Will Graduating Year Accountancy Students Cheat in Examination? : A Malaysian Case

Abstract

Due to a series of high profile accounting scandals and corporate collapses such as Enron, World.Com and Andersen, ethical conduct has been widely recognized as a crucial element in accounting profession and education. The growing concern over the ethics of professionals has also called for more academic research into this critical area. Our study aims at assessing ethical behaviors of the future accounting professionals (i.e. final year accounting students) in Malaysia. This study which uses questionnaire survey examined the students' ethical attitudes as to whether they would act unethically in an examination. Also, their attitudes towards whistleblowing -if they become aware of such unethical conduct were examined. A vast majority of students (73 per cent), decided to be on the safe side -neither being purely unethical nor whistleblowers. Of the students, 11 per cent chose to become whistleblowers. While only 16 per cent would act unethically in exam, the percentage significantly declined once the risk of being caught was introduced. This indicates that students have not moved further from the first level of Kohlberg's stages of moral development which highly depends on the punishment and penalty in order to behave ethically. Results also reveal that students with good academic achievement were less likely to cheat in exam. Furthermore, a larger proportion of male students as compared to female tend to behave unethically. Overall, the study indicates favorable results since the majority of respondents would not prefer to indulge in unethical behavior, although they are not being purely ethical.

Unethical Behavior of the Students of the Czech University of Life Sciences

“…Our results are generally in line with many studies which reported that females are ethically more conservative and are concerned more about ethical issues and business ethics, thus arguably reflecting a higher moral development and thus, moral standards (Ruegger & King, 1992in Abu Bakar et. al., 2010.…”

“…On the other hand the competition induces women to cheat more while there is not a significant effect for men (in the task where women on average performed worse than men the women) (Schwieren, 2012). The women's ethical feeling raises in the risk of getting caught (Abu Bakar, 2010). Nathanson et al, (2006) found no significant differences in cheating rates on any of the demographic variables including the gender.…”

Academic Dishonesty of Accounting Students at Higher Learning Institutions

“…Lupton et al (2000) argue that intense pressures to obtain good grades for employment purposes have driven low Grade Point Average (GPA) scorers to cheat in tests, quizzes or even in the final exams. Contrary to high-grade scorers, some the low-grade scorers do not strive to obtain better grade and are not prepared before their assessment (Bakar et al, 2010). A similar opinion is expressed by Meng et al (2014) who contend that students, in general, are likely to be involved in an array of academic dishonesty behaviors just to attain a better grade so that a better job opportunity is available.…”

Religiosity And Moral Competence: A Study Of Malaysia's Accounting Students

“…Abu Bakar et al (2010) explained that as early as the 1980s, public confidence in the Malaysian accounting profession took a battering due to collapse of organizations like Bank Bumiputra and Pan-Electric. In the 90s, there was a very noticeable increase in white-collar crimes involving accounting companies, some of which were sued by their clients such as Johari Abas, and Anor, David Low See Keat and Orsants (Abu Bakar et al, 2010).…”

“…Abu Bakar et al (2010) explained that as early as the 1980s, public confidence in the Malaysian accounting profession took a battering due to collapse of organizations like Bank Bumiputra and Pan-Electric. In the 90s, there was a very noticeable increase in white-collar crimes involving accounting companies, some of which were sued by their clients such as Johari Abas, and Anor, David Low See Keat and Orsants (Abu Bakar et al, 2010). In recent times, concern has grown in the society regarding the alarming increase in the unethical and immoral practices amongst managers in Malaysia (Abu Bakar et al, 2010;Yunus and Abdul Rashid, 2011;Eid, 2012).…”