Ethical Judgment and Ethical Ideology of Accounting Professionals and Accounting Students
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Published:
Dec 1, 2017
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Abstract
This paper has two main objectives. First, it intends to investigate the differences in ethical ideology between accountants and accounting students. Second, it aims to examine the differences in the ethical judgments in general situations and based on the legality of the situations between the two groups. Using a questionnaire survey that comprises Ethical Position Questionnaire (EPQ) and ethical dilemma vignettes, a total of 617 usable responses were received comprising of 396 and 221 responses from accountants and accounting students respectively. In achieving the objectives, independent t-tests were also performed. The results reveal that there are significant differences in the idealism ethical ideology between accounting practitioners and accounting students. It is also discovered that there are significant differences in the ethical judgments between the two groups of respondents for overall vignettes as well as for illegal ethical vignettes.
Keywords: Ethical Ideology, Idealism, Relativism, Ethical Judgment, Accounting Practitioners, Accounting Students, Malaysia
JEL Classification: I20, M41
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References
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Axinn, C., Blair, M., & Thach, A. (2004). Comparing Ethical Ideologies Across Cultures’, Journal of Business Ethics, 54 (2), 103-120.
Barnett T., & Vaicys C. (2000). The moderating effect of individuals’ perceptions of ethical work climate on ethical judgments and behavioral intentions. Journal of Business Ethics, 27(4), 351-362.
Barnett T., Bass K., & Brown G., (1994). Ethical Ideology and Ethical Judgment Regarding Ethical Issues in Business. Journal of Business Ethics, 13(6), 469-480.
Barnett T., Bass K., Brown G., and Hebert F. J., (1998). Ethical Ideology and the Ethical Judgments of Marketing Professionals. Journal of Business Ethics, 17(7), 715-723.
Bass, K., Barnett, T., & Brown, G. (1998). The Moral Philosophy of Sales Managers and Its Influence on Ethical Decision Making. Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, 18(2), 1-17.
Bommer, M., Gratto, C., Gravander, J., & Tuttle, M. (1987). A behavioral model of ethical and unethical decision making. Journal of Business Ethics, 6(4), 265-281.
Cheung, E., Chan, A. P., & Kajewski, S. (2009). Enhancing value for money in public private partnership projects: Findings from a survey conducted in Hong Kong and Australia compared to findings from previous research in the UK. Journal of Financial Management of Property and Construction, 14(1), 7-20.
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Cohen, J. D., Romero, R. D., Farah, M. J., & Servan-Schreiber, D. (1994). Mechanisms of spatial attention: The relation of macrostructure to microstructure in parietal neglect. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 6(4), 377.
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Deshpande, S. (1996). Ethical climate and the link between success and ethical behavior: An empirical investigation of a non-profit organization. Journal of Business Ethics, 15(3), 315-320.
Douglas, P. C., Davidson, R. A., & Schwartz, B. N. (2001). The effect of organizational culture and ethical orientation on accountants’ ethical judgments. Journal of Business Ethics, 34(2), 101-121.
Dulewicz, V., & Higgs, M. (2005). Assessing leadership styles and organizational context. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 20(1), 105-123.
DuPont, A. M., & Craig, J. S. (1996). Does management experience change the ethical perceptions of retail professionals: a comparison of the ethical perceptions of current students with those of recent graduates? Journal of Business Ethics, 15(8), 815-826.
Elm, D., & Nichols, M. L. (1993). An investigation of the moral reasoning of managers. Journal of Business Ethics, 12(11), 817-833.
Emerson, T. L. N., & Conroy, S. J., (2004). Have Ethical Attitudes Changed? An Intertemporal Comparison of the Ethical Perceptions of College Students in 1985 and 2001. Journal of Business Ethics, 50(2), 167-176.
Emerson, T. L. N, Conroy, S. J., & Stanley, C. W. (2007). Ethical Attitudes of Accountants: Recent Evidence from a Practitioners’ Survey. Journal of Business Ethics, 71(1), 73-87.
Forsyth, D. R. (1981). Moral judgment: The influence of ethical ideology. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 7(2), 218-223.
Forsyth, D. R. (1985). Individual differences in information integration during moral judgment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49(1), 264-272.
Forsyth, D. R. (1980). A taxonomy of ethical ideologies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39(1), 175-184.
Forsyth, D. R. (1992). Judging the Morality of Business Practices: The Influence of Personal Moral Philosophies. Journal of Business Ethics, 11(5-6), 461-470.
Forsyth, D. R., O’Boyle, E. H., & McDaniel, J. M. A. (2008). East Meets West: A Meta-Analytic Investigation of Cultural Variations in Idealism and Relativism. Journal of Business Ethics, 83(4), 813-833.
Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional Intelligence. New York: Bantam Books.
Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R., & McKee, A. (Eds.). (2002). Primal leadership: Realizing the power of emotional intelligence. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
Hadjistavropoulos, T., Malloy, D. C., Sharpe, D., & Fuchs-Lacelle, S. (2003). The Ethical Ideologies of Psychologists and Physicians: A Preliminary Comparison. Ethics and Behavior, 13(1), 97-104.
Hastings, S. E., & Finegan, J. E. (2011). The role of ethical ideology in reactions to injustice. Journal of Business Ethics, 100(4), 689-703.
Hunt, S. D., & Vitell, S. (1986). A general theory of marketing ethics. Journal of Macromarketing, 6(1), 5-16.
Hunt, S. D., Wood, V. R., & Chonko, L. B. (1989). Corporate ethical values and organisational commitment in marketing. Journal of Marketing Science, 53(3), 79-90.
Ibrahim, N. A., & Angelidis, J. P., (1993). Corporate social responsibility: a comparative analysis of perceptions of top executives and business students. The Mid-Atlantic Journal of Business, 29, 303-315.
Ibrahim, N. A., Angelidis, J. P., & Howard, D. P. (2006). Corporate social responsibility: a comparative analysis of perceptions of practicing accountants and accounting students. Journal of Business Ethics, 66(2-3), 157-167.
Ismail, S., & Mohd Ghazali, N. A. (2011). Ethical ideology and ethical judgments of accounting practitioners in Malaysia. Gadjah Mada International Journal of Business, 13(2), 107-123.
Ismail, S. (2014). Effect of ethical ideologies on ethical judgment of future accountants: Malaysian evidence. Asian Review of Accounting, 22(2), 145-158.
Karande, K., Rao, C. P., & Singhapakdi, A. (2002). Moral Philosophies of Marketing Managers: A Comparison of American, Australian, and Malaysian Cultures. European Journal of Marketing, 36(7/8), 768-792.
Kohlberg, L. (1969). Stages and sequences: the cognitive developmental approach to socialization. In D. Goslin (ed.), Handbook of socialization theory and research. Rand McNally: Chicago.
Kohlberg, L. (1976). Moral stages and moralization: the cognitive-development approach. In T. Lickona (ed.), Moral Development and Behaviour. Holt, Rinhart and Winston: New York.
Lee, D., & Sirgy, M.J. (1999). The Effect of Moral Philosophy and Ethnocentrism on Quality-of-Life Orientation in International Marketing: A Cross-Cultural Comparison. Journal of Business Ethics, 18(1), 73-89.
Marques, P. A., & Pereira, J. A. (2009). Ethical Ideology and Ethical Judgments in the Portuguese Accounting Profession. Journal of Business Ethics, 86(2), 227-242.
Marta, J. K. M., Attia, A., Singhapakdi, A., & Atteya, N. (2003). A Comparison of Ethical Perceptions and Moral Philosophies of American and Egyptian Business Students. Teaching Business Ethics, 7(1), 1-20.
Ministry of Higher Education. (2006). Hala Tuju 2, Reassessment Report on Accounting Programme at Public Universities of Malaysia. Pusat Penerbitan Universiti. Universiti Teknologi MARA. Shah Alam.
Othman, Z., & Abdul Rahman, R. (2010). Ethics an Malaysian Corporate Governance Practices. International Journal of Business and Social Science, 1(3), 98-109.
Phuong, N. T., Fisher, G., & Mujtaba, B. G. (2014). Ethical decision-making of banking and finance professionals and students. Asian Journal of Business Ethics, 3(2), 141-153.
Rawwas, M. Y. A., Swaidan, Z., & Oyman, M. (2005). Consumer Ethics: A Cross-Cultural Study of the Ethical Beliefs of Turkish and American Consumers. Journal of Business Ethics, 57(2), 183-195.
Rawwas, M. Y. A., & A. Singhapakdi. (1998). Do consumers’ ethical beliefs vary with age? A substantiation of Kohlberg’s typology in marketing. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, 6(Spring), 26-38.
Reidenbach, R. E., & Robin, D. P. (1988). Some initial steps toward improving the measurement of ethical evaluations of marketing activities. Journal of Business Ethics, 7(11), 871-879.
Schlenker, B. R., & Forsyth, D. R. (1977). On the ethics of psychological research. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 13(4), 369-396.
Singhapakdi, A. and S. Vitell (1994). Ethical Ideologies of Future Marketers: The Relative Influences of Machiavellianism and Gender. Journal of Marketing Education, 16(1), 34-42.
Singhapakdi, A., Vitell, S. & Franke, G. (1999). Antecedents, Consequences, and Mediating Effects of Perceived Moral Intensity and Personal Moral Philosophies. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 27(1), 19-36.
Smith, D. E., Skalnik, J. R., & Skalnik, P. C. (1999). Ethical behavior of marketing managers and MBA students: a comparative study. Teaching Business Ethics, 3(4), 321-335.
VanMeter, R. A., Grisaffe, D. B., Chonko, L. B., & Roberts, J. A. (2013). Generation Y’s ethical ideology and its potential workplace implications. Journal of Business Ethics, 117(1), 93-109.
Vitell, S. J., Bakir, A., Paolillo, J.G.P., Hidalgo, E.R., Ai-Khatib, J., & Rawwas, M. Y. A. (2003). Ethical Judgments and Intentions: A Multinational Study of Marketing Professionals. Business Ethics: A European Review, 12(2), 151-171.
Adnan, N. L. B., Jamil, C. Z. M., & Nor, N. A. M. (2012). Ethical antecedents of dysfunctional behaviour in performance measurement and control system. Asian Social Science, 9(1), 29-42.
Ahmed, M. Chung K. Y., & Eischenseher, J. W. (2003). Business Students’ Perception of Ethics and Moral Judgment: A Cross-Cultural Study. Journal of Business Ethics, 43(1-2), 89-102.
Axinn, C., Blair, M., & Thach, A. (2004). Comparing Ethical Ideologies Across Cultures’, Journal of Business Ethics, 54 (2), 103-120.
Barnett T., & Vaicys C. (2000). The moderating effect of individuals’ perceptions of ethical work climate on ethical judgments and behavioral intentions. Journal of Business Ethics, 27(4), 351-362.
Barnett T., Bass K., & Brown G., (1994). Ethical Ideology and Ethical Judgment Regarding Ethical Issues in Business. Journal of Business Ethics, 13(6), 469-480.
Barnett T., Bass K., Brown G., and Hebert F. J., (1998). Ethical Ideology and the Ethical Judgments of Marketing Professionals. Journal of Business Ethics, 17(7), 715-723.
Bass, K., Barnett, T., & Brown, G. (1998). The Moral Philosophy of Sales Managers and Its Influence on Ethical Decision Making. Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, 18(2), 1-17.
Bommer, M., Gratto, C., Gravander, J., & Tuttle, M. (1987). A behavioral model of ethical and unethical decision making. Journal of Business Ethics, 6(4), 265-281.
Cheung, E., Chan, A. P., & Kajewski, S. (2009). Enhancing value for money in public private partnership projects: Findings from a survey conducted in Hong Kong and Australia compared to findings from previous research in the UK. Journal of Financial Management of Property and Construction, 14(1), 7-20.
Chonko, L. B., & Hunt, S. D. (1985). Ethics and marketing management: An empirical examination. Journal of Business Research, 13(4), 339-359.
Cohen, J. D., Romero, R. D., Farah, M. J., & Servan-Schreiber, D. (1994). Mechanisms of spatial attention: The relation of macrostructure to microstructure in parietal neglect. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 6(4), 377.
Cole, B. C., and Smith, D. L. (1995). Effects of ethics instruction on the ethical perceptions of college business students. Journal of Education for Business, 70(6), 351-356.
Deshpande, S. (1996). Ethical climate and the link between success and ethical behavior: An empirical investigation of a non-profit organization. Journal of Business Ethics, 15(3), 315-320.
Douglas, P. C., Davidson, R. A., & Schwartz, B. N. (2001). The effect of organizational culture and ethical orientation on accountants’ ethical judgments. Journal of Business Ethics, 34(2), 101-121.
Dulewicz, V., & Higgs, M. (2005). Assessing leadership styles and organizational context. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 20(1), 105-123.
DuPont, A. M., & Craig, J. S. (1996). Does management experience change the ethical perceptions of retail professionals: a comparison of the ethical perceptions of current students with those of recent graduates? Journal of Business Ethics, 15(8), 815-826.
Elm, D., & Nichols, M. L. (1993). An investigation of the moral reasoning of managers. Journal of Business Ethics, 12(11), 817-833.
Emerson, T. L. N., & Conroy, S. J., (2004). Have Ethical Attitudes Changed? An Intertemporal Comparison of the Ethical Perceptions of College Students in 1985 and 2001. Journal of Business Ethics, 50(2), 167-176.
Emerson, T. L. N, Conroy, S. J., & Stanley, C. W. (2007). Ethical Attitudes of Accountants: Recent Evidence from a Practitioners’ Survey. Journal of Business Ethics, 71(1), 73-87.
Forsyth, D. R. (1981). Moral judgment: The influence of ethical ideology. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 7(2), 218-223.
Forsyth, D. R. (1985). Individual differences in information integration during moral judgment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49(1), 264-272.
Forsyth, D. R. (1980). A taxonomy of ethical ideologies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39(1), 175-184.
Forsyth, D. R. (1992). Judging the Morality of Business Practices: The Influence of Personal Moral Philosophies. Journal of Business Ethics, 11(5-6), 461-470.
Forsyth, D. R., O’Boyle, E. H., & McDaniel, J. M. A. (2008). East Meets West: A Meta-Analytic Investigation of Cultural Variations in Idealism and Relativism. Journal of Business Ethics, 83(4), 813-833.
Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional Intelligence. New York: Bantam Books.
Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R., & McKee, A. (Eds.). (2002). Primal leadership: Realizing the power of emotional intelligence. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
Hadjistavropoulos, T., Malloy, D. C., Sharpe, D., & Fuchs-Lacelle, S. (2003). The Ethical Ideologies of Psychologists and Physicians: A Preliminary Comparison. Ethics and Behavior, 13(1), 97-104.
Hastings, S. E., & Finegan, J. E. (2011). The role of ethical ideology in reactions to injustice. Journal of Business Ethics, 100(4), 689-703.
Hunt, S. D., & Vitell, S. (1986). A general theory of marketing ethics. Journal of Macromarketing, 6(1), 5-16.
Hunt, S. D., Wood, V. R., & Chonko, L. B. (1989). Corporate ethical values and organisational commitment in marketing. Journal of Marketing Science, 53(3), 79-90.
Ibrahim, N. A., & Angelidis, J. P., (1993). Corporate social responsibility: a comparative analysis of perceptions of top executives and business students. The Mid-Atlantic Journal of Business, 29, 303-315.
Ibrahim, N. A., Angelidis, J. P., & Howard, D. P. (2006). Corporate social responsibility: a comparative analysis of perceptions of practicing accountants and accounting students. Journal of Business Ethics, 66(2-3), 157-167.
Ismail, S., & Mohd Ghazali, N. A. (2011). Ethical ideology and ethical judgments of accounting practitioners in Malaysia. Gadjah Mada International Journal of Business, 13(2), 107-123.
Ismail, S. (2014). Effect of ethical ideologies on ethical judgment of future accountants: Malaysian evidence. Asian Review of Accounting, 22(2), 145-158.
Karande, K., Rao, C. P., & Singhapakdi, A. (2002). Moral Philosophies of Marketing Managers: A Comparison of American, Australian, and Malaysian Cultures. European Journal of Marketing, 36(7/8), 768-792.
Kohlberg, L. (1969). Stages and sequences: the cognitive developmental approach to socialization. In D. Goslin (ed.), Handbook of socialization theory and research. Rand McNally: Chicago.
Kohlberg, L. (1976). Moral stages and moralization: the cognitive-development approach. In T. Lickona (ed.), Moral Development and Behaviour. Holt, Rinhart and Winston: New York.
Lee, D., & Sirgy, M.J. (1999). The Effect of Moral Philosophy and Ethnocentrism on Quality-of-Life Orientation in International Marketing: A Cross-Cultural Comparison. Journal of Business Ethics, 18(1), 73-89.
Marques, P. A., & Pereira, J. A. (2009). Ethical Ideology and Ethical Judgments in the Portuguese Accounting Profession. Journal of Business Ethics, 86(2), 227-242.
Marta, J. K. M., Attia, A., Singhapakdi, A., & Atteya, N. (2003). A Comparison of Ethical Perceptions and Moral Philosophies of American and Egyptian Business Students. Teaching Business Ethics, 7(1), 1-20.
Ministry of Higher Education. (2006). Hala Tuju 2, Reassessment Report on Accounting Programme at Public Universities of Malaysia. Pusat Penerbitan Universiti. Universiti Teknologi MARA. Shah Alam.
Othman, Z., & Abdul Rahman, R. (2010). Ethics an Malaysian Corporate Governance Practices. International Journal of Business and Social Science, 1(3), 98-109.
Phuong, N. T., Fisher, G., & Mujtaba, B. G. (2014). Ethical decision-making of banking and finance professionals and students. Asian Journal of Business Ethics, 3(2), 141-153.
Rawwas, M. Y. A., Swaidan, Z., & Oyman, M. (2005). Consumer Ethics: A Cross-Cultural Study of the Ethical Beliefs of Turkish and American Consumers. Journal of Business Ethics, 57(2), 183-195.
Rawwas, M. Y. A., & A. Singhapakdi. (1998). Do consumers’ ethical beliefs vary with age? A substantiation of Kohlberg’s typology in marketing. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, 6(Spring), 26-38.
Reidenbach, R. E., & Robin, D. P. (1988). Some initial steps toward improving the measurement of ethical evaluations of marketing activities. Journal of Business Ethics, 7(11), 871-879.
Schlenker, B. R., & Forsyth, D. R. (1977). On the ethics of psychological research. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 13(4), 369-396.
Singhapakdi, A. and S. Vitell (1994). Ethical Ideologies of Future Marketers: The Relative Influences of Machiavellianism and Gender. Journal of Marketing Education, 16(1), 34-42.
Singhapakdi, A., Vitell, S. & Franke, G. (1999). Antecedents, Consequences, and Mediating Effects of Perceived Moral Intensity and Personal Moral Philosophies. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 27(1), 19-36.
Smith, D. E., Skalnik, J. R., & Skalnik, P. C. (1999). Ethical behavior of marketing managers and MBA students: a comparative study. Teaching Business Ethics, 3(4), 321-335.
VanMeter, R. A., Grisaffe, D. B., Chonko, L. B., & Roberts, J. A. (2013). Generation Y’s ethical ideology and its potential workplace implications. Journal of Business Ethics, 117(1), 93-109.
Vitell, S. J., Bakir, A., Paolillo, J.G.P., Hidalgo, E.R., Ai-Khatib, J., & Rawwas, M. Y. A. (2003). Ethical Judgments and Intentions: A Multinational Study of Marketing Professionals. Business Ethics: A European Review, 12(2), 151-171.