Ethics and professionalism: Bringing the topic to life in the classroom

Much attention has been focused in recent years on the benefits of enhancing student understanding of ethical perspectives and professionalism in the workplace. An ongoing challenge for accounting educators is the need to address ethics in a way that will hold student interest, especially when most students have yet to experience an ethical situation in a work setting. We have developed a classroom game that incorporates the Institute of Management Accountants’ (IMA’s) Statement of Ethical Professional Practice, a newly revised model of ethical conduct. In this game, students identify how the IMA’s standards and principles are either upheld or violated in mini-case scenarios from workplace settings. The game facilitates student reflective thinking – a learning process where an individual addresses a problem that has many reasonable solutions rather than just one answer. The approach was introduced in managerial and cost accounting courses and has been employed also in an intermediate accounting setting. Feedback suggests that the game holds student interest, fosters reflective thinking, and can be used across multiple courses.     

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.     

An analysis of the association of traditional demographic variables with the moral reasoning of auditing students and auditors

Accountants may be inadequate moral reasoners (Armstrong, 1987; Ponemon, 1992). Accounting ethics education research has suggested several approaches to improving the moral reasoning of accounting students (Langenderfer & Rockness, 1989; Ponemon & Glazer, 1990). This study uses independent samples of 91 auditing students and 207 auditors to evaluate whether demographic variables traditionally associated with higher levels of moral reasoning in other populations are associated with auditing students' and auditors' moral reasoning. Age and education, demographics traditionally associated with moral reasoning, were nonsignificant for both samples. Moral reasoning scores increased through the third-year staff level, and decreased from the senior through the partner levels. Women, subjects with higher grade point averages, and those who had taken ethics courses demonstrated higher levels of moral reasoning in both samples. The results indicate that accounting educators can influence the moral reasoning of the profession by recruiting and retaining bright students, particularly women, and by designing ethics education interventions that will help accounting students incorporate more than simply rules in making ethical decisions.     

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.     

ACCOUNTING COURSES AND PROFESSIONAL FUNCTIONS*

In Australia, people performing accounting functions may have undertaken a course at a university, CAE, or technical college. This study is addressed to the rationale for this multiplicity of courses by seeking to determine whether there are different outcomes, such as professional functioning and salary, among graduates from these different courses. A specially devised questionnaire was developed to determine the degree of professionalism in late 1979 of accounting graduates from some Sydney and Melbourne universities, CAEs (UG1 bachelor degree and UG2 diploma courses), and technical colleges from the following years: 1970, 1974, 1976 and 1978. Limitations such as sample size prevent definitive answers. It was found that degree of professionalism and salary were related to attendance pattern, years of accounting experience before course completed, and years of accounting experience after course completed, but that the relationships with accounting course studied are low. Data counceming the mean percentage time spent on professional, technician, and other functions are provided.     

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.     

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.     

A commentary on Professor Chambers' 1999 paper the poverty of accounting discourse

Ethics is concerned with individual character; it relates to morals and the treating of moral questions. Teaching ethics involves the study and evaluation of the moral consequences of reflective choices of actions among alternatives that are not clear, or that are in conflict with one another. Although it can be debated whether we should teach ethics, the question arises as to wheather accounting educators should take up the challenge and sensitize their students to the ethical issues they will face throughout their professional careers. As an integral part of the first undergraduate programme in accountancy in Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Polytechnic developed a compulsory full-year subject, ethics in accountancy, for its final-year accountancy students. The Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Accountancy course, which was implemented in 1988, was accredited to replace the traditional professional diplomas under the UK model. In 1990 the subject ethics in accountancy was first taught to about 230 final-year students in Hong Kong. This paper reviews the process of developing the subject from its initial from to its present structure. Based on practical experience, the paper addresses the issue ‘Can ethics be taught?’ and the questions of why, what and how.     

Are the effects of accounting ethics interventions transitory or persistent?

This paper examines whether an ethics intervention administered during a graduate course in accounting is effective, and if effective, whether the observed moral development gains are transitory or persistent. An instrument that identifies the subjects' stages of ethical reasoning was used to assess the effectiveness of the intervention. An experiment and control group completed the test instrument at the beginning of the term prior to the intervention. At the end of the term, and 6 months after completing the term, students repeated this task.The results of this study indicate that the ethics intervention fosters the students' abilities to consistently consider ethical issues in their decision-making processes. However, gains in moral development appear to be transitory. These findings suggest that accountants may attain their highest state of ethical awareness if ethics issues are made a part of their continuing education programs.     

Accounting ethics education: Integrating reflective learning and virtue ethics

This paper explains the use of reflective learning techniques to create and deliver a new ethics course. Students apply virtue-based reasoning with reflective thinking to resolve conflicts faced by accounting professionals. Teaching techniques include class discussion, minute papers, reflection journals, role playing, and case analysis. Students express their thoughts orally and in written form, interact with other students, receive feedback during and after assignments, and demonstrate what they have learned. Reflective learning helps to transform existing ideas and understandings to come to a new understanding of a situation. As a tool for ethics education in accounting, reflective learning provides the link that may enhance ethical understanding and enable students to apply virtue and reflective thinking to a variety of situations discussed in accounting courses. For students, reflective learning slows down classroom activity giving them more time to process the material, linking it to prior ideas. Instructors benefit from frequent student feedback and greater involvement in the learning process.     

Can ethics be taught in accounting?

This paper extends the work of accounting educators and researchers who have sought to develop and implement effective ethics interventions in the accounting curriculum. Its purpose is to assess the influence of ethics interventions, integrated into a one-semester introductory auditing course at both the undergraduate and graduate level, on the moral development and ethical behavior of accounting students. Ethics interventions were based on the review and discussion of ethics cases following a well known pedagogical framework over the first 10 weeks of one academic semester. The effectiveness of these interventions was tested two ways. First, using the Defining Issues Test (DIT) and a pre/post-test research design, the moral development of accounting seniors and graduate students in four separate auditing classes was assessed. Second, students' unethical behavior, defined as excessive “free-riding” on an economic-choice experiment based on the Prisoners' Dilemma, was observed by the researcher. In summary, results of this study show that ethics interventions did not cause accounting students' level of ethical reasoning to develop (increase) and did not curtail students' free-riding behavior. Findings also provide evidence of an association between ethical reasoning and students' economic choices, where students with relatively low and high levels of ethical reasoning were most likely to engage in free-riding. The implications of these findings are discussed in the last section of the paper.     

UK intermediate financial accounting courses: a survey

This paper reports the results of a survey carried out in 1991/92 inquiring into intermediate (usually second year) financial accounting courses, taught in UK accounting and/or finance degree programmes. The areas reviewed were: course objectives, syllabus, lecturers' perceptions of syllabus, textbooks used, other teaching aids (including computers), student contact hours, follow-on courses and assessment. The response rate was 79%. The courses tended to be integrated combinations of accounting theory and practice. The growing number of accounting standards did not prove to be a significant problem as most lecturers did not aim for comprehensive coverage. Over half the respondents used computers in teaching their course.     

会计职业道德教育的内涵分析与模型研究

本文通过介绍和应用桑恩道德决策综合模型,来论述会计职业道德发展和品行问题。道德发展由反应灵敏度和习惯性推理组成;品行包括两个因素:道德动机和道德特征。最后提出了会计职业道德教育进一步研究的方向。     

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.     

A rejoinder to commentaries on “Why DCF capital budgeting is bad for business and why business schools should stop teaching it”

This paper examines the effects of exposing accounting graduate students to professional ethics. First, a method of instruction that encourages students to consider the ethical implications of business decisions was developed. This instruction included exposure to Kohlberg's theory of moral development, study of professional codes of ethics, and extensive use of written and video ethics cases. Next, instructional effectiveness was assessed through a pre-post-test with control group design. An accounting-specific test instrument was developed and validated. This instrument contains decision scenarios designed to elicit and identify students' stages of ethical reasoning, Test results revealed that students receiving ethics instruction demonstrated gains in ethical reasoning within the decision context. Appropriately designed ethics modules can thus foster consisitent consideration of ethical issues in decision making.     

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.     

Towards measuring professionalism in accounting

This paper develops an instrument that measures accounting professionalism. The instrument's development was informed by literature on professionalism, similar to the genesis of instruments developed in other fields (i.e., sociology, medicine and pharmacy), and interviews with practising accountants and accounting academics. An exploratory factor analysis of 516 survey responses received from members of Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (CAANZ) produced four sub-dimensions of accounting professionalism: ethics and independence, altruism, respect for others, and excellence. This four-factor model and a unidimensional model were tested using confirmatory factor analysis. The four-factor model proved superior to the unidimensional one and produced a final instrument with strong psychometric properties.     

THE THREAT OF ETHICAL ACCOUNTANTS: AN APPLICATION OF FOUCAULT'S CONCEPT OF ETHICS TO ACCOUNTING EDUCATION AND SOME THOUGHTS ON ETHICALLY EDUCATING FOR THE OTHER

There are an increasing number of papers within the accounting literature which are concerned with the relationship between accounting education and the ethics of accountants (see, e.g. Gray, 1994). This paper attempts to contribute to this literature. It draws on the work of Michel Foucault to argue that ethical accountants may pose just as great a threat to society as unethical ones. The paper initially explains Foucault's work on power/knowledge and delineates his novel perspective on how power may operate through an individuals sense of moral identity. It is argued that the way accountancy is taught may predispose accountants to discipline themselves in such a way that they behave in a manner which serves the interests of capitalism and subjugates opposition to it. However, the paper also draws on Foucault's notion of resistance to explain how accounting education might be able to produce students who could represent a threat to this hegemony.     

The effect of the 150-hour requirement on new accountants’ professional commitment,Ethical orientation,and Professionalism

This study examines the professional commitment, ethical orientation, and professionalism of 414 accountants beginning their careers at two Big 5 public accounting firms. After comparing the accountants possessing 5-year degrees with those possessing four-year degrees, we find insufficient evidence to conclude that the 150-hour requirement affects new accountants’ professional commitment, ethical orientation, or professionalism.     

Ethical evaluations and behavioural intentions of early career accountants: the impact of mentors,peers and individual attributes

This study examined how mentoring support, peer influence and individual attributes of early career accountants (ECA) influence their ethical evaluations and behavioural intentions. Respondents indicate that their evaluation of the seriousness of the ethical conflict is affected by the perceived standard of ethical conduct of their peers, their personal ethical orientation, the extent of ethics education at university, and gender. ECAs’ evaluation of a senior colleague's unethical behaviour is affected by mentoring support and the perceived standard of ethical conduct of peers. In terms of ECAs’ willingness to contact accounting professional bodies for ethical advice, the size of the accounting firm and the extent of their ethics education at university are significant factors. Furthermore, the likelihood of respondents choosing a more ethical decision is correlated with his or her individual ethical orientation and the extent of ethics education at university.