Ethical attitudes of accountants: Recent evidence from a practitioners' survey [Book Review]
Journal of Business Ethics 71 (1):73 - 87 (2007)
Abstract
Recent highly publicized ethical breaches including those at Enron and WorldCom have focused attention on ethical behavior within the accounting profession. At the heart of the debate is whether ethical attitudes of accountants are to blame. Using a nationally representative sample of accounting practitioners and a multidisciplinary student sample at two Southern United States universities, we compare sample responses to 25 ethically charged vignettes to test whether they differ. Overall, we find no significant difference – even for a specific “accounting tricks” vignette, which resembles the Enron and WorldCom situations. We do find, however, that the practitioners were more accepting of vignettes that involved physical harm (PH) to individuals and those that were legal (but ethically questionable). We postulate that accounting practitioners may apply a legalistic framework to their assessment of the acceptability of each vignette. Focusing on an “accounting tricks” vignette, we also find no significant difference between auditors and institutional practitioners compared to all other types of accountants in the sample. We conclude that ethical attitudes of accounting practitioners do not differ significantly by specialty area.DOI
10.1007/s10551-006-9125-2
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Citations of this work
The Impact of Ethics Education on Reporting Behavior.Brian W. Mayhew & Pamela R. Murphy - 2009 - Journal of Business Ethics 86 (3):397-416.
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The Impact of Moral Reasoning and Retaliation on Whistle-Blowing: New Zealand Evidence.Gregory Liyanarachchi & Chris Newdick - 2009 - Journal of Business Ethics 89 (1):37-57.
Business Ethics Research with an Accounting Focus: A Bibliometric Analysis from 1988 to 2007.Özgür Özmen Uysal - 2010 - Journal of Business Ethics 93 (1):137-160.
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References found in this work
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Business ethics and religion: Religiosity as a predictor of ethical awareness among students. [REVIEW]Stephen J. Conroy & Tisha L. N. Emerson - 2004 - Journal of Business Ethics 50 (4):383-396.