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Is it shameful to be an accountant?
GenMe perception(s) of accountants’ ethics
Ariela Caglio
Università Bocconi – SDA Bocconi School of Management
Via Roentgen 1 – 20136 Milan (Italy)
Phone : +39 02 58362575 – Fax : +39 02 58362561
Mara Cameran
Università Bocconi – SDA Bocconi School of Management
Via Roentgen 1 – 20136 Milan (Italy)
Phone : +39 02 58362567 – Fax : +39 02 58362561
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Is it shameful to be an accountant? GenMe perception(s) of accountants’ ethics
Introduction
In recent years, the public interest proclamations of accounting professionals have
been increasingly criticized and questioned (Willmott, 1986), and accountants and accounting
institutions are subject to mounting public scrutiny (Rogers et al., 2005; Gill, 2009). In fact,
while the standards and pronouncements of accounting bodies “are couched in terms of the
public interest, they appear to be inextricably bound up in the profession’s private interest”
(Parker, 1994: 507). Nowadays, accountants compete aggressively for business and are held
accountable for their contribution to the financial performance of the firms in which they
operate (Canning and O’Dwyer, 2001). The emphasis for them seems to be on being
commercial and on performing a service for the customer rather than being public-spirited
(Citron, 2003; Humphrey, 2008; Sikka et al. 1989; Sikka, 2008). Recent accounting scandals
and the financial crisis have highlighted the importance of public confidence in the
accounting profession (Carmona, 2009; Carnegie and Napier, 2009), focusing attention on
ethical issues in the accountancy profession throughout the whole community.
The status and credibility attributed to the accounting profession are linked not only to
accountants’ technical expertise but also to their ability to project a public image of
themselves as ‘ethical experts’ (Martinov-Bennie and Pflugrath, 2009). In other words, the
function that accountants fulfill in the economic system is dependent on the profession’s
ability to maintain the perception of high ethical standards and ensure for themselves a
respectable image within the community at large. Therefore, to fulfill their function, it is
necessary not only that accountants act ethically but also that the public perceives them to do
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so (Felton et al., 2008).
In this paper, we explore the ‘public’ perception of accountants’ ethics. This study was
prompted initially by the fact that recent economic circumstances and events have
demonstrated that questionable behaviour on the part of accountants can impact everyone,
even those who do not have any direct involvement with these professionals. In addition, it is
reasonable to assume that if public confidence in the accountancy profession is low, this may
deter entrants who seek a profession that is well thought of, or, worse, may encourage
individuals with lower ethical standards to choose a career in accountancy, thus leading to a
profession that indeed fulfills public perceptions. The purpose of our paper is therefore to
contribute to our understanding of public perceptions of accountants’ ethics and of the factors
– such as gender, educational background and proximity to the profession – that might
contribute to shaping such perceptions.
Previous studies have warned about undertaking cross-sectional analyses on the
perception of specific professions, as these may be impacted also by generational differences
in values (e.g. Schaie, 1965; Stewart and Healy, 1989: for a review see Parry and Urwin,
2010). Any differences derived from our empirical analysis may be due not only to specific
factors such as proximity to the profession, but also to generation, and it would be impossible
to separate the two (Twenge, 2010).
Generational cohorts comprise people born around the same time and thus sharing
specific social or historical events during critical developmental periods. Each generation is
affected by broad forces (e.g. media, critical economic events, popular culture) that create
common value systems distinguishing the individuals of a certain birth cohort from
individuals born at different times. In this paper we use an extensive database that contains
the opinions of the so-called Generation Me (GenMe), i.e., students and young workers born
in the 1980s and 1990s. GenMe is the youngest generation in today’s workforce (or almost
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ready to join the workforce). Our focus on GenMe is not only motivated by methodological
issues, but also by the fact that one of the biggest challenges for organizations in the years to
come will be the retirement of millions of older workers and their substitution by young
people of the GenMe birth cohort. The characteristics of this new generation of workers will
require accounting organizations to adjust their focus and perspective in order to most
effectively attract and retain employees from this cohort, who have work values and
expectations that are quite different from those of previous generations (Twenge et al., 2010;
Hewlett et al., 2009, Yeaton, 2008; Lindquist, 2008). In focusing on GenMe, we are also
responding to the call for accounting scholars to investigate today’s youth habitat and
perceptions (McRobbie, 2005; Jeacle, 2012).
In order to achieve our research purpose, we combine two streams of literature that
have rarely talked to each other so far. On the one hand, we take inspiration from
contributions published in the main accounting journals that focus on understanding the
public image of accountants. In this literature, ethical issues are only marginally included in
the analysis of the general representation of accountants by various social groups and media,
so that little emphasis is given to the ethical aspect of such representations. On the other hand,
we draw on the existing literature on ethical perceptions, which has devoted its attention
mainly to business people in general. Several studies on accountants exist but their focus is on
the ethical attitudes and moral reasoning of these professionals rather than on their public
standing in terms of ethics. Moreover, in the academic literature there have recently been calls
for studies that supplement existing UK-based findings with evidence from other countries
(e.g., Dimnik and Felton, 2006). Our study constitutes a response to this call in that it uses
data collected in Italy, whereas most of the extant literature on the accounting profession, its
image in the public mind and ethical dilemmas has been developed with reference to the
Anglo-American countries, and little is known outside these geographical borders. Italy
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(being a continental European country1) is a very different research setting in comparison to
the Anglo-American ones: despite accounting’s early accomplishments, Italy does not enjoy a
strong independent profession. Moreover, its self-regulatory power is questionable, because
the Italian system for overseeing professional responsibility is characterized by a low number
of disciplinary measures from the professional bodies. In this kind of setting, there is a risk
that the integrity and ethical stance of the profession may be perceived as only symbolic,
because its compliance with rules and values is not strictly monitored, and sanctions are rarely
imposed (Raar, 2009).
The structure of our paper is as follows: in the section following this introduction, we
present a review of the related relevant literature, drawing on both accounting contributions
and business-ethics perception research. Then, we introduce and develop our research
questions and present the research design and the methodology adopted for collecting and
analyzing our data. After that, we describe the results of our empirical analysis; finally, we
discuss and interpret our evidence and conclude by describing the contribution our study
makes to the debate on ethical issues in the accounting profession, pointing out its limitations,
and making suggestions for future research.
Literature review and research questions
The first stream of research that we employ in this paper comprises several
contributions published in the main accounting journals and is concerned with the public
image of accountants (the “general nature of the accountant,” Felton et al., 2008: 221). Ethical
issues are explored as included within the broader question of the identity of accountants2, so
that little emphasis is given to the ethical implications of such representations.
The second stream of research deals with the public perceptions of ethics and ethical
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orientations but mainly of business people and business practices in general. The business
ethics contributions that concentrate on accountants, as will be clarified in the following, have
explored accountants’ own ethical behaviours and orientation but far less their reputation in
this respect.
The image of accountants
The contributions of the first stream of research, published mainly in accounting
journals, examine representations of accountants in various media (e.g., television shows,
movies, the press, advertisements, but also in literature, in popular music and jokes). The
most relevant studies for the purposes of our paper are those by Friedman and Lyne (2001),
Dimnik and Felton (2006), Jeacle (2008), Baldvinsdottir et al. (2009), Smith and Jacobs
(2011) and Miley and Read (2012).
Friedman and Lyne (2001) investigate the portrayal of accountants in newspapers and
magazines over 25 years. They emphasize the existence of a stereotype, which depicts
accountants as very conservative and obsessed with precision, as well as having an
unappealing and dull personality. The authors point to the potentially damaging consequences
of such a stereotype, commonly summarized as the ‘bean-counter’. However, they note that
such a stereotype is also associated with trustworthiness and accountability. Dimnik and
Felton (2006), drawing on Beard (1994), analyze the portrayal of accountants in 20th-century
cinema. Their results show that both positive and negative characteristics are represented in
movies and television shows. The authors identify five stereotypes: the dreamer, the plodder,
the eccentric, the hero, and the villain. This last stereotype in particular is characterized as
insincere, dishonest and obsessed with the bottom line. Jeacle (2008) examines the
recruitment literature of the Big Four accounting firms and of the international professional
accountancy bodies and discovers that the recruitment discourse is used to construct an image
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of the ‘colourful accountant’, a happy, young trendsetter with a busy and exciting social life.
Jeacle notes that this communication strategy is risky, as it endangers the essence of the
accounting qualification: that is, its professionalism and integrity. Bookkeeping is associated
with positive features such as precision and reliability, and the methodical number-cruncher
image may have reinforced accountants’ reputation for honesty, giving the profession more
credibility with the public. Jeacle’s study also shows that the stereotypical view of
accountants has worsened in recent years, moving from ‘boring’ to ‘unprofessional’. Finally,
Baldvinsdottir et al. (2009) investigate the image of accountants in the discourse used in the
accounting software advertisements that appeared from the mid-1970s to 2007 in CIMA
(Chartered Institute of Management Accountants) journals. The authors document a profound
change in the image of accountants: in the 1970s and the 1980s, the accountant is depicted as
a responsible and rational person, whereas in the 1990s this professional is presented as an
action-oriented businessman. The most recent advertisements also convey an entertaining
image of accountants. Baldvinsdottir et al. (2009) relate the observed image of the accountant
to hyper-modernity, an hedonistic culture where the “individual does not tend to control
himself, but instead lets himself go” (Baldvinsdottir et al., 2009: 878), raising the question of
whether it is possible to trust an accountant who pursues this objective.
More recently, Smith and Jacobs (2011) examine how accounting and accountants are
characterized in popular music, finding that the accountant is often portrayed as dull, boring
and unimaginative, according to the traditional accounting stereotype. This is a two-sided
stereotype: from one side, this could be considered as offensive and damaging to the
profession, on the other side, to be regarded as dull and boring is an asset that might enhance
the trustworthiness of accountants and secure the legitimacy of the profession. In addition, the
authors show that the image of accountants shifts over time, from the classic but benign
stereotype to a negative portrayal of accountants as scandal-makers. As popular music deeply
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influences culture (both reflecting and shaping it), this shift reflects how accountants are
viewed within society and impacts on recruitment and retention in the profession. Miley and
Read (2012) confirm prior research (Jeacle, 2008), showing that accountants are still
stereotyped in popular culture as dull and boring. They argue that this representation refers to
“the sort of dull and boring person everyone wants as an accountant, though possibly not as a
dinner guest” (Miley and Read, 2012: 710), thus implying that this stereotype serves the
accounting profession in perpetuating the figure of the trustworthy professional.
The image of accountants has also been investigated through perception studies, i.e.,
surveys that have examined the representation of accountants by students and professionals
(Taylor and Dixon, 1979; Hunt et al., 2004; Byrne and Willis, 2005; McDowall and Jackling,
2010; McDowall et al., 2012). The most important conclusion that can be derived from these
contributions is that representations of accountants depend on which groups are surveyed for
an opinion, on their familiarity with the profession and the closeness of their contacts with
accountants. For example, Byrne and Willis (2005) and McDowall et al. (2012) suggest that
the course being followed has an impact on the students’ perception and that attitudes towards
accounting differ significantly depending on whether students learned accounting at
secondary school. Yet, perception studies are not very recent and mainly focused on
university/college students’ opinions (e.g., Imada et al., 1980; Chacko, 1991; Cory, 1992;
Holt, 1994; Fisher and Murphy, 1995; Enis, 1998; Marriott and Marriott, 2003; Coleman et
al., 2004, Sugahara and Boland, 2006).
Ethics and accountants
The second stream of research we refer to considers works published in business-
ethics journals. The contributions on accountants, though often yielding mixed results, share a
common interest, as they aim to understand the effect of variables such as gender, age,
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education, on their ethical attitudes and orientations (e.g., Ponemon, 1990, 1992; Cohen et al.,
1996; Giacomino and Akers, 1998; Conroy et al., 2009). In this stream of literature,
accountants are viewed as professionals who face highly ethical dilemmas (Marques and
Azevedo-Pereira, 2009; Lan et al., 2009), especially after the corporate scandals and
accounting irregularities that have occurred in recent years, (Martinov-Bennie and Pflugrath,
2009). Such dilemmas involve pressure to compromise moral principles to acquire or
maintain clients, as well as actions that are motivated by the individual’s interest or by the
firm’s short-term financial interest (Shafer, 2008).
Contributors to the literature on business ethics have rarely investigated public
perceptions of the ethics of accountants in particular. The existing studies on public
perception have instead focused on business practices, business people and decision making
in general. For example, Cole and Smith (1996) explore the perception of ethics in business
considering students and business people. The authors found a significant difference in
perceptions among the members of the two groups based on gender (inside the students’
group) and length of the time a person has worked in a company. The gender issue in
individuals’ perceptions of ethics is also explored in Franke et al. (1997) and Deshpande et al.
(2000) with consistent results: women are stricter than men in labelling business practices as
unethical. Interestingly, the authors also observe that, as suggested by social role theory
(Eagly, 1987), the gender difference observed declines as the work experience of samples
increases. Contrary to expectations, differences are not influenced by personal relationships or
interaction. Elias (2002) studies the ethical perception of selected earnings management
practices among various groups, i.e., accounting practitioners, faculty and students, showing
that significant differences in perception exist among the groups. A more recent study by
Cagle and Baucus (2006) has highlighted the impact of corporate scandals on finance
students’ perceptions of the importance and prevalence of ethics in business. Surprisingly, the
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authors find a positive relation between studying in-depth cases of the major scandals (e.g.,
Enron, Tyco) and students’ ethical decision making as well as their perceptions of the ethics
of business people. The study closest to ours is Brown et al. (2007), who investigate how
auditors and the public perceive auditors’ professional behaviour. Their results are consistent
with Farwell and Wohlwend-Lloyd (1998) and show that auditors perceive themselves in a
more favourable way. Moreover, different publics (characterized as less or more financially
sophisticated) exhibit different perceptions of auditors’ behaviour, the better being that of the
less financially-knowledgeable public.
In sum, these two streams of literature suggest that the image and perceptions of
accountants are not homogeneous and that they could vary depending on different individual
characteristics (such as gender, age, educational background), on the closeness to the
profession of those surveyed for an opinion and on the sources of information on accountants.
Both streams have failed to provide a specific analysis of public perceptions of accountants’
ethics, as well as the factors that might influence such perceptions, notwithstanding the
importance of this issue for the status and future of the profession (Gaa and Thorne, 2004;
Uysal, 2009). We focus our paper on filling this common gap, by addressing two main
research questions. First, we want to explicitly explore what the GenMe perception of
accountants’ ethics is. Second, we want to comprehend the factors influencing GenMe
perceptions of accountants’ ethics.
The first research question (what is the GenMe perception of accountants’ ethics) is
exploratory in nature, while the second one (the factors influencing GenMe perceptions of
accountants’ ethics) can be further detailed into hypotheses. We formulate theses hypotheses
in the null form as we neither have previous studies conducted in Italy on similar issues nor
existing literature on ethical perception that provides unambiguous results.
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Previous business-ethics literature on the perception of business people’s behaviour
shows that gender matters (e.g. Franke et al., 1997; Deshpande et al., 2000). So, we formulate
our first hypothesis in the following way:
H1: GenMe perceptions of accountants’ ethics are influenced by the respondents’
gender.
Previous studies also support the idea of a relation between the level of education and
ethical perceptions: e.g. Chen et al. (2008) found that students’ perceptions about accounting
change over time during their education. Thus, we formulate our second hypothesis:
H2: GenMe perceptions of accountants’ ethics are influenced by the level of education
(e.g., graduate vs undergraduate students) of the respondents.
Other contributions also show a link between type of educational backgrounds and
professional behaviour perception (e.g., McDowall et al., 2012; Byrne and Willis, 2005). So
we can hypothesise that:
H3: GenMe perceptions of accountants’ ethics are influenced by the type of
educational background (e.g., management and business administration students vs
other students) of the respondents.
Moreover, studies on high school students’ perceptions of accounting (e.g. Byrne and
Willis, 2005; Hartwell, Lightle and Maxwell, 2005; Jeffrey, 2002) overall show that
accounting students hold a positive view of accounting and accountants, while non-
accounting students have a more negative perception. So, on this basis we were able to
formulate our fourth hypothesis:
H4: GenMe perceptions of accountants’ ethics are influenced by an accounting/non-
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accounting background at high school level.
Furthermore, some previous works suggest that the proximity to the profession
influences perceptions of accountants’ ethical behaviour (e.g. Brown et al., 2007; Rogers et
al., 2005). So, we can then formulate our fifth hypothesis:
H5: GenMe perceptions of accountants’ ethics are influenced by proximity to the
profession (e.g., accountants vs non accountants).
Finally, previous literature assumes that parents, friends and teachers may influence
students’ perceptions of the profession (McDowall and Jackling, 2010). Also, the role and the
influence of the media in shaping the image of accountants is well documented by previous
contributors, suggesting that the opinion of accountants is less positive when constructed from
media sources (e.g., Smith and Jacobs, 2011). Thus, we formulate the following last
hypothesis:
H6: GenMe perceptions of accountants’ ethics are influenced by the source of
information about what an accountant is and does.
Research method
Instrument
The research instrument used is a five-page questionnaire organized in different parts.
The first part was designed to capture some background information about the respondents,
such as gender, age and education.
The second part consisted of an open-ended question that required the respondents to
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indicate five characteristics they associate with accountants. The question was open-ended
and framed in the following way: “Take a few minutes to think about an accountant and
indicate at least five characteristics (concerning, for example, the accountant’s physical
aspect, personality traits, competences and cultural background, etc.) you associate with this
professional.” Characteristics were numbered from one to five, so that we could keep track of
the sequence in which they were pointed out by respondents. This question was designed to
capture what are the first characteristics freely associated in the respondent’s mind with the
image of an accountant.
Then respondents were required to disclose their view about accountants’ ethical
behaviour. The following question was presented: “Do you think accountants behave
ethically?” and the respondents were asked to express their opinion using a five-point Likert
scale (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = totally agree).
The following part comprises a list of items typically associated with accountants and
concerning personal and physical traits (e.g., she/he is shy, she/he dresses with a trendy style,
she/he is conscious of her/his duty) and professional traits (e.g., she/he has long-term earnings
potential, her/his job requires an ability to delegate), as well as some traits included in the
definition of ethical behaviour provided by extant contributions (e.g. she/he is law compliant,
she/he is incorruptible). These items are rooted in the previous literature, as shown in Table 1,
and aimed to tap respondents’ perceptions of the image of the accountant, again using a five-
point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = totally agree). In the questionnaire, the list of
items was introduced by the following question: “How/what do you think an accountant is
and does?” We include in the list all the items that we found in the previous literature about
the image of accountants, avoiding any a-priori exclusion, in order to allow respondents to
find all the possible characteristics (e.g., traits, behaviours, skills) that could reflect his/her
own view of accountants3.
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Finally, in the last part of the questionnaire the participants were asked to select up to
three sources of influence on their way of thinking about accountants. In particular, we
incorporated a question phrased as follows: “What is your most important source of
information about what an accountant is and does”. Alternatives such as friends, movies,
books and newspapers were suggested.
[Insert table 1 around here]
We drew on previous literature to operationalize our variables, but we also relied on
preliminary discussion with colleagues to validate the questionnaire and administered it to a
small sample of different respondents (around 15, ranging from university students not
majoring in business administration to practicing accountants) as a pre-test. We made some
necessary revisions after the pre-test (Hunt et al., 1982): some items were re-worded and
better specified.
A covering letter briefly described the project and assured participants of
confidentiality.
Sample
The questionnaire was distributed to students, prospective CPAs, and young employees at
various auditing firms. The basic idea was to reach young people with different backgrounds
(especially in terms of education) and a diverse familiarity with the profession as well as
various degrees of closeness and frequency of contact with accountants, including accountants
themselves. Although we aimed at a certain variety in terms of the characteristics named
above, as anticipated, we decided to focus on a homogeneous group, i.e. GenMe (Twenge,
2006, 2010).
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We contacted students at universities, as well as prospective CPAs and audit firm
employees during the courses they attended to prepare for the state exam for professional
qualification4 or during in-house training courses. Respondents completed the questionnaires
without assistance and returned them to the researchers immediately after completion (which
took, on average, 15 minutes).
[Insert table 2 around here]
Approximately 2,100 questionnaires were distributed, yielding 1,794 usable responses,
a response rate of approximately 85 percent. As shown in Table 2, our final sample was
composed of 1,293 university students and 501 CPA/audit firm employees. Among the 1,293
university students, 773 were studying business and economics, while the rest were studying
other disciplines, including law (17.2%), architecture (15%), engineering (11.8%), classics
and literature (8.5%), political science (8.3%) and mathematics and statistics (5.9%). 767
students were attending a graduate course. The mean age of the respondents was 22.65 years
and there was a slight majority of males (around 52%). Concerning accountants, 232 (46.3%)
were attending an in-house course before starting their professional activity, 129 (25.7%) had
been working in the accounting field for less than one year and the remaining 140 (28%) had
been working as accountants for more than one year.
Results
We performed various analyses on the data collected by means of our questionnaire.
These analyses relate to the two main research questions we address in this paper and will be
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presented accordingly in the following.
1) What is the GenMe perception of accountants’ ethics?
First of all, we reviewed the open-question section of the questionnaire (second
section): in only 245 questionnaires out of 1,794 (13.66 percent), being ethical5 was indicated
as one of the five characteristics freely associated with ‘the accountant’. Among the 245 cases
in which ethical was indicated, 13 percent mentioned it as the first characteristic, 24 percent
as the second, 22 percent as the third, 21 percent as the fourth and 20 percent as the fifth. A
percentage of 84.49 of the respondents considered accountants as being ethical - that is, the
reference to ethics was in the majority of cases positive. The ‘free’ association between
accountants and lack of ethics concerned just 2 percent of the total sample.
The mean referred to the specific question included in the third part of our instrument
(“Accountants behave ethically”) is 3.3 on a five-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 5 =
totally agree), as shown in Table 3 (panel A). Therefore, overall, respondents have a
perception of accountants’ ethics that is significantly different from 3, the neutral point (we
ran a one sample t-test with a test value 3 and results show p=0.0006) and slightly positive.
In order to better capture accountants’ ethical behaviour, we also used other items in
our questionnaire, in addition to the abovementioned specific question. In effect, since
‘ethics’ is an elusive concept, a rather vague and slippery notion that can be understood in a
variety of ways (Cowton, 2009) – ranging from a sense of personal obligation to rules of
conduct that need to be applied in everyday work – we decided to include multiple items in
our measurement instrument to further elucidate this point. While reviewing the accounting-
related literature on ethics, we noted that most authors refer to the pronouncements of
professional bodies and to the formal ethical codes governing the profession (e.g. Everett et
al., 2005; Uysal, 2009). Although we did not find any unequivocal definition, the most
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commonly quoted ideas about accountants’ ethics are: being accountable and trustworthy
(‘trustworthy’); acting with the highest integrity (‘incorruptible’); pursuing confidentiality
(‘discreet’) and objectivity (‘being easily influenced’); and complying with the law (‘law
compliant’). To avoid influencing our respondents, the items related to these dimensions were
not included in the part of questionnaire related to the ethics question, “Do you think
accountants behave ethically?” Instead, they were mixed with the other items presented in the
questionnaire (see Table 1). The results concerning all these dimensions are summarized in
Table 3, panel A, part A.
[Insert table 3, panel A around here]
The findings shown in Table 3 (panel A) support the idea that, overall, accountants are
perceived as being trustworthy (mean 3.48), law compliant (mean 3.47), discreet (mean 3.38)
and not easily influenced (mean 2.54). Yet they are not incorruptible (mean 2.64): recent
corporate scandals may have played a major role in generating the perceptions about this last
item, possibly indicating that accounting scandals tend to remain vivid in the GenMe
consciousness. In fact, as previously cited, GenMe has experienced the collapse of iconic
companies (e.g. Enron, Arthur Andersen and Parmalat, which took place in Italy and is
referred to as Europe's Enron). The correlation matrix shows significant relationships between
the perception of accountants’ behaviour as ethical and all the previously indicated items. In
particular, the relationship is positive with trustworthy, incorruptible, discreet and law
compliant, and negative with easily influenced (Table 3, Panel A, part B).
As an additional analysis (untabulated), we also calculated the correlation coefficients
between ‘ethical behaviour’ and all the other items included in the questionnaire (listed in
Table 1). Interestingly, the three highest coefficients are those with ‘sincere’ (0.382;
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p=0.000), ‘hard worker’ (0.327; p=0.000) and ‘collaborative’ (0.271; p=0.000). These items
indicate some characteristics that members of GenMe associate with accountants’ ethical
behaviour but that are not straightaway included in the definition of professional bodies.
Finally, we ran a factor analysis in order to reduce the proposed items concerning
image (those reported in Table 1 plus ethical behaviour) to fewer, more meaningful variables.
Among the factors that we obtained through factor analysis, there is one that we labelled
ethical7, which, besides the item ethical behaviour, includes the following items: law
compliant, incorruptible, trustworthy, hard worker and discreet (Table 3, panel B).
[Insert table 3, panel B around here]
2) What are the factors influencing GenMe perceptions of accountants’ ethics?
Table 4 summarizes the results of the analyses that explore whether different personal
and educational background characteristics, as well as proximity to the profession and the
source of information on accountants of the surveyed GenMe individuals could influence their
opinions on accountants’ ethics. We used a multiple regression model to test our hypotheses
on influencing factors, inserting also as a control variable respondents’ age (Table 4, panel
A). The dependent variable is the score obtained in the ethical question “Do you think
accountants behave ethically?” 8
[Insert table 4, panel A around here]
Results show (sig. 0.000) that gender matters in determining ethical perceptions and
are in line with those of previous business-ethics literature on the perception of the behaviour
of business people (Franke et al., 1997; Deshpande et al., 2000). So our data support H1: there
18
is a positive association between being female and the perception of accountants’ ethics.
Our findings also support the idea of a relationship between the level of education and
ethical perceptions (and thus H2): being a graduate student is positively associated with the
opinion on accountants’ ethics. Our results are consistent with Chen et al. (2008) who found
that students’ perceptions about accounting change over the period of their education (sig.
0.017). On the other hand, we did not find any relation between the type of educational
background, i.e., being a management and business administration student and the perception
of accountants’ ethics (sig. 0.118), although previous contributions show a link between type
of educational backgrounds and perception of professional behaviour (e.g., McDowall et al.,
2012; Byrne and Willis, 2005). So H3 is not supported by our results.
Finally, our evidence also illustrates (sig. 0.018) that a better perception is reported by
respondents who attended an accounting course at the high school level. This is in line with
studies on high school students’ perceptions of accounting (e.g. Byrne and Willis, 2005;
Hartwell et al., 2005; Jeffrey, 2002) which overall show that accounting students hold a
positive view of accounting and accountants, while non-accounting students have a more
negative perception and supports our fourth hypothesis. We followed up this point and found
that the most positive perception of accountants’ ethics is reported among respondents who
attended an accounting course at the high-school level (mean 3.5, untabulated results),
whereas the respondents who attended an accounting course at university show a less positive
perception (3.33) which is very close to the one exhibited by the whole sample (3.30).
The results illustrated in Table 4, panel A also suggest that proximity to the profession
influences perceptions of accountants’ ethical behaviour and support our last hypothesis (H5).
Being an accounting practitioner has a significant (sig. 0.026) and positive relation with
perceptions of accountants’ ethics, which can be explained by the vested interest they have in
maintaining their own positive identity (Brewer, 1999). These results are also in line with
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Brown et al.’s (2007) findings on auditors’ self-perception. In order to explore this point
further, we ran an ANOVA test (p=0.000) summarized in Table 4 panel B.
[Insert table 4, panel B around here]
Practising accountants have the most positive perception, whereas the most negative is
exhibited by undergraduate students studying subjects other than management and business
administration (e.g. architecture, mathematics and statistics, etc.). On the other hand, among
practising accountants, those who are new entrants (i.e., have just entered the profession and
have basically no work experience in the accounting field)9 report the most positive
perception. These results are in line with the studies that found that students’ own perceptions
influence their career decision (e.g. Holland, 1966, 1973). Our evidence also shows that more
experienced professionals have less positive perceptions of the ethical attitudes of their
colleagues – and themselves – in comparison with new entrants. This could be explained by
their direct experience in the field.
In the questionnaire we also incorporated a question phrased as follows: “What is your
most important source of information about what an accountant is and does?” in order to
explore whether there is a difference between those who claim direct knowledge of an
accountant and those who rely on mass media/school portraits. We grouped the replies into
three categories: those who indicate the school system as the most important source of
information (i.e. books and teachers/instructors); those who rely on mass media (i.e. movies,
TV and newspapers) and finally those who claim direct knowledge (i.e. personal experience,
family and friends). Our results do not show a significant impact of the source of information
about what an accountant is and does on the perceptions of accountants’ ethical behaviour10.
So H6 is not supported by our results.
20
Discussion
First of all, to respond to our first research question, we explored whether accountants
are viewed as ethical or unethical by GenMe individuals. By the analysis of the open-question
section of the questionnaire (second section) we find that just 2 percent of the whole sample
made a free association between accountants and lack of ethics. The fact that accountants are
not generally perceived as unethical is also confirmed by the mean of the item ‘ethical’ for the
whole sample, which is around 3.3 (and significantly - p=0.000 - different from 3). Yet we
cannot conclude that there is not a reputation problem concerning the trustworthiness of
members of the profession, as the mean is nearer to 3 (neutrality) than to 4. The impression of
the accountant as a corrupt professional is not dominant in GenMe, but our results certainly
suggest that there is room for improving public perceptions of accountants’ ethics. Are these
results good news? Care should be taken in interpreting them, given the characteristics of our
respondents. Individuals belonging to GenMe are depicted in the psychological literature as
cheats (Twenge, 2006) with reference to university examinations and as being more
permissive (than the previous generation) in, for example, software piracy (Freestone and
Mitchell, 2004). This casts some doubts on the level of ‘ethicality’ of GenMe individuals
themselves, which is also confirmed by the fact that they tend to see no manipulative
implications in unethical or unconventional methods because ‘”everybody” engages in these
tactics to secure a job (Boyd, 2010).
In order to explore this point further and understand which characteristics are relevant
to GenMe for differentiating between ethical accountants and unethical ones, we also explore
whether the ethics dimension is associated with the other dimensions included in the
definition of ethical behaviour provided by the literature. We found that the perception of
accountants’ ethical behaviour is associated in the GenMe mind with the idea that these
21
professionals should make decisions based on external codes to avoid breaking the law (‘law
compliant’), with the importance of professional independence (‘being easily influenced’) and
with moral content and values in the individual locus (‘incorruptible’ and ‘discreet’) (Cullen
et al., 2003; Martin and Cullen, 2006). The link with the ‘trustworthy’ element - which is at
the root of accountants’ set of practices - indicates a demand for transparency and
accountability as part of the accounting profession’s inherent ethical responsibilities and of
their fundamental role in serving the public interest. These findings may be interpreted in two
ways. On the one hand, they may be understood as a robustness test of our previous question
on the perceived ethical behaviour of accountants, thus moderating some concerns about the
interpretation of ‘ethicality’ imposed by members of GenMe. These results are confirmed also
by factor analysis where the item ‘ethical’ is associated with the same items mentioned above.
On the other hand, they seem to suggest a general convergence between the claims of
accounting bodies, and the GenMe view. This finding could also be evaluated in the light of
the characteristics of the Italian setting (absence of a strong independent profession and low
number of disciplinary measures from professional bodies, as explained in the introduction):
the risk that the integrity and ethical standing of the profession may be perceived as merely
symbolic is more than serious. It is also interesting to note that, in our sample, among the
aforementioned items the highest correlations are between ‘ethical behaviour’ and,
respectively, ‘law compliant’ and ‘incorruptible’. However, the mean of this latter item is
below 3, thus suggesting that, in the GenMe perception, the accountant is ‘vacillating’. This
can be interpreted in the light of the characteristics of Italian accounting regulation, described,
on the one hand, as firmly political and legislative (Di Pietra et al., 2001) but, on the other
hand, as leaving room for a certain flexibility of interpretation (Zan, 1994). This flexibility, in
a country where the perceived level of corruption is relatively high11 and where the
Parmalat12 scandal, defined as ‘Europe’s Enron’, took place - and has certainly impacted the
22
GenMe experience (Twenge et al., 2010) - may explain the strict association between
accountants’ ethical behaviour and incorruptibility, as well as the low mean of this latter item.
Our analyses, moreover, highlight that there are three further items – ‘sincere’, ‘hard worker’
and ‘collaborative’ – strongly (and positively) associated with the item ‘ethical behaviour’.
These items are not generally included in the definition of the dimensions of ethics provided
by the literature and by professional bodies. They thus seem to suggest the existence of a
more multifaceted perception of accountants’ ethics. GenMe appears to exhibit a more
articulated idea about which dimensions are important for judging an accountant as an ethical
professional. In fact, they include some characteristics (such as being collaborative) that are
not straightaway linked to ethics and that are not totally similar to the definition that
professional bodies convey through their public pronouncements on standards of ethics.
GenMe seems also to direct its attention more to individual characteristics: this indicates that
accountants’ ethical behaviour is also considered to be the product of their personal traits and
that the GenMe public demands more than conventional adherence to the law and to the
professional standards of ethics. Notice that our respondents belong to a generation in which
the importance of the individual supersedes all other concerns (Twenge, 2006). This attention
to individual characteristics is not surprising, therefore.
With reference to our second research question, we explored the variables potentially
affecting GenMe perceptions of accountants’ ethics.
Our evidence shows that the opinion on accountants’ ethics is more favourable among
females than among males. This finding could be interpreted in accordance with recent
research conducted by Hunt et al. (2009), which shows that women are less influenced than
men by negative stereotypical representations of the profession. This is also consistent with
previous literature that maintains that women are less likely to believe in occupational
stereotypes (Lips, 1992). From a practical point of view, this fact could positively affect the
23
future image of accountants, since, in Italy, as in most developed countries, top executives
and CFOs are mainly men but the number of women is increasing (albeit in many countries
slowly: e.g., Helfat et al., 2006).
We also found a positive relation between perception of accountants’ ethics and both
being a graduate student and the fact that respondents attended an accounting course at the
high-school level. In particular, the latter might be explained by drawing on Hunt et al.
(2004), who observe that high-school teachers are focused on the book keeping aspect of
accounting. A curriculum with such a focus could create the idea of accountancy as a regular
technical activity (Albrecht and Sack, 2000), associated with precision and reliability (Jeacle,
2008), without much room for subjectivity and flexible interpretation of rules, which could be
understood as potentially unethical behaviour. Our results are in this sense also in line with
the insights provided by McDowall and Jackling (2010) on undergraduate students’ attitudes
towards the accounting profession.
Our analysis also shows that proximity to the profession is important for explaining
perceptions of accountants’ ethics. Accountants had the most positive perception, whereas the
most negative was exhibited by undergraduate students engaged in studies other than
management and business administration. Yet more experienced professionals had less
positive perceptions of accountants’ ethics than their younger colleagues (new entrants: see
Table 4, panel B). This could be interpreted in various ways. First of all, it could be
considered good news that the most negative opinion was exhibited by the respondents who
were not close to the profession, as this perception is likely not indicative of the actual
ethicality of the profession. However, it is bad news from the point of view of the generally
low level of trust in accountants exhibited by GenMe. So our findings call for the need for
appropriate action to reinforce the reputation of the profession, especially with reference to
the general public. Moreover, considering the results about those respondents who had had
24
work experience in accounting, one could assume that their opinions related only to other
professionals and this was not how they viewed themselves. In this case, as more-experienced
accountants know better than younger ones how the business world works, it could be
assumed that they are simply painting a more precise picture of reality. Considering that this
group of respondents represents the best-informed view, it raises some concerns about the
ethicality of accountants. It is easy to imagine a young professional at the beginning of his
career willing to work ethically and being confronted with a deceitful accountancy world,
where ‘compromises’ are an everyday occurrence (Marques and Azevedo-Pereira, 2009).
Alternatively, assuming that the opinion of the more experienced professionals reflects also
the perception they have of themselves, our findings are consistent with the idea that
accounting professionals soften their ethical orientation as they become older (Sankaran and
Bui, 2003). In any case, both interpretations question the effectiveness of professional ethical
codes of conduct and the effectiveness and contents of continuing-education programs in
terms of ethics issues. After the most recent accounting scandals, professional bodies reacted
strongly, emphasizing in public statements (e.g., press releases, officers’ speeches,
testimonials and published articles) the importance of the integrity of accountants (Rogers et
al., 2005; CNDC, 2007). Our evidence suggests that these public statements, together with the
new regulations (e.g., Sarbanes Oxley in the US and similar reforms all over the world,
including Italy) and the establishment of standards (Quick et al., 2007) as means for
promoting “awareness and confidence in the integrity, objectivity, competence and
professionalism of CPAs” (AICPA’s Mission Statement, 2012) may not have been effective,
especially for those who work within the profession.
25
Concluding remarks
In this paper, we have built on the idea that the accounting profession depends heavily
upon its public image to sustain itself (Rogers et al., 2005): as in the words of the CEO of the
AICPA, an accountant’s reputation is his or her “most priceless asset”. Following this line of
reasoning, we maintained that it is essential to understand not only whether accountants
behave ethically but also whether they are reputed to do so, especially after the recent
financial crisis and the publicity surrounding various accounting scandals (Felton et al., 2008;
Gill, 2009). The perceptions of the general public could negatively affect the image of the
entire profession, threatening not only its role in the economic system but also its future.
However, the public view of accountants’ ethics has been under-investigated. We focused on
this area, taking the perspective of GenMe, i.e. those of a homogenous age group whose
opinion is particularly important for the future of the accounting profession.
What we can generally conclude from our evidence is that there is room for
improvement. There are various means of sensitizing GenMe to ethical issues concerning
accountants.
First, universities are not making use of the opportunity to promote ethical
consciousness through accounting courses for young students. In fact, from an analysis of the
accounting curricula of the main Italian universities, a serious shortage of courses in ethics
emerged, signalling a lack of attention among academics to the importance of incorporating
ethical issues in university-classroom activities (Gunz and McCutcheon, 1998). It is essential
that students are made aware of the possible dilemmas that they might face during their
careers (Marques and Azevedo-Pereira, 2009). According to previous psychological studies,
GenMe individuals become stressed when they receive ambiguous signals from the
environment: they are perfectionists, apprehensive and show low self-reliance (Twenge,
26
2006). All these traits make them ill-equipped to deal with the dilemmas typically
encountered during a career in accountancy. Explicitly introducing ethical and deontological
issues in accounting courses could enhance both the attitude of students about accountants
and their understanding that accounting decisions may be complex, due to a “mesh of
conflicting obligations that constitutes our lives” (Young and Annisette, 2009: 95). A good
starting point to improve this situation could be to take inspiration from the approach
proposed by the International Accounting Education Standards Board (IAESB), which
emphasizes not only the ability of individuals to perform to the standards expected of
professional accountants but also an appropriate level of values, ethics and attitudes to
achieve that competence.
Second, accounting firms and other professional bodies should question whether the
importance of professional integrity and of serving the public interest is sufficiently stressed
in their continuing education and training programs as well as in their communications. In
recent years, specific attempts have been made by accounting firms to promote a more active,
sociable and high-status professional. This is because professional bodies and accounting
firms are concerned about the lack of talented graduates willing to choose a career in
accounting due to the low appeal of the profession (e.g., McDowall and Jackling, 2010;
American Assembly, 2003). However, this representation seems to clash with the idea of
professional reliability, accountability and ethical behaviour (Jeacle, 2008). Perhaps, in their
public communications, accounting firms and other professional bodies could better balance
the ‘exciting’ side of the profession with more emphasis on values related to professional
integrity and ethics. Moreover, our results question the effectiveness of professional codes of
conduct and the effectiveness and contents of continuing-education programs in terms of
ethical issues.
In conclusion, although our study provides some new insights into perceptions of the
27
accounting profession, it is important to acknowledge the limitations of our research that are
in turn linked to the elements of novelty of our study, i.e., the fact that we focus on GenMe
perceptions and that we collected our data in Italy. Specifically, our results should be
interpreted with some caveats, i.e., keeping in mind that GenMe is considered to be
manipulative, permissive and willing to engage in unethical behavior, and that Italy does not
have a strong independent profession. For this reason, we think that an interesting avenue for
future research could be a comparison of the image of ethical behaviour among accountants
across various generations and/or countries and to relate the potential differences to diverse
socio-cultural and institutional settings to better understand which results are generalizable
across generations and/or countries. Another possible avenue for future research could take
into consideration the calibre of skills of the respondents. As professional image is an
important consideration for people making career choices (Smith and Briggs, 1999) and the
main drivers of quality for accounting work are the calibre of skills and personal qualities of
the human resources, it should be interesting to focus on management and business
administration students and distinguish the opinions of those who want to become an
accountant or are entering the profession from the respondents who do not want to become
accountants, also taking into consideration personal skills. Basically, this means
distinguishing the opinions of the ‘high-potential’ students from those of other students, in
order to explore whether those students who are interested in an accounting career and see
accountants as more ethical are also the brightest and the best.
1 Despite a certain convergence during the past few years, the Anglo-Saxon or Anglo-American context has always been contrasted with the continental one, relying on a relatively weak accounting profession, heavy governmental influence on accounting regulation, and exhibiting a higher importance of debt financing over equity capital (Di Pietra et al., 2001). 2 Though the approach adopted in this paper is different, we would like to acknowledge a rich stream of research on professions originated by the notable contributions by Foucault (e.g. Goldstein, 1994; Abbott, 2005; Power, 2000). 3 We performed factor analysis among all the items included in the questionnaire and conducted Harman’s one-factor test to check for the presence of common method effect. The result suggests that common method bias is
28
not of concern and thus is unlikely to confound the interpretations of our results. In fact, the first (largest) factor does not account for a majority of the variance (but only for 20.257%). 4 To be an Italian CPA, one is required to have earned a university degree in management and business administration or the equivalent, and to have completed a training period followed by a state examination. The purpose of the exam is to ascertain the theoretical knowledge of the candidates and their ability to put this theory into practice (Cameran, 2007). 5 We coded as ethical all the characteristics that include the words ethical/ethics together with the following words: honest (honesty), sincere, truthful (true), fair, law compliant, correct, moral rigidity, respectful, incorruptible, trustworthy, reliable, responsible, dutiful, conscious of her/his duties, rigorous, conscientious. As unethical we coded the opposite of the words/expressions reported before together with: able to cheat, cheater, swindler, tax dodger, involved in bribery and corruption. 6 The same test was run every time in the paper we referred to a significant difference between a mean and a certain value (generally 3, the neutral point). 7 The Cronbach’s Alpha for the ‘ethics’ factor is 0.755. with the lower limit of 0.6 considered acceptable for newly developed scales and 0.7 for established scales (Nunnally and Berstein, 1994). 8 Results do not change with the exception of the attendance of an accounting course at the high-school level in the case we use as dependent variable the ethical factor score (see Table 3, panel B) instead of the score obtained in the ethical question. 9 As previously explained, some of the respondents were contacted during in-training courses attended by just-employed graduates. 10 Results do not change using different way to group respondents’ replies. 11 International rankings based on CPI (Corruption Perception Index, created in 1995, ranging from 10 to 1) show that in 2008 Italy ranked 55th, between South Africa and Seychelles, with a score of 4.8; Denmark, New Zealand, and Sweden ranked highest, with 9.3. Somalia ranked lowest, with a score of 1. To give the reader a better idea of the implications of these data, it could be worthwhile knowing that other European countries with characteristics similar from an institutional point of view to Italy (like France and Spain) are ranked 23rd and 28th, with a score of 6.9 and 6.5 respectively. The UK and the USA are ranked 16th and 18th (score 7.7 and 7.3) (<http://www.transparency.org/research/cpi/cpi_2008>, last access 9 June 2014). 12 In December 2003, Parmalat’s - the world’s largest dairy firm, with 36,000 employees, ranked as the eighth largest company in Italy - financial problems became known publicly. Parmalat’s primary auditor was one of the Big Four audit firms, but the Milan branch of Grant Thornton dealt with some of the company’s subsidiaries. Two partners of the Italian affiliate of Grant Thornton were the first individuals to be prosecuted in the scandal. On 28 July 2004, following the events linked to the Parmalat scandal, Consob (the Italian regulatory body for the stock exchange, the equivalent of the SEC in the US), for the first time since its establishment, removed the renamed Italaudit S.p.A. (previously Grant Thornton S.p.A.) from the list of audit firms allowed to audit the financial statements of Italian listed companies.
29
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Table 1: Questionnaire items (*)
Questionnaire items References
He is bald e.g. Cory (1992); Dimnik and Felton (2006) He is male e.g. Bierstaker et al (2005) Her/his job implies variety of tasks e.g. Pollock et al (2002); Granlund and Taipaleenmäki (2005);
Hartwell et al. (2005) Her/his job presents opportunities for advancement e.g. Hartwell et al. (2005); Jeacle, (2008) Her/his job requires ability to make decisions e.g. Granlund and Lukka, (1997); Scott et al. (1998) Her/his job requires ability to delegate e.g. Scott et al. (1998) Her/his job requires ability to work with others e.g. Scott et al. (1998); Caglio (2003) Her/his job requires computer skills e.g. Caglio (2003); Hunt et al. (2009) Her/his job requires leadership e.g. Scott et al. (1998); Burns and Baldvinsdottir (2005) Her/his job requires problem-solving ability e.g. Smith and Briggs (1999) Her/his job requires written and oral communication skills e.g. Scott et al. (1998) She/he can speak foreign languages e.g. Scott et al. (1998) She/he complies with the law e.g. Dimnik and Felton (2006); Jeacle (2008) She/he is concerned with job security e.g. Hartwell et al. (2005) She/he dresses formally e.g. Jeacle (2008) She/he dresses with a trendy style e.g. Dimnik and Felton (2006) She/he feels comfortable with public speaking e.g. Dimnik and Felton (2006) She/he gets high marks at school e.g. Scott et al. (1998), Schlee et al. (2007) She/he gets on well with the opposite sex e.g. Dimnik and Felton (2006) She/he has a calm disposition e.g. Coate et al. (2003); Dimnik and Felton (2006) She/he has flexible working hours e.g. Hartwell et al. (2005) She/he has free time e.g. Grayson (1999); Pollock et al. (2002) She/he has little faith in her/himself e.g. Coate et al (2003) She/he has long-term earnings potential e.g. Pollock et al. (2002); Hartwell et al. (2005); Jeacle (2008) She/he has no friends e.g. Anderson-Gough et al. (1998); Dimnik and Felton (2006) She/he has the opportunity to do the whole job from beginning to the end
e.g. Nouri et al. (2005)
She/he has other interests apart from accounting e.g Hartwell et al. 2005; Holt (1994); Smith and Briggs (1999) She/he has prestige e.g. Friedman and Lyne (2001) She/he is a person of habit e.g. Coate et al. (2003) She/he is always sitting at her/his desk e.g. Dimnik and Felton (2006) She/he is ambitious e.g. Dimnik and Felton (2006); Schlee et al. (2007) She/he is an idealist e.g. Coate et al. (2003) She/he is boring e.g. Dimnik and Felton (2006) She/he is brave e.g. Dimnik and Felton (2006) She/he is capable in her/his job e.g. Friedman and Lyne (2001) She/he is collaborative e.g. Coate et al. (2003) She/he is committed to life-long learning e.g. Nouri et al. (2005); Scott et al. (1998) She/he is conscious of her/his duty e.g. Coate et al. (2003) She/he is demanding e.g. Coate et al. (2003) She/he is discreet e.g. Bougen (1994) She/he is easily influenced e.g. Dimnik and Felton (2006) She/he is energetic e.g. Coate et al. (2003) She/he is generous e.g. Coate et al. (2003) She/he is good at maths e.g. Scott et al. (1998); Schlee et al. (2007) She/he is a hard worker e.g Jeacle (2008) She/he is incorruptible e.g Yeager (1991); Bougen (1994); Friedman and Lyne (2001) She/he is kind e.g. Dimnik and Felton (2006) She/he is meticulous e.g. Friedman and Lyne (2001) She/he is modest e.g. Coate et al. (2003) She/he is old e.g. Dimnik and Felton (2006) She/he is organized e.g. DeCoster (1971) She/he is pale e.g. Bierstaker et al. (2005) She/he is physically attractive e.g. Dimnik and Felton (2006) She/he is poor at coping with stress e.g. Dimnik and Felton (2006) She/he is sad e.g. Parker (2000); Jeacle (2008)
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Table 1: Questionnaire items: cont’d (*)
Questionnaire items References
She/he is shy e.g. Dimnik and Felton (2006) She/he is sincere e.g. Dimnik and Felton (2006) She/he is small e.g. Dimnik and Felton (2006); Jeacle (2008) She/he is thin e.g. Dimnik and Felton (2006) She/he is trustworthy e.g. Di Pietra et al., 2001 She/he is lucky e.g. Dimnik and Felton (2006) She/he practises sports e.g. Jeacle (2008); Anderson-Gough et al. (1998); Scott et al.
(1998) She/he prefers to be alone e.g. Hunt et al. (2009) She/he remains shut in a room e.g. Nouri et al. (2005) She/he speaks abnormally e.g. Coate et al. (2003) She/he suffers from nervous ticks e.g. Dimnik and Felton (2006) She/he travels a lot e.g Jeacle (2008) She/he trusts other people e.g. Coate et al. (2003) She/he wears glasses e.g. Dimnik and Felton (2006) She/he works on her/his own e.g. Dimnik and Felton (2006) She/he works with numbers all day long e.g. Grayson (1999)
(*) Five-point Likert scale [1 = Strongly disagree; 5 =Totally agree]. Items were randomized in the handed out questionnaires.
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Table 2: Demographic sample characteristics
Sample composed by Accountants Students Total
Gender Male 283 642 925
Female N/A
209 9
651 0
860 9
Medium age (min 18, max 31) 25.1 21.71 22.65
Total 501 1,293 1,794
42
Table 3: Accountant’s ethical behaviour perception
PANEL A PART A: Descriptive Statistics
N N/A Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation
ethical behaviour 1784 10 1.00 5.00 3.2993 1.17941
trustworthy 1787 7 1.00 5.00 3.4807 1.04278
incorruptible 1783 11 1.00 5.00 2.6444 1.20478
discreet 1786 8 1.00 5.00 3.3813 1.05781
easily influenced 1783 11 1.00 5.00 2.5429 1.06006
law compliant 1784 10 1.00 5.00 3.4664 1.13477 Five-point Likert scale [1 = Strongly disagree; 5 =Totally agree]
PART B: Correlations (sig. at ** 0.01 and *0.05 level 2-tailed)
ethical
behaviour trustworthy incorruptible discreet easly influenced law compliant
ethical behaviour Pearson Correlation 1 .393** .405** .170** -.178** .592**
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000 .000 .000
N 1784 1780 1777 1780 1776 1777 trustworthy Pearson Correlation .393** 1 .374** .173** -.254** .473**
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000 .000 .000
N 1780 1787 1779 1782 1779 1780 incorruptible Pearson Correlation .405** .374** 1 .251** -.224** .462**
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000 .000 .000
N 1777 1779 1783 1779 1775 1776 discreet Pearson Correlation .170** .173** .251** 1 -.048* .201**
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000 .042 .000
N 1780 1782 1779 1786 1779 1779 easly influenced Pearson Correlation -.178** -.254** -.224** -.048* 1 -.216**
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000 .042 .000
N 1776 1779 1775 1779 1783 1776 law compliant Pearson Correlation .592** .473** .462** .201** -.216** 1
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000 .000 .000
N 1777 1780 1776 1779 1776 1784
PANEL B
Ethical Factor (Cronbach's Alpha 0.755)
Questionnaire items She/he complies with the law 0.750 Her/his behaviour is ethical 0.709 She/he is incorruptible 0.691 She/he is trustworthy 0.523 She/he is a hard worker 0.484 She/he is discreet 0.366
The extraction method used was Principal Component Analysis and the rotation method was Varimax with Kaiser Normalization.
43
Table 4: Accountant’s ethical behaviour perception: determinants
PANEL A
Model Summary
Model R R Square Adjusted R
Square
Std. Error of the
Estimate
1 ,225 ,051 ,046 1,15470
ANOVAa
Model Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.
1
Regression 123,988 9 13,776 10,332 ,000b
Residual 2329,342 1747 1,333
Total 2453,330 1756
Variables Standardized
Coefficients
t Sig.
Beta
(Constant) 29,749 ,000
Gender (1=Male) -,107 -4,515 ,000
MSc students -,078 -2,392 ,017
Mng&BA students ,043 1,565 ,118
High school accounting course attendance ,056 2,368 ,018
Accountant ,098 2,221 ,026
School system ,009 ,331 ,741
Mass media -,008 -,259 ,795
Direct Knowledge -,020 -,614 ,539
Age ,055 1,521 ,129
Dependent Variable: accountants’ ethical behaviour
44
Table 4: Accountant’s ethical behaviour perception: determinants (cont'd)
PANEL B Accountants’ ethical behaviour: additional analysis
Sig. 0.000 Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Minimum Maximum
Undergraduate non-Mng&BA 3.1529 1.13816 .07127 1,00 5,00
Undergraduate Mng&BA 3.3480 1.24301 .07861 1,00 5,00
MSc in accounting 3.2732 1.17071 .08405 1,00 5,00
Accountants 3.6384 1.09311 .04913 1,00 5,00
Only accountants (subsample): Accountants' ethical behaviour & working experience
Sig. 0.025 Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Minimum Maximum
no experience 3.7817 1.01972 .06739 1.00 5.00
up to 1 year 3.5039 1.21416 .10774 1.00 5.00
more than 1 year 3.5252 1.07225 .09095 1.00 5.00
Total 3.6384 1.09311 .04913 1.00 5.00
45