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Accounting Ethics in Unfriendly Environments: The Educational Challenge

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Abstract

In recent years, and in close connection with a number of well-known financial malpractice cases, public debate on business ethics has intensified worldwide, and particularly in ethics-unfriendly environments, such as Spain, with many recent fraud and corruption scandals. In the context of growing consensus on the need of balancing social prosperity and business profits, concern is increasing for introducing business (and particularly accounting) ethics in higher education curricula. The purpose is to improve ethical behaviour of future business people, and of accounting professionals in particular. In this study, from a sample of 551 business students at a Spanish university, the importance of accounting ethics is investigated. The aim of this paper is twofold. First, we attempt to examine students’ overall perceptions of business ethics in unfriendly environments and, specifically, their views on the importance and goals of accounting ethics education. Second, we intend to investigate whether potential differences in such perceptions depend on previous business ethics courses taken, gender, and age of students. Our results show that those students who have previously taken an ethics course are especially prone to considering that accounting education should include ethical considerations, and show greater interest in further introducing this subject in their curricula. These facts should encourage universities offering business degrees in ethics-unfriendly environments to extend the implementation of ethics courses in their curricula. Besides, significant differences in students’ perceptions on the importance of accounting ethics are found depending on their gender and age. In line with previous research findings, female and older students show more ethical inclinations than, respectively, male and younger students. Thus, ethics-unfriendly environments can be treated as contexts where general trends on students’ ethical attitudes are also clearly visible. This fact, together with the evidenced impact of ethics courses on students’ ethical inclinations, places ethics-unfriendly environments as crucial research settings for further inquiring into the nuances that help explain students’ attitudes towards accounting ethics and the role of ethics courses in business degree curricula.

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Abbreviations

BBA:

Bachelor in Business Administration

CPI:

Corruption Perceptions Index

EHEA:

European Higher Education Area

OECD:

Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CEGEA, Centre for Research in Business Management, Universitat Politècnica de València, Camí de Vera, s/n, 46022, Valencia, Spain

    Guillermina Tormo-Carbó & Elies Seguí-Mas

  2. Department of Business Management, Facultat d’Economia, University of Valencia, Av. Tarongers, s/n, 46022, Valencia, Spain

    Victor Oltra

Authors
  1. Guillermina Tormo-Carbó
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  2. Elies Seguí-Mas
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  3. Victor Oltra
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Guillermina Tormo-Carbó.

Appendix: Questionnaire Items

Appendix: Questionnaire Items

Section 1: Ethics Education Courses

  • EC1: Have you had an ethics course in college?

  • EC2: If yes, do you think this course was well designed and effective?

  • EC3: Does your university offer ethics courses?

  • EC4: Do you think such a course is necessary for your degree curriculum?

  • EC5: If a business ethics course were offered as an elective course, would you enrol in it?

  • EC6: Do you think that it is convenient that ethics courses are offered at the business school?

  • EC7: Do you think that having an ethics course in college would help you solve moral and ethics issues facing the accounting profession and the business community in general?

Section 2a: General Aspects of Ethics

  • GE1: How important is ethics in the business community?

  • GE2: How important is ethics in business courses?

  • GE3: How important is ethics in your personal decisions?

  • GE4: How important is ethics in your decisions in the workplace?

Section 2b: Objectives of Accounting Ethics Education

  • OE1: Relating accounting education to moral issues.

  • OE2: Recognizing issues in accounting that have ethical implications.

  • OE3: Developing ‘a sense of moral obligation’ or responsibility.

  • OE4: Developing the abilities needed to deal with ethical conflicts or dilemmas.

  • OE5: Learning to deal with the uncertainties of the accounting profession.

  • OE6: Fostering change in ethical behaviour.

  • OE7: Appreciating and understand the history and composition of all aspects of accounting ethics and their relationship to the general field of ethics.

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Tormo-Carbó, G., Seguí-Mas, E. & Oltra, V. Accounting Ethics in Unfriendly Environments: The Educational Challenge. J Bus Ethics 135, 161–175 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-014-2455-6

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