Premium
Accountants, Ethical Issues and the Corporate Governance Context
Author(s) -
Leung Philomena,
Cooper Barry J.
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
australian accounting review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.551
H-Index - 36
eISSN - 1835-2561
pISSN - 1035-6908
DOI - 10.1111/j.1835-2561.2005.tb00255.x
Subject(s) - situational ethics , position (finance) , accounting , perception , corporate governance , business ethics , context (archaeology) , business , public relations , psychology , field (mathematics) , political science , social psychology , finance , paleontology , mathematics , neuroscience , pure mathematics , biology
This paper aims to identify the types of ethical issues encountered by accountants, the influence of such experience on accountants' ethical perceptions and the effect of situational factors—the field of employment and the accountant̂s position in the organisation—on accountants' perceptions of ethics. Differences were found in perceptions about ethical issues among accountants in different fields of employment. The study also confirms the inverse relationship between hierarchical position and ethical perception among top, middle and junior staff, with higher‐ranked accountants perceiving most ethical issues as less important than their subordinates.