Perceptions of Accountants’ Ethics: Evidence from Their Portrayal in Cinema

This article examines popular representations of accountants’ ethics by studying their depiction in cinema. As a medium that both reflects and shapes public opinion, films provide a useful resource for exploring the portrayal of the profession’s ethics. We employ a values theoretical framework to an...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Felton, Sandra (Author) ; Dimnik, Tony (Author) ; Bay, Darlene (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer Science + Business Media B. V 2008
In: Journal of business ethics
Year: 2008, Volume: 83, Issue: 2, Pages: 217-232
Further subjects:B Accountant stereotypes
B Movie accountants
B Accountants and ethics
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Summary:This article examines popular representations of accountants’ ethics by studying their depiction in cinema. As a medium that both reflects and shapes public opinion, films provide a useful resource for exploring the portrayal of the profession’s ethics. We employ a values theoretical framework to analyze 110 movie accountants on their basic ethical character, ethical behavior, and values. We use factor analysis to reduce 22 personal characteristics to five factors encompassing two terminal and three instrumental value sets, which we relate to ethical behavior. Findings indicate that in popular cinema, the ethical behavior of accountants is positively associated with intrinsic terminal values, but negatively related to competency (instrumental) values.
ISSN:1573-0697
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10551-007-9613-z