6. Conclusions, limitations and suggestions for future research
This paper has examined the influence of personal attributes, organizational ethics position and other factors which were rules conformance, active participation in profession activities, ethics instructions received and understanding of the professional code of conduct on the Malaysian accountants’ judgment on questionable ethical scenarios. A total of 250 were distributed to accountants registered with the Malaysian Institute of Accountants. Of this number, 221 questionnaires were duly completed and returned. The main findings revealed from the analysis are that age, corporate ethics position, active participation in the profession activities and understanding of the professional code of conduct are significant
influence of accountants’ judgments on ethical situations. Older accountants, corporations with higher ethics scale and accountants who understand the professional code of conduct are expected to be stricter in judging questionable ethical situations. In contrast, accountants who actively participate in the profession activities tend to be more acceptable to questionable scenarios. The results support Kohlberg’s (1973, 1981) theory of moral development which suggests that as individuals aged, their decision-makings will be influenced by ethical values. The findings also provide support to Hunt and Vitell’s (1986) model which proposes that organizational ethical climate is one of the environmental factors affecting ethical judgments.
When the vignettes are separated into illegal and legal situations, the results appear to be similar. Gender, professional qualifications and rules conformance remain insignificant in both models. Age and understanding of the professional code of conduct are statistically significant at the 1 percent and (marginally) 10 percent levels respectively in both models. The only inconsistent results are regarding corporate ethics scale which is statistically significant at the 5 percent level in the illegal vignettes but only marginally significant at the 10 percent level in the legal vignettes, active involvement in the profession activities which is significant at the 5 percent level in the illegal vignettes but more significant at the 1 percent level in the legal vignettes and ethics instruction received which is not significant in the illegal vignettes but marginally significant at the 10 percent level in the legal vignettes. It would appear that ethics instruction received may have some positive impact on ethical judgments only in legal situations. Overall, it may be concluded that factors influencing accountants’ ethical judgments are not dependent upon the legality of the situations.
6. Conclusions, limitations and suggestions for future researchThis paper has examined the influence of personal attributes, organizational ethics position and other factors which were rules conformance, active participation in profession activities, ethics instructions received and understanding of the professional code of conduct on the Malaysian accountants’ judgment on questionable ethical scenarios. A total of 250 were distributed to accountants registered with the Malaysian Institute of Accountants. Of this number, 221 questionnaires were duly completed and returned. The main findings revealed from the analysis are that age, corporate ethics position, active participation in the profession activities and understanding of the professional code of conduct are significantinfluence of accountants’ judgments on ethical situations. Older accountants, corporations with higher ethics scale and accountants who understand the professional code of conduct are expected to be stricter in judging questionable ethical situations. In contrast, accountants who actively participate in the profession activities tend to be more acceptable to questionable scenarios. The results support Kohlberg’s (1973, 1981) theory of moral development which suggests that as individuals aged, their decision-makings will be influenced by ethical values. The findings also provide support to Hunt and Vitell’s (1986) model which proposes that organizational ethical climate is one of the environmental factors affecting ethical judgments.When the vignettes are separated into illegal and legal situations, the results appear to be similar. Gender, professional qualifications and rules conformance remain insignificant in both models. Age and understanding of the professional code of conduct are statistically significant at the 1 percent and (marginally) 10 percent levels respectively in both models. The only inconsistent results are regarding corporate ethics scale which is statistically significant at the 5 percent level in the illegal vignettes but only marginally significant at the 10 percent level in the legal vignettes, active involvement in the profession activities which is significant at the 5 percent level in the illegal vignettes but more significant at the 1 percent level in the legal vignettes and ethics instruction received which is not significant in the illegal vignettes but marginally significant at the 10 percent level in the legal vignettes. It would appear that ethics instruction received may have some positive impact on ethical judgments only in legal situations. Overall, it may be concluded that factors influencing accountants’ ethical judgments are not dependent upon the legality of the situations.
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