Professional accounting bodies' perceptions of ethical issues, causes of ethical failure and ethics education
- Authors: Jackling, Beverley , Cooper, Barry , Leung, Philomena , Dellaportas, Steven
- Date: 2007
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Managerial Auditing Journal Vol. 22, no. 9 (2007), p. 928-944
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- Description: Purpose - Given the calls for increased ethics education following recent corporate collapses, this paper aims to examine the significance of ethical issues that challenge the profession and, more specifically, professional accounting bodies. Design/methodology/approach - The study assesses the perceptions via an online survey of 66 professional accounting bodies worldwide in respect of ethical issues, potential causes of ethical failure and the need for ethics education. Findings - Respondents identified a number of important challenges including conflicts of interest, earnings management and whistle-blowing. The findings also demonstrate strong support for participation in prescribing the nature of ethics education by members of professional accounting bodies. Research limitations/implications - The results of this study are based on feedback from 41 per cent of member bodies of the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC). Despite a number of follow-up reminder notices, some regions are under-represented in the responses to the survey distributed to the (then) 160 member bodies of IFAC. Geographic isolation and language limitations contributed to the failure to gain a higher response rate. Practical implications - The findings demonstrate that professional bodies support ethics education at the pre- and post-qualifying levels of education and a willingness to take an active role in promoting ethics education to their members. Originality/value - By addressing member bodies' attitudes to ethics education, this paper fills a gap in prior literature that has been restricted to addressing the attitudes of academics, students and business organisations.
- Description: C1
Making a difference with a discrete course on accounting ethics
- Authors: Dellaportas, Steven
- Date: 2006
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal of Business Ethics Vol. 65, no. 4 (2006), p. 391-404
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- Description: Calls for the expansion of ethics education in the business and accounting curricula have resulted in a variety of interventions including additional material on ethical cases, the code of conduct, and the development of new courses devoted to ethical development [Lampe, J.: 1996]. The issue of whether ethics should be taught has been addressed by many authors [see for example: Hanson, K. O.: 1987; Huss, H. F. and D. M. Patterson: 1993; Jones, T. M.: 1988-1989; Kerr, D. S. and L. M. Smith: 1995; Loeb, S. E.: 1988; McDonald, G. M. and G. D. Donleavy: 1995]. The question addressed in this paper is not whether ethics should be taught but whether accounting students can reason more ethically after an intervention based on a discrete and dedicated course on accounting ethics. The findings in this paper indicate that a discrete intervention emphasising dilemma discussion has a positive and significant effect on students' moral reasoning and development. The data collected from interviews suggest that the salient influences on moral judgement development include: learning theories of ethics particularly Kohlberg's theory of cognitive moral reasoning and development; peer learning; and moral discourse. The implications from the findings in this study suggest that moral reasoning is responsive to particular types of ethics intervention and educators should carefully plan their attempts to foster moral judgement development. © Springer 2006.
- Description: C1
- Description: 2003001773
Measuring moral judgement and the implications of cooperative education and rule-based learning
- Authors: Dellaportas, Steven , Cooper, Barry , Leung, Philomena
- Date: 2006
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Accounting and Finance Vol. 46, no. 1 (2006), p. 53-70
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- Description: The Defining Issues Test (DIT), developed by Rest (1986), measures a person's level of moral development using hypothetical social dilemmas. Although theDIT is useful for measuring moral development in social settings, it might not adequately capture an individual's moral judgement abilities in solving work-related problems (Weber, 1990; Trevino, 1992; Welton et al., 1994). In the present study, the moral judgement levels of 97 accounting students were measured over a 1 year period using two separate test instruments, the DIT and a context-specific instrument developed byWelton et al. (1994). The test scores are significantly higher on the DIT than theWelton instrument (between the instruments and over time), suggesting that accounting students use higher levels of moral reasoning in resolving hypothetical social dilemmas and lower levels of moral reasoning in resolving context-specific dilemmas. The difference in test scores was highest during cooperative education (work placement programme), implying that the environment is a significant determinant on students' test scores. © 2006 AFAANZ.
- Description: C1
- Description: 2003001957