of ethics direct the professional accountants behaviors, but there are psychological attributes that govern those behaviors.
A number of studies of accounting and business ethical judgments grounded in the theory of developmental stages of moral reasoning. The degree of moral development helps to explain several dimensions of professional accountants' behaviors.
The DIT scores have been used to study a number of aspects of moral development across age groups, educational levels, political persuasions, and across culture. For the accounting circle, the DIT have been utilized as an explanatory variable for auditors' time underreporting (Ponemon, 1992), managers evaluation judgments (Rutledge and Karim, 1999), accountant's litigation support judgments (Ponemon, 1995). Ponemon (1995) concluded from his scientific fashion that study professional expertise is incomplete without the ethical reasoning skills to comprehend ethical conflict inherent in the professional role.