ISSN: 2222-6990
Open access
Several highly publicized financial disasters in the past decade have brought into question the auditors’ integrity and credibility especially related to their ethical judgment. More specifically, misconduct of auditors, has drawn significant attention to the importance of ethics and integrity in public accounting. As a result, accounting firms have taken actions to re-establish credibility within the profession. In the wake of the aforementioned accounting scandals, many authors have argued that ethics education should start early in an auditors career, even before joining the profession. Noting the importance of moral intensity construct and ethical orientation dimensions in shaping the auditors’ ethical judgment, this current study provides further evidence by investigating these two variables on future auditors’ ethical judgment. The Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) technique is used to silmutaneously analyze the data as to establish a behavioral model of future auditors’ ethical judgment. The findings showed that the moral intensity and ideologistic ethical orientation influences the future auditors’ ethical judgments, but not the relativistic ethical orientation. Implications of the findings and future research are discussed in the paper. The findings could contribute to the existing literature on ethics within the academic curriculum and, in particular, to accounting ethics in Malaysia.
Cohen, J. R. & Bennie-Martinov N. (2006). The applicability of a contingent factors model to accounting ethics research. Journal of Business Ethics, 68: 1-18.
DeZoort, T., Harrison, P. & Taylor, M. (2006). Accountability and auditors materiality judgments: The effects of differential pressure strength on conservatism, variability, and effort. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 31 (4/5): 373-90.
Fernando, M. & Chowdhury, R.M.M.I. (2010). The relationship between spiritual well-being and ethical orientations in decision making: An empirical study with business executives in Australia. Journal of Business Ethics, 95(1), 1-15.
Forsyth, D. R. (1980). A taxonomy of ethical ideologies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39 (July), 175-184.
Greenfield, A. J., Norman, C. & Wier, B. (2008). The effect of ethical orientation and professional commitment on earnings management behavior. Journal of Business Ethics, 83, 419-434.
Jones, T. M. (1991). Ethical decision making by individuals in organizations: An issue- contingent model. Academy of Management Review, 16, 366395.
KPMG International. (2012). The global center for leadership & business ethics presents Laureate awards to Whitehead, Cadbury and Robèrt. Retrieved July 15, 2012, from http://www.kpmg.ca/en/news/pr20050601.html
Kung, Fan-Hua & Huang, Cheng-Li. (2013). Auditors moral philosophies and ethical beliefs. Management Decisions, 5(3), 76-92.
Ludlum, M. P. & Moskaloinov, S. (2005) Russian student views on business ethics: Post-Enron, College Student Journal, 39, 156165.
Marques, P. A. & Pereira, J. A. (2009). Ethical ideology and ethical judgments in the Portuguese accounting profession. Journal of Business Ethics, 86: 227-242.
OFallon, M. J. & Butterfield, K. D. (2005) A review of the empirical ethical decision-making literature: 19962003, Journal of Business Ethics, 53(4), 375413.
Singh J. S., Vitell S. J., Al-khatib J. & Clark I. (2007). The role of moral intensity and personal moral philosophies in the ethical decision-making of marketers: A cross-cultural comparison of China and the United States. Journal of International Marketing, 15( 2), 86112.
Singhapakdi, A., Vitell, S. J. & Franke, G. R. (1999). Antecedents, consequences and mediating effects of perceived moral intensity and personal moral philosophies. Journal of' the Academy of Marketing Science. 27(1), 19-36.
Suryaningrum, D. H., Hastuti, S. & Suhartini, D. (2013). Accounting student and lecturer ethical behavior: Evidence from Indonesia. Business Education & Accreditation, 5(1), 31-41.
Sweeney B. & Costello F. (2009). Moral intensity and ethical decision-making: An empirical examination of undergraduate accounting and business students. Accounting Education, 18(1), 7597.
Westra, L.S. (1986). Whose Loyal Agent? Towards an Ethic of Accounting. Journal of Business Ethics 5 : 119-128.
In-Text Citation: (Johari, Rashid, Yazid, & Salleh, 2018)
To Cite this Article: Johari, R. J., Rashid, N., Yazid, A. S., & Salleh, F. (2018). An Empirical Examination of Undergraduate Accounting Students’ Ethical Judgment: Malaysia Evidence. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 8(12), 669–681.
Copyright: © 2018 The Author(s)
Published by Human Resource Management Academic Research Society (www.hrmars.com)
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode