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An Exploration of the State of Ethics in UK Accounting Education

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Abstract

A growing body of literature places blame for accounting frauds on the failure of educators to implement ethics training in accounting curriculums in higher educational institutions. Although, the professional accountancy bodies in the UK espouse high ethical standards, others suggest that these bodies are failing to cover ethics in any meaningful way. This study surveys faculty about what is being taught and how much time is dedicated to ethics training. This is the first study to examine whether content suggested by the Ethics Education Framework (EEF) has been implemented in curriculums in the UK. In addition, we look to determine if there is a notable difference between what is covered in both pre-1992 (less vocational) and post-1992 (more vocational) UK universities. Although we find that post-1992 (more vocational) institutions have implemented the EEF suggestions more than pre-1992 (less vocational) UK universities, current ethics training is insufficient and has not changed much over the last two decades.

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Notes

  1. There are six major Professionalizing Accountancy bodies in the UK, each having their own curriculum and examinations that students must complete. They are: 1. ACCA: Association of Chartered Certified Accountants; 2. CIMA: Chartered Institute of Management Accountants; 3. CIPFA: The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy; 4. ICAEW: Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales; 5. ICAI: Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland; and, 6. ICAS: Institute of Chartered Accountants in Scotland.

  2. A four-stage ethical content curricular framework developed by Cooper et al. (2008) based off the 2004 Ethics Education Task Force (AACSB, 2004) and the International Accounting Education Standards Board (IAESB), a standard-setting body of the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC). The framework was commissioned by the Education Committee of IFAC (now the IAESB), specifically for the ethics education of accountants.

  3. Pre-1992 universities are older-established universities that often have a heavier concentration in traditional academic subjects (natural sciences and humanities), while post-1992 universities are ex-polytechnics that were granted full university status in 1992 and tend to have stronger vocational roots. “The post-1992 universities have stronger ties with professional bodies and might be expected to follow more closely the lead given by professional body curricula, whereas the pre-1992 universities have a tradition of independence in curricular design” (Ghaffari et al. 2008, p. 187).

  4. The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) is an independent body entrusted with monitoring and advising on standards and quality in UK higher education.

  5. Since UK professional accountancy bodies offer exemptions from some of their examinations to graduates, they influence the curricular offerings of UK University accounting programmes. The offering of exemptions is one way accounting programmes in the UK market themselves to potential students. If these bodies were to include or increase the amount of ethics in their respective syllabi, accounting programmes would be incented to do the same.

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Funding

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire, 105 Garfield Avenue, 325 Schneider Hall, Eau Claire, WI, 54701, USA

    William F. Miller

  2. King’s College, 133 North River Street, Wilkes-Barre, PA, 18711, USA

    Tara J. Shawver

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  1. William F. Miller
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  2. Tara J. Shawver
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Correspondence to Tara J. Shawver.

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Authors declares that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Appendices

Appendix 1: International Ethics Teaching Survey

Appendix 2

See Table 6.

Table 6 Responses by university and university type
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Miller, W.F., Shawver, T.J. An Exploration of the State of Ethics in UK Accounting Education. J Bus Ethics 153, 1109–1120 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-016-3396-z

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