Is it Shameful to be an Accountant? GenMe Perception(s) of Accountants' Ethics

Abstract

The function that accountants fulfil in the economic system is dependent on their ability to maintain the perception of high ethical standards. Building on the idea that birth cohorts, otherwise known as generations, are a useful proxy for the socio‐cultural environment of different time periods, we focus on the so‐called ‘GenMe’, that is, students and young workers born in the 1980s and 1990s. In particular, combining the accounting and business ethics literature, the purpose of our paper is to contribute to an increased awareness of the GenMe perceptions of accountants, with special attention given to ethical aspects. We believe that the perceptions of this age group are particularly crucial for the future of the accounting profession as it is these young people who will either become professional accountants or the accountants' future clients. Using an extensive database of 1,794 questionnaires, results show that the impression of the accountant as a corrupt professional is not dominant among GenMe and seem to suggest the existence of a multifaceted perception of accountants' ethics. Specifically, the factors that contribute to influencing GenMe perceptions of accountants' ethics are level of education, having attended an accounting course at high school level, gender, and belonging to the accounting profession. Finally, our study indicates that there is room for improving public perceptions of accountants' ethics through university courses in ethics, continuing education programs, and focused communication strategies by accounting firms and professional bodies.

Mapping Ethics Education in Accounting Research: A Bibliometric Analysis

“…The general opinion is that accounting educators not only need to move beyond teaching theory and standards to actually developing students' attitudes towards values and ethics (Caglio & Cameran, 2017 ), but also need to be aware that the perceived professional ethics is an important factor influencing students’ intention to major in accounting (Lee & Schmidt, 2014 ). Further, it is considered that while ethical values and professional identity should be developed within the university, the process itself should continue throughout the professional career, i.e.…”

Accounting Ethics Education Research

“…Early research on accounting ethics education relied on interpretive analysis while research in the latter period relied on complex or sophisticated models of analysis such as (regressions, experiment, ground theory, meta-analysis). Early research tends to question the value and extent of ethics education (Hiltebeitel & Jones, 1991;Levy & Mitschow, 2008;Loeb, 1988;Ponemon, 1993;Smith et al, 2005) while later research tends to focus on the ethics of the individual and ethical decision making (Costa et al, 2016;Faello, 2017;Fiolleau & Kaplan, 2017;Ghazali, 2015;Ramirez, 2017;Waldron & Fisher, 2017), and perspectives on ethics education from the practicing profession (Caglio & Cameran, 2017;Loeb, 2012;Rockness & Rockness, 2010;Wilson et al, 2016) and from educators and instructors (Jones & Spraakman, 2011;Liu et al, 2012;Miller & Shawver, 2018). Similarly, teaching pedagogies changed over time to include case studies, role-plays, games, video presentations and novels, influenced in part by the introduction of learning technology platforms such as a web base multimedia-orientated teaching module (McManus et al, 2012).…”

Undergraduate business students’ perception of auditing: impact of proximity and knowledge on auditors’ stereotype

“…Further, most studies have been carried out in Anglo-American countries (Albu et al, 2011;Caglio and Cameran, 2017;Dimnik and Felton, 2006), indicating a need to examine socio-politically different contexts. Spain's auditing profession is characterized by a high level of legalism, as in other civil law countries; the Spanish auditing profession is subject to very strict regulations and compliance requirements.…”