only lip-service to ethics education in their syllabi and their treatment of ethics is thus both quantitatively and qualitatively inadequate. Accountants are consequently ill-prepared to face ethical dilemmas.     

The Perceived Importance of an Ethical Issue as a Determinant of Ethical Decision-making for Accounting Students in an Academic Setting

In this study, we investigate the impact of an ethical decision-making construct, the ‘perceived importance of an ethical issue’ (PIE) for accounting students in an academic setting. One objective was to test the measure of this construct for generalizability in gauging ethical decision- making. The other objective was to draw inferences on the PIE construct for pedagogical purposes. Using tests of validity, the measure reasonably captured the ‘perceived importance of an ethical issue’ construct. In addition, the PIE construct was significantly related to both ethical judgment and behavioural intention. Implications for accounting educators and ethics training in business are discussed.     

Is it Shameful to be an Accountant? GenMe Perception(s) of Accountants' Ethics

The function that accountants fulfil in the economic system is dependent on their ability to maintain the perception of high ethical standards. Building on the idea that birth cohorts, otherwise known as generations, are a useful proxy for the socio‐cultural environment of different time periods, we focus on the so‐called ‘GenMe’, that is, students and young workers born in the 1980s and 1990s. In particular, combining the accounting and business ethics literature, the purpose of our paper is to contribute to an increased awareness of the GenMe perceptions of accountants, with special attention given to ethical aspects. We believe that the perceptions of this age group are particularly crucial for the future of the accounting profession as it is these young people who will either become professional accountants or the accountants' future clients. Using an extensive database of 1,794 questionnaires, results show that the impression of the accountant as a corrupt professional is not dominant among GenMe and seem to suggest the existence of a multifaceted perception of accountants' ethics. Specifically, the factors that contribute to influencing GenMe perceptions of accountants' ethics are level of education, having attended an accounting course at high school level, gender, and belonging to the accounting profession. Finally, our study indicates that there is room for improving public perceptions of accountants' ethics through university courses in ethics, continuing education programs, and focused communication strategies by accounting firms and professional bodies.     

The use of short role-plays for an ethics intervention in university auditing courses

This paper reports how short 10-minute role-plays can be used as an effective tool for ethics education within university auditing classes. A mixed method approach elicited student perceptions of role-plays in developing ethical awareness. While many students self-reported difficulty in recognising and dealing with the ethical dilemmas appropriately, most agreed role-plays helped them to prepare for dealing with these issues in the workplace. This was especially the case for students with English as an additional language. Students reported the role-play ethical dilemmas raised their awareness of the need to protect their professional independence. Students commented that they had a better understanding of the importance of the professional code of conduct and the code of ethics. Role-plays are a simple experiential learning approach that helps students to recognise ethical dilemmas, explore strategies to deal with such dilemmas in a safe environment, and practice listening and questioning skills to obtain information. Short role-plays can offer critical thinking opportunities that are more relevant to the student’s personal experience than case studies of historical ethical breaches.     

Cultivating imagination: Ethics,education and literature

The purpose of this paper is to first critique approaches to ethics education based on the application of frameworks and models for ethical decision making. We argue that underlying such approaches is a number of assumptions which fail to fully capture the nature of ethics and the nature of the individual and suggest that when applied in the classroom such would only offer limited possibilities for developing students’ moral and imaginative capacities. The paper then offers an alternative perspective of the nature of the individual and the link between the self and the ethical. Rather than regarding the individual as an autonomous decision maker who sporadically interacts with the ethical domain we, following Dewey, J. (1983, 1987 [Dewey J. Human nature and conduct. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press; 1983; Dewey J. Art as experience. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press; 1987]) conceive of the individual as a self in the making and suggest a closer nexus between the individual and the ethical. In this paper ethics is seen as permeating all aspects of our lives and always being relevant. For Dewey, imagination is at the core or moral inquiry and based on this perspective we make a case for using literature and stories for ethics education. We discuss the role of fiction in cultivating the moral imagination (Dewey, 1983, 1987; Fesmire, 2003 [Fesmire S. John Dewey and moral imagination: pragmatism in ethics. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press; 2003]), and show why teaching ethics through literature is likely to yield more fruitful results than approaches based solely on frameworks and models.     

Accounting Education Lags CPE Ethics Requirements: Implications for the Profession and a Call to Action

Abstract

The accounting profession in the USA has experienced a crisis of legitimacy in the aftermath of a barrage of business scandals. Recent legislation has forced reforms reinforcing the need for additional ethics education. At the same time, the external pressure on university accounting degree programs has been to maintain the status quo of inadequate ethics in the curriculum, even while ethics courses in state CPE programs have grown dramatically. This creates a problem of bad pedagogy in that these new CPE ethics courses, focused on rote delivery of professional codes of conduct, are not grounded in conceptual frameworks which should be provided by university accounting programs. This state of affairs is circular in that it perpetuates inadequate ethics education for the profession. We propose that this deficiency be remedied by the requirement of a stand-alone ethics course delivered early in the accounting curriculum as a foundation for other degree requirements and subsequent CPE courses. The first step in this direction should be the creation of a White Paper that recommends specific content for such a course.     

Ethics education in accounting: An investigation of the importance of ethics as a factor in the recruiting decisions of public accounting firms

In recent years, significant attention has been directed to the role of ethics in the business environment and to the ethical development of business students. This study explores the importance of ethical behavior as a factor in the recruiting decisions of public accounting firms. Factors related to the ethical behavior of entry-level employees were compared with other personal characteristics that are traditionally viewed as important to public accounting firms (e.g., personality, appearance, academic performance, etc.). Recruiters from both Big-Six and non-Big-Six firms indicated strong views on the importance of the students' ethical propensities. In fact, ethics received the highest rating by the public accounting firms regardless of their size. The results of this study provide strong evidence for accounting educators to continue to stress to their students the importance of ethical behavior and to continue their efforts to more fully integrate ethics education into the accounting curriculum.     

An Historical Analysis of Ethical Pronouncements and Debate in the Australian Accounting Profession

This paper traces the forerunners of the present-day ethical rulings of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia and the Australian Society of Accountants from the earlies professional Australian accounting bodies of the 1880s and 1890s. Various codes of ethics, articles, and memoranda of association, by-laws, charters, and professional publications are reviewed. Key Australian ethical issues are identified and their orientation over time considered. There is an early orientation towards overseas viewpoints and the issue of advertising is identified as a key impetus for ethical code development. The profession's self-interest is identified as an underlying rationale. This is presented as an historical case study of the development of accounting ethics with a view to identifying factors influencing change over time.     

会计伦理决策影响因素研究——基于计划行为理论的检验

诚信建设是社会主义文化大发展大繁荣的重要组成部分,会计诚信是社会诚信的重要基础,会计诚信的建设立足于会计人员高标准的伦理道德水平。本文以计划行为理论为基础,采取情景实验研究法,通过问卷调查的方式探讨了我国会计人员的伦理决策现状以及影响其伦理决策的因素。结果发现,在被调查样本中,只有60%左右的会计人员能做出符合伦理标准的决策,其中,态度和主观规范对他们的伦理意向有显著影响,认知行为控制对伦理意向的影响程度视情景性质而定。本文的研究表明,我国应加强对会计人员的伦理意识和规范意识的教育,同时应注重组织伦理氛围的营造。     

Improving Ethical Attitudes or Simply Teaching Ethical Codes? The Reality of Accounting Ethics Education

ABSTRACT

Ethical instruction is critical in accounting education. However, does accounting ethics teaching actually instil core ethical values or simply catalogue how students should act when confronted with typical accounting ethical dilemmas? This study extends current literature by distinguishing between moral/ethical and legal/ethical matters and then re-evaluating the effectiveness of ethics training. A cohort of final-year accounting students with significant ethical training evaluated ethical scenarios. Half were moral (non-legal) and half contained legal as well as moral components. After further ethical instruction they re-evaluated the scenarios. Ethical attitudes towards legal/moral issues improved, but attitudes towards moral-only issues did not. This questions previous studies which purport to demonstrate the effectiveness of ethical instruction and queries the benefits of accounting ethics education. Are fundamental ethical principles being ignored in an effort to prevent more obvious accounting wrongdoings? Accounting ethics training needs to be reassessed if true ethical improvement is to be achieved.     

Developing Learning Objectives for Accounting Ethics Using Bloom's Taxonomy

The purpose of our article is to offer a set of core knowledge learning objectives for accounting ethics education. Using Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives, we develop learning objectives in six content areas: codes of ethical conduct, corporate governance, the accounting profession, moral development, classical ethics theories, and decision models. We believe that defining core knowledge is important for two reasons. First, many accounting educators continue to debate whether ethics can be taught, apparently unaware that a common body of ethics knowledge exists. This knowledge needs to be imparted before higher-level classroom discussions can ensue. Second, we believe agreement on learning objectives is necessary for the development of meaningful assessment tools. Students should be able to demonstrate ethics knowledge, and accounting educators should be held accountable for whether or not students are learning.     

The ethics of accounting research

Doctoral students and many accounting professors and practicing accountants conduct theoretical or empirical accounting research. Human subjects have been recruited in increasing numbers to participate in behavioral and attitudinal accounting studies. However, the ethical obligations of accounting researchers to other researchers and readers, to subjects, and to participating organizations have received little attention. In this paper, the history of research ethics codes in other disciplines and the ethical obligations of accounting researchers are discussed. A tentative code of ethics is presented for the purpose of stimulating discussion about ethical issues in accounting research.     

Moral will,accounting and the phronemos

This commentary examines the work of Everett and Tremblay (2014) and their contribution to critical accounting. They examine three key ethical dilemmas that confront modern accounting practice. They examine a set of in-depth interviews, the autobiography of the former Vice President of Internal Audit of WorldCom, Cynthia Cooper, and the documents of the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) to shed light on accounting and audit ethics. The dilemmas confronting the accounting profession are complex and multi-faceted, which they place in their socio-economic context using ideas from Pierre Bourdieu. I add ideas from Lovibond (2004),MacIntyre (1984) and McDowell (1993) as well as audit work by Jere Francis. My solution involves accountants acting like the phronemos. The phronemos is Aristotle's term for a wise and ethical person who has the capacity to judge and act appropriately. This ideal of the phronemos is used to examine the ethical ambiguities in accounting that involve analyzing the critical role that accounting curricula, education and pedagogy play in making better judgments. This critical accounting focus was also a focus in Chabrak and Craig's work on accounting education. They examined professional credentialing and professional education. Like Everett and Tremblay, they also point us toward the public interest role of accounting and our societal need for better and informed judgments. The comment concludes with the observation that Aristotle's notion of the phronemos is an ideal type that promotes virtue ethics to address the drift in accounting away from ethics and its public interest role.     

Ethical climate in Chinese CPA firms

Much concern has been expressed in recent years regarding the state of business ethics in the People’s Republic of China, and it has been suggested that unethical behavior is common both in the business community and in accounting firms. Despite such concerns, very little empirical research has been done on ethics in the Chinese public accounting profession, and no previous study has examined the ethical culture or climate in Chinese CPA firms. The current paper reports the results of a preliminary study of the ethical climate in local and international CPA firms operating in China, and the influence of ethical climate and personal ethical orientations on decision-making. Contrary to expectations, the perceived ethical climate in local firms was not more negative; however, auditors employed by local firms judged questionable actions as more ethical and indicated a higher likelihood of committing similar actions. Consistent with our hypotheses, perceptions of the ethical climate in one’s organization had a significant effect on intentions to commit ethically questionable acts. In addition, high relativists (who tend to reject broad moral principles in favor of situational analysis) were significantly influenced by the perceived organizational ethical climate, but low relativists were not similarly influenced.     

The Impact of Research Assessment Exercises on UK Accounting and Finance Faculty

Published research outputs have for a long time been used to assess the performance of UK accounting and finance faculty. This process has been institutionalised and formalised through the introduction of Research Assessment Exercises (RAEs). RAEs have now become a central and recurring feature of university life. This research evaluates the perceptions of UK accounting faculty of the RAE. We surveyed 713 research active academics in November 1997 drawn from old and new universities, and from senior and non-senior faculty. The 182 academics who responded perceived that the quality of their individual and their department’s research had been increased. However, teaching and administration were believed to have been negatively affected. Overall, twice as many academics believed the RAE had a negative rather than a positive impact upon their jobs. The results across the university divide (old vs. new universities) were fairly homogeneous. However, the responses of senior and non-senior staff were significantly different. Non-senior respondents believed the RAE had a significantly greater negative impact on their teaching, administration, promotion prospects and job mobility than senior respondents. Overall, respondents perceived the RAE ratings to be fair. Publication in top UK research journals was perceived to be the greatest indicator of research quality. The findings have important implications, particularly for the recruitment and retention of non-senior accounting and finance faculty.     

Ethics and management accounting: Teaching note for a video case, “the order: A progressive disclosure vignette”

Prior accounting literature has recognized the need for integrating ethics with accounting education (Langenderfer & Rockness, 1989; Loeb, 1988), and suggested that films and video cases are very useful for discussing ethics in the classroom (Homer & Steneck, 1989). This teaching note discusses a widely circulated video case on ethics in management accounting. The teaching note presents a framework for analysis and shows how the Standards of Ethical Conduct for Management Accountants issued by the Institute of Management Accounts can be applied to the case in resolving ethical problems. Additionally, it discusses how changes in the case regarding performance measures, budgeting, incentive policies, and the type of information used could influence the company's ethical environment. Although this teaching note is specific to the case, the general approach outlined herein may be used for other ethics cases in management accounting.     

Codes of Ethics and Ethical Conduct: A View From the Caring Professions

A growing number of occupational groups are creating codes of ethics, which prompts the question 'What is the relationship between codes of ethics and ethical conduct?' This article examines some of the issues around this question, with reference to examples from nursing, social work, physiotherapy and occupational therapy. The variability of the form, content and functions of the different codes is examined in order to shed light on the extent to which codes of ethics enhance or inhibit ethical conduct. It is argued that codes can perform a useful function in encouraging ethical reflection and debate, provided they are not treated as 'tablets of stone' or rigid rulebooks prescribing the minutiæ of professional practice.