Responses to the second statement were significantly
different, with the percentage in agreement increasing from
47.7 percent in 1993 to 66.0 percent in 2004. Thus, in the
2004 study, almost two-thirds of accountants believe that
“one principal effect of the accounting profession’s past
ethical canon against advertising is to protect established
accountants and large firms from competition from young
accountants and small firms.” An even larger percentage (71.7
percent in 2004), agreed with the statement that “ethical
codes against advertising exist to maintain and increase the
incomes of practicing accountants.” This was a significant
increase over the 55.1 percent who agreed with the statement
in 1993. In 2004, 61.9 percent of respondents indicated
disagreement with the statement “if accountant service
advertising was widely used, the large, established firms
would get bigger, while the smaller firms would become even
less competitive than they are at present.” In the 1993 study,
41.2 percent of the respondents disagreed with the statement.
Respondents do not see advertising of accounting services
helping large, established firms become even larger. In fact,
the results appear to indicate that respondents believe
advertising of accounting services will allow smaller firms to
be more competitive.