We revisit religiosity, gender, age, ethics education and experience as drivers of ethicality, while expanding prior research from Anglo-Saxon and Asiatic/Euro-Asiatic countries to a Latin European country, Portugal. We apply the Merchant instrument of attitudes towards earnings management, in a sample of Portuguese accounting students and alumni. We find no significant evidence of a positive association between religiosity and accountants’ judgments on earnings management. However, gender, age, education and experience are significant predictors of accountants’ judgments. The results are unchanged when (...) we control for the intent of earnings management. Females, older individuals and alumni judge accounting earnings management more harshly than males, younger individuals, and students. A higher level of accounting work experience induces accountants to judge accounting earnings management as a less ethically questionable practice. This finding is theoretically relevant because it underscores the necessity of taking people’s constraints in the workplace into consideration when studying ethical behavior in business contexts. The results are also practically relevant, as they highlight the importance of a systematic ethics education throughout the accountant’s life. (shrink)

Accounting professionals play an important role in the generation and auditing of financial statements and, given their understanding of business processes, may be relied upon in the development of organizations’ ethical infrastructures (i.e., the formal aspects of an organization’s ethical environment that are explicitly under the control of the organization). Thus, understanding and improving the work environments of accounting professionals is crucial to improving organizational ethical culture and reducing fraud. In this study, we extend prior research that documents the prevalence (...) of ethical infrastructure programs by assessing how accounting professionals, a key employee group, perceive their organizations’ ethical infrastructures. In addition, we examine whether perceptions of the effectiveness of the ethical infrastructure and professional autonomy influence accountants’ ethical judgments. Based on the responses of 378 CPAs in the United States, we find the perceived state of the ethical infrastructure across accounting work environments—both public accounting firms and other organization types—is relatively strong. However, of the five ethical infrastructure components we examine (i.e., ethics code, ethics training, ethics-based punishments and incentives, ethics reporting system, and ethics review system), only 35% of respondents indicate that their organizations have more than three of these components. Importantly, we find that perceived ethical infrastructure effectiveness and professional autonomy influence both perceptions of the ethical culture and the ethical judgments of accounting professionals. We also contribute to practice by highlighting opportunities for improvement in ethics training formats, ethics-based incentives, and ethics review systems. (shrink)

For many years questions have been posed about the way ethics is taught in accounting education. The teaching of ethics is often criticized for emphasizing the legal dimension to the detriment of the moral one, among other reasons. This case study focuses on an accounting course intended to develop and stimulate students’ critical thinking on accounting and its role in daily life. The investigation is based on an empirical study that took place in the 2015–2016 academic year, when the first (...) author undertook non-participant observation and examined the final term assignment (a short essay) of the great majority of the 120 students enrolled in this course. One of the course’s main features was to expose the students to critical thinking, through analyses and discussions of the roles of accounting and accountants in organizations and society—using research articles as a backdrop to stimulate analysis and discussion. Our investigation suggests that the course is able to sensitize students to professional ethics and responsibilities. Our argument, broadly supported by an empirical case analysis, is that a course centered on a dialogical approach and critical thinking on the role of accounting and accountants in society may impact the development of ethical sensitivity in future accounting practitioners. (shrink)

For many years questions have been posed about the way ethics is taught in accounting education. The teaching of ethics is often criticized for emphasizing the legal dimension to the detriment of the moral one, among other reasons. This case study focuses on an accounting course intended to develop and stimulate students’ critical thinking on accounting and its role in daily life. The investigation is based on an empirical study that took place in the 2015–2016 academic year, when the first (...) author undertook non-participant observation and examined the final term assignment (a short essay) of the great majority of the 120 students enrolled in this course. One of the course’s main features was to expose the students to critical thinking, through analyses and discussions of the roles of accounting and accountants in organizations and society—using research articles as a backdrop to stimulate analysis and discussion. Our investigation suggests that the course is able to sensitize students to professional ethics and responsibilities. Our argument, broadly supported by an empirical case analysis, is that a course centered on a dialogical approach and critical thinking on the role of accounting and accountants in society may impact the development of ethical sensitivity in future accounting practitioners. (shrink)