Measuring Ethical Sensitivity and Evaluation

Abstract

Measures of student ethical sensitivity and their increases help to answer questions such as whether accounting ethics should be taught at all. We investigate different sensitivity measures and alternatives to the wellestablished Defining Issues Test (DIT-2, Rest, J. R. et al. [1999, Postconventional Moral Thinking: A NeoKohlbergian Approach (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ]), frequently used to measure the effects of undergraduate accounting ethics education. Because the DIT measures cognitive development, which increases with age, the DIT scores for younger accounting students are typically lower, have limited range, and are not likely to vary sufficiently with corresponding choices in ethical dilemmas. Since the DIT measures only the moral judgment component of ethical decision-making, we consider the multidimensional ethical scale (MES) to allow respondents to provide explanations for their moral and other judgments. The MES has been used to measure attitudes related to justice, utility, contractualism, egoism, and relativism. Unfortunately, the MES is not comparable in one-dimension to the DIT, and unlike the DIT, the MES has no theoretical or objective base. Therefore, we construct a comparable onedimensional relative measure, a Composite MES Score, obtained from previous research on practicing accountants. We compare the reliability of this measure to the DIT in explaining the ethical choices of 54 specially chosen, somewhat homogeneous students, whose ages range from 18 to 19, and who are taking a second semester freshman accounting course at a private, religion-affiliated university. These particular students are relatively untrained in the formal use of questionable accounting choices. These students are less likely to recognize the dilemmas of the MES and are also less likely to demonstrate sufficient variation in their DIT scores, traditionally low for freshmen students. As freshmen, they are recent graduates of high school and more likely guided by other ethical influences including friends, family, or contractual obligations (some of the MES constructs) rather than higher cognitive development. This study confirms suspicions. We find the DIT scores do not vary sufficiently to explain the moral reasoning of freshmen. For eight dilemmas and 24 choices we find the DIT score correlates with only three choices, whereas the MES regression models have at least one significant construct for 23 out of 24 ethical choices. The Composite MES Score (a relative measure) also explains 23 out of 24 choices and is statistically related to the DIT in only one of the choices. Unlike the DIT, the Composite MES permits pretest and retesting with different dilemmas to evaluate changes in ethical sensitivity. These results argue for relative rather than absolute measures of sensitivity and guides beyond cognitive development (the DIT-score) to explain undergraduate student sensitivity.

Ethical Judgments: What Do We Know, Where Do We Go?

“…As discussed throughout, ethical judgments relate consistently to few respondent characteristics or anything else. Research investigations verify repeatedly what has been known for decades, researchers frequently advance hypotheses that fail to garner empirical support, and patterns of results that emerge are often opposite to what was predicted (e.g., Barnett and Vaicys, 2000;Cherry and Fraedrich, 2000, Hypothesis 9a;Chiu and Erdener, 2003;Clark and Dawson, 1996;Fleischman and Valentine, 2003;Schepers, 2003;Shawver and Sennetti, 2009, results involving egoism).…”

“…This review also uncovered a heretofore largely overlooked, but potentially salient, reality: regardless of the complex models, sophisticated methodologies, detailed analyses, and apparent thoroughness in many published reports, researchers seldom provide concrete reasons for selecting vignettes (e.g., "vignettes were adopted from prior ethics research", Cohen and Bennie, 2006, p. 16; see also Beekun et al, 2005, p. 240;Beekun et al, 2008, p. 593;Davis et al, 2001, p. 41;Eweje and Brunton, 2010, p. 100;Haines et al, 2008, p. 392;Lin andHo, 2008, p. 1217;Marques and Azvedo-Pereira, 2009, Ethical Judgments 30 p. 343;Patel, 2003, p. 79;Rottig et al, 2011, p. 174;Shawver and Sennetti, 2009). Typically, specific vignettes are employed because they were "used in another study", generally "used in past research", or have been "used successfully in some other context" (often, no reasons of any kind are mentioned).…”

“…These have included "whistle blowing" where respondents evaluate the appropriateness of a vignette protagonist disclosing others' questionable activities (e.g., Ayers and Kaplan, 2005;Barnett et al, 1994, Vignette 19;Barnett et al, 1996;Chiu, 2003;Chiu and Erdener, 2003;Hansen, 1992, Vignettes 2 and 3;Jung, 2009, Vignette 3;Radtke, 2000;Zhang et al, 2009a,b), laying off an employee (e.g., Cohen et al, 1998, Vignette 5;Shawver and Sennetti, 2009;Valentine and Hollingsworth, 2012), paying for inside information (e.g., Valentine and Rittenburg, 1994), bribery (e.g., , software piracy (e.g., Wagner and Sanders, 2001), and behavior in the face of threats or pressure from superiors or clients (e.g., managers explicitly ordering vignette protagonists to engage in bribery and price-fixing, Smith et al, 2007; see also Barnett et al, 1994, Vignettes 3 and 18;Cohen et al, 1998, Vignette 4;Cruz, Shafer, and Strauser, 2000;Flory et al, 1992;Loo, 2004;Marques and AzevedoPereira, 2009, Vignettes 1 and 5;Patel, 1993, Vignettes 1 and 2;Shawver and Sennetti, 2009). Some vignettes involve activities that create no apparent harms of any kind and thus seem not to be ethically questionable at all, such as consumers bringing their own shopping bags to stores (Chan et al, 2008), customers applying for credit cards but rarely using them (Ding et al, 2009), refunding money to customers (Dornoff and Tankersley, 1975), extending credit or loans that violate only the lenders' "normal (internal) lending criteria" (e.g., Flory et al, 1992;Cohen et al, 1998, Vignette 2;Shawver and Sennetti, 2009), and hiring Hispanic persons for a Mexican restaurant (Schepers, 2003).…”

The Effect of Moral Reasoning Level and Emotional Intelligence on Employment Ethics Assessment of Earnings Management

“…MES usage is more suitable for undergraduate students majoring in accounting because MES consists of eight dilemmas where there are dilemmas related to accounting and earnings management cases (Shawver and Sennetti, 2009). …”

Using a Phenomenological Approach to Teach Engineering Ethics in a First-year Engineering Course

“…15 The DIT (forerunner to DIT-2) and DIT-2 have their critics. [16][17][18] However, although alternatives to the DIT-2 are being developed and tested, [2] the DIT and the DIT-2 continue to be used extensively by researchers to measure the ethical reasoning skills of undergraduate engineering students 20 and the effectiveness of engineering ethics instruction.…”