The Effect of Organizational Culture and Ethical Orientation on Accountants' Ethical Judgments

This paper examines the relationship between organizational ethical culture in two large international CPA firms, auditors' personal values and the ethical orientation that those values dictate, and judgments in ethical dilemmas typical of those that accountants face. Using an experimental task...

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Autori: Douglas, Patricia Casey (Autore) ; Davidson, Ronald A. (Autore) ; Schwartz, Bill N. (Autore)
Tipo di documento: Elettronico Articolo
Lingua:Inglese
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Pubblicazione: Springer Science + Business Media B. V 2001
In: Journal of business ethics
Anno: 2001, Volume: 34, Fascicolo: 2, Pagine: 101-121
Altre parole chiave:B Ethics
B Ethical Judgment
B personal values
B Ethical Orientation
B Moral Intensity
B Organizational ethical culture
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Riepilogo:This paper examines the relationship between organizational ethical culture in two large international CPA firms, auditors' personal values and the ethical orientation that those values dictate, and judgments in ethical dilemmas typical of those that accountants face. Using an experimental task consisting of multiple judgments designed to vary in "moral intensity" (Jones, 1991), and unique as well as tried-and-true approaches to variable measurements, this study examined the judgments of more than three hundred participants in our study. ANCOVA and path analysis results indicate that: (1) Ethical judgments in situations of high moral intensity are affected by personal values and by environmental variables, such as the professional code of conduct (direct and indirect effects) and previous ethics instruction (direct effect only). (2) Corporate ethical culture, and a relatively strong firm rules-orientation, affect auditors' idealism but not relativism, and therefore indirectly affect ethical judgments. Jones' (1991) moral intensity argument is supported: differences in the characteristics of specific judgment tasks apparently result in different decision processes.
ISSN:1573-0697
Comprende:Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1023/A:1012261900281