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Moral Intensity Revisited: Measuring the Benefit of Accounting Ethics Interventions

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Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine whether accounting students’ perception of moral intensity could be enhanced through a limited ethics intervention in an Advanced Accounting course. Ethical decisions are heavily influenced by the intensity of the moral problem: the more egregious the act, the more the people view it as unethical. This controlled experiment measures the change in perceptions of moral intensity with the pre- and post-test instruments using five accounting specific vignettes containing moral dilemmas which are progressively more intense. While other studies have shown that perceived moral intensity directly influences a persons’ moral decision-making process, as far as we are aware, this is the first study that assesses and tests whether the coverage of specific ethics content integrated into an accounting class can positively influence the students’ perception of moral intensity, moral sensitivity/awareness, moral judgment, and moral intentions. Positively influencing students’ moral sensitivity/awareness, moral judgment, and moral intentions is a critical first step to ensuring that our courses and curricula provide the learning environment in which students can develop knowledge and competencies required to become the ethical leaders of tomorrow.

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Notes

  1. In the literature, moral sensitivity, ethical sensitivity, and ethical awareness are common terms used to describe step 1 in Rest’s model. Ethical judgment and moral judgment are common terms to describe step 2 in Rest’s model. Ethical intent and moral intent are common terms to describe step 3 in Rest’s model.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Section Editor Markus J. Milne and the two anonymous reviewers for sparing their time and efforts in reviewing our manuscript. The authors are grateful for the thoughtful feedback that they received, which helped greatly to improve this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Accounting, King’s College, 133 North River Street, Wilkes-Barre, PA, 18711, USA

    Tara J. Shawver

  2. Department of Accounting, University of Wisconsin, 455 Schneider Hall, Eau Claire, WI, USA

    William F. Miller

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

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Shawver, T.J., Miller, W.F. Moral Intensity Revisited: Measuring the Benefit of Accounting Ethics Interventions. J Bus Ethics 141, 587–603 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-015-2711-4

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