Accounting Decision Making: Does the Ethics Course Delivery Make a Difference?

• In Event: Session A: Teaching, Learning & Curriculum I

Abstract

Of late, ethical misconduct and fraud in the workplace are common in the today’s news. Opinion polls rank accountants low in ethical professional judgment and ethical behavior that signals a need for accountants’ ethical training. Educators have responded to these claims by amending accounting curriculum to include ethical studies and training.
This study examines ethical judgments of accounting students at two universities with different accounting curriculum, different ethical course delivery, and different ethical course content.
The study explores if any differences exist in students’ ethical judgment and extends previous studies by examining demographic variables such as gender, work experience, education level, and the completion of an ethics course.
The study is based on students’ ethical judgment on 13 scenarios that are neither completely ethical nor completely unethical. The study’s findings are tentative due to several limitations. First, the scenarios used to gather the students’ judgments were sufficiently brief with little detail. Second, the students are located in one region of Texas and their decisions may not be generalizable to other regions. Another concern is the data collection 2010 time frame which was during a major economic downturn. Finally, although the student respondents were assured confidentiality and the responses were anonymous, some response bias could be present.
The student responses in this study were significantly different from earlier studies. However, no significant differences were identified among the students’ decision in this study regarding the 13 scenarios. Based on an analysis of the students, there was sensitivity to certain Factors that influence ethical decision making but the Factor sensitivity among the student decisions was uneven.
Even with the differences among students found based on gender, educational class, employment and the completion of an ethics course, the only significant difference among the decisions was writing up inventory value when the student had completed an ethics course.
Overall the study found that an ethics course should be part of the accounting curriculum. The study also found no conclusive support for whether the course should be integrated or discrete, one course or many, taught as a required course or as a general elective, or should the ethics course be taught by practitioners or academically qualified business professor. Given that this study found only one difference among the students judgments, the study’s questions are unresolved and require more investigation.
The complete paper with tables and references is available upon request to the first author.

Authors

• Mary Fischer, University of Texas-Tyler

• Treba A Marsh, Stephen F. Austin St University

• George L. Hunt, Stephen F. Austin State University