Undergraduate accounting students' perceptions of accounting ethics: A cross-cultural comparative study.

摘要

The increasing globalization of the accounting profession and recent accounting scandals has brought about a growing research interest on accounting ethical decisions in cross-cultural contexts. Taking accounting students in the U.S. and Taiwan as research subjects, this study investigates whether future accountants from different cultures display differences in their ethical perceptions, which includes ethical sensitivity, ethical development, ethical intention, and ethical orientation. Moreover, the study attempts to explore the possible cultural and other factors that influence the differences of accounting students' ethical perceptions between the U.S. and Taiwan.;The instruments used in the study consist of the Accounting-specific Defining Issues Test (ADIT), which is used to assess participants' moral reasoning ability, the Accounting-specific Multidimensional Ethics Scales (AMES), which is employed to measure participants' ethical sensitivity, ethical intention, and ethical orientation when facing ethical dilemmas, and the Values Survey Module 1994 (VSM 94), which is used to determine participants' scores in each of the Hofstede's cultural dimensions. Based on the concept of matched-samples, undergraduate junior and senior accounting students from four universities in the United States and Taiwan, with two in each country, were selected and studied.;Consistent with Hofstede's national cultural index, U.S. participants in the study have higher scores on the individualism/collectivism (IDV) and masculinity/femininity (MAS) dimensions, whereas Taiwanese participants have higher scores on the power distance (PDI), uncertainty avoidance (UAI), and short/long-term orientation (LTO) dimensions measured by the VSM 94. Results of the study indicate significant differences in ethical sensitivity, ethical development, ethical intention, and ethical orientation between the U.S. and Taiwanese accounting students. Hofstede's cultural factors to some extent reveal significantly influences on students' ethical perceptions, but with a situational-contingent pattern.;In addition to cultural factors, the study also finds that gender significantly influences accounting students' ethical sensitivity and ethical intention, and religious beliefs significantly influence students' ethical sensitivity, ethical development, and ethical intention. Ethical development is significantly related to exposure to ethics courses. Moreover, the relationships between ethical perceptions are found to be situation-specific in the study. These findings promote further cross-cultural understanding of differences in ethical perceptions between two groups of future accountants.