Measuring Ethical Ideology in Business Ethics: A Critical Analysis of the Ethics Position Questionnaire

Individual differences in ethical ideology are believed to play a key role in ethical decision making. Forsyths (1980) Ethics Position Questionnaire (EPQ) is designed to measure ethical ideology along two dimensions, relativism and idealism. This study extends the work of Forsyth by examining the construct validity of the EPQ. Confirmatory factor analyses conducted with independent samples indicated three factors – idealism, relativism, and veracity – account for the relationships among EPQ items. In order to provide further evidence of the instruments nomological and convergent validity, correlations among the EPQ subscales, dogmatism, empathy, and individual differences in the use of moral rationales were examined. The relationship between EPQ measures of idealism and moral judgments demonstrated modest predictive validity, but the appreciably weaker influence of relativism and the emergence of a veracity factor raise questions about the utility of the EPQ typology.     

Are Audit-related Ethical Decisions Dependent upon Mood?

This study explores the impact of mood on individuals’ ethical decision-making processes through the Graham [Graham, J. W.: 1986, Research in Organizational Behavior 8, 1–52] model of Principled Organizational Dissent. In particular, the research addresses how an individual’s mood influences his or her willingness to report the unethical actions of a colleague. Participants’ experienced an affectively charged, unrelated event and were then asked to make a decision regarding whistle-blowing intentions in a public accounting context. As expected, negative mood was associated with lower intentions to report the unethical actions of others to a superior within the organization. The Graham model, which proposes that reporting intentions are impacted by the three determinants of seriousness, personal responsibility and cost, was employed to more clearly understand the nature of the affect–reporting intention relationship. The role of affect was explained by demonstrating that two determinants mediate the relationship between mood and whistle-blowing intentions. Specifically, as seriousness and responsibility have a positive impact on reporting intentions, the reduction of these perceptions by negative mood reduces the intent to report. The negative impact of personal cost on reporting intentions was significant, although not as a mediator of mood.Mary Curtis is an Associate Professor of Auditing and Accounting Information Systems in the Department of Accounting at the University of North Texas. Her research interests include Judgment and Decision-making in accounting and issues related to Information Systems Auditing.     

Time-on-the-Market as a Sign of Quality

The inferences a prospective home buyer can make about the quality of a house from the amount of time it spends on the market and the seller"s optimal strategy in light of these inferences are investigated. Depending upon the information structure, the seller may have an incentive to post an inordinately high initial price (in order to "dampen" the signal transmitted to future prospective buyers) or an inordinately low initial price (in order to make an early sale and avoid consumer "herding"). It is shown that the sellers of high-quality homes do best when inspection outcomes are publicly recorded and do worst when inspection outcomes are not public and the price history is not observable. Costly inspections create more adverse selection but deter consumer herding.     

Green governance? Local politics and ethical businesses in Great Britain

One of the least understood aspects of the world‐wide “greening of markets” is the emergence of local “ethical marketplaces” and the subset of alternative business models described as “ethical businesses.” But previous research has demonstrated the ability of local politicians to encourage their regions toward more ethical marketplaces. This paper explores the impact radical centrist third party representation has on the emergence of ethical businesses across Great Britain. To understand this relationship, we utilize a novel data set of organizations with membership in Ethical Junction, the United Kingdom's largest network for ethical businesses. We use a zero‐inflated Poisson regression to model the connection, and find a meaningful relationship, between third‐party political representation on British local councils and the presence of ethical businesses within local authorities. This presents an example of the way in which radical political change may be part of a wider social movement toward greening markets.     

Some Evidence on the Value of Instructors in Teaching Economic Principles

Using data collected from three universities, the authors of this article attempt to show that student attitude is “an important dimension of learning” and that the quality of instruction is indeed associated with attitude. The attitude referred to here is that of student opinions toward economics (as measured by Karstensson's “Questionnaire on Student Attitude Toward Economics”) rather than opinions on economic issues. Posttest scores on the TUCE and the attitude instrument were the dependent variables, while scores on the TUCE pretest, ACT scores, sex, major field, economics background, university attended, and quality of instruction were used as independent variables.     

Formative assessment in accounting education and some initial evidence on its use for instructional sequencing

Formative assessment (FA) provides instructors and students with feedback to improve learning. Across a variety of education settings FA is one of the most effective classroom interventions for improving student learning outcomes. Yet the accounting education literature is almost devoid of any work related to FA. One barrier for developing FA in accounting education is the significant background knowledge needed to implement FA successfully. The purpose of this paper is to provide some of that background. The paper includes conceptual discussion from the general education literature to explain how FA improves learning and discussion of research that has identified features that affect the efficacy of FA practice. One of these features is how instructors use FA data to adjust instruction. An empirical study illustrates that accounting educators can use FA data to inform a decision about instructional sequencing. Instructional sequencing principles have been used to develop new accounting curricula and courses, and accounting education research has used empirical data to inform an instructional sequencing decision. The current study tests, using a sample of introductory accounting students, alternate versions of two FA tasks to determine which version is better for identifying deficiencies in student learning outcomes. Results suggest that one version of each task is better for identifying deficiencies, but an adjustment to instructional sequencing may be needed to ensure efficacy of one of the tasks, depending on how the FA practice is implemented.     

Conjoint analysis of consumer preferences for roasted peanut products in Haiti

This study evaluated Haitian consumers’ preferences for three attributes of roasted peanuts: form (dry‐roasted vs. honey‐roasted), country of origin (Haiti vs. USA) and price (lowest vs. most common vs. highest). A sample of 199 respondents from three locations near Port‐au‐Prince revealed that price was overwhelmingly the most important attribute, although three well‐differentiated consumer segments were identified: the largest (44% of the sample) based strictly on price; a second (29%) distinguished by preference for honey‐roasted peanuts of Haitian origin; and a third (27%) preferring dry‐roasted peanuts imported from the USA. Segment membership was predicted by gender, education, household size, survey location and whether or not respondents were themselves the purchasers of the peanuts and peanut butter they consumed. Market simulation of a proposed, new domestic product (honey‐roasted peanuts from Haiti) revealed that a price near that of the currently imported product would maximize domestic revenues at about 15% above the current base.