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Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by emerald-srm:198285 [] For AuthorsIf you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services. ABSTRACTFrom an online survey of 114 participating accountants at staff, senior staff, and supervisor levels from a top-100 U.S. accounting firm, we investigate the effects of the Big Five personality traits (Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Extraversion, Neuroticism, and Openness) on the ethical decision-making process of accountants. Within the framework of Rest's (1986) Four-Component Model of Ethical Behavior, we focus on Component III, the formation of an intention to act upon one's best ethical judgment. Based on the limited extant literature on the connection between personality and ethical behavior, we expect that accountants high in Conscientiousness and Openness will tend to form an intention to act ethically despite pressure in an ethical dilemma. We develop more tentative hypotheses about the remaining three factors. Controlling for age, gender, education, sole earning status, and experience, we find clear positive statistical effects of only Conscientiousness and Openness. These findings have implications for the human resource departments of accounting firms, as well as contributing to a basic understanding of the relationships between Big Five personality factors and ethical intention.

The number of participants in accounting practices and academia who use English as their second language is significant and growing. Many of them are involved in making ethical judgements based on information provided in English, which is their second language. It is important to know the effect of the second language on their ethical judgement. In this study, using 211 undergraduate accounting students whose native language is Arabic from an Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) accredited business school located in the Middle East, we test the effect of second language use on ethical judgement. We find that the ethical judgement is significantly better when the ethical dilemmas are presented in the participants' native language (Arabic) compared to when the same dilemmas are presented their second language (English). The results hold true in both within and between subject designs. Implications are discussed.