Do gender, educational level, religiosity, and work experience affect the ethical decision-making of U.S. accountants?

Modern biology has been developing so rapidly that the field can amazingly provides great benefits for human beings’ prosperous life either at present or in the future. It may, however, influence the ethical aspects negatively due to reductionism. Therefore, bioethics is highly required to control the devastating growth of modern biology and drive it toward persistent commitment upon human benefits (maslahah). This paper suggests that Bioethics–based learning be implemented in any educational level to develop the students’ critical thinking. Such learning might be put into practice by promoting the ethical decision-making method integrated with religious (Islamic) perspective. The integration would result in the students’ considering the six principles of Islamic bioethics in any modern biology studies so that the students can precisely predict the beneficial or dangerous consequences of their scientific activities.

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The Effects of Professional Role, Decision Context, and Gender on the Ethical Decision Making of Public Accounting Professionals

Behavioral Research in Accounting ◽

10.2308/bria-51090 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 27 (1) ◽

pp. 55-78 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

Donna D. Bobek ◽

Amy M. Hageman ◽

Robin R. Radtke

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Work Experience ◽

Ethical Decision ◽

Ethical Decision Making ◽

Professional Role ◽

Public Accounting ◽

Decision Context ◽

Accounting Professionals ◽

Males And Females ◽

And Gender

ABSTRACT This study investigates the degree to which professional role (auditor or tax professional), decision context (an audit or tax environment), and gender influence the ethical decision making of public accounting professionals. The primary analysis, including all 134 accounting professionals who participated in our experiment, indicates that these participants are both less likely to indicate they would concede to a client in a contentious situation and less likely to recommend conceding when they are in an audit as opposed to tax context. Furthermore, work experience in auditing (as opposed to tax) is associated with a decreased likelihood of conceding to the client in both contexts. However, when data for males and females are analyzed separately, professional role, context, and moral intensity are significantly related to males' decision making, but are not significant with respect to females' decisions. This suggests that males and females may use different decision-making processes. Possible theoretical explanations for these findings are discussed.

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Role of Journalists’ Gender, Work Experience and Education in Ethical Decision Making

Asian Social Science ◽

10.5539/ass.v9n9p1 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 9 (9) ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Nafise E. Motlagh ◽

Md Salleh Bin Hj Hass ◽

Jusang Bin Bolong ◽

Mohd. Nizam Osman

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Work Experience ◽

Ethical Decision ◽

Ethical Decision Making

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Auditor ethics: do experience and gender influence auditors’ moral awareness?

Managerial Auditing Journal ◽

10.1108/maj-07-2020-2745 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽

Author(s):

Nieves Carrera ◽

Berend Van Der Kolk

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Work Experience ◽

Ethical Decision ◽

Ethical Decision Making ◽

Moral Dilemmas ◽

Future Research ◽

Moral Awareness ◽

Content Type ◽

And Gender ◽

General Business

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine how experience and gender relate to the auditors’ moral awareness. Design/methodology/approach Hypotheses are informed by a neurocognitive approach to ethical decision-making and tested using survey data from 191 auditors of a Big Four audit firm in The Netherlands. Findings The main findings indicate that more experienced auditors (i.e. those with more years of work experience, a higher rank and a higher age) show higher levels of moral awareness. This positive relationship is stronger for morally questionable situations related to accounting and auditing, compared to general business moral dilemmas. In addition, the results support the expectation that on average, female auditors have higher moral awareness than their male counterparts. Originality/value To the knowledge of the authors, this is the first study that considers a neurocognitive approach to inform hypotheses about the antecedents of auditors’ moral awareness. The findings suggest that the involvement of experienced auditors in ethical decision-making processes may be beneficial given their enhanced ability to identify ethically disputable situations as such. Furthermore, increasing the number of women in senior positions may positively affect ethical decision-making in audit firms. Finally, this paper presents directions for future research.

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Marital Status, Religiosity, And Experience As A Predictor Of Ethical Awareness Among Accounting Professionals

Journal of Business & Economics Research (JBER) ◽

10.19030/jber.v12i2.8526 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 12 (2) ◽

pp. 125 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Javad Gorjidooz ◽

Cindy Greenman

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Marital Status ◽

Work Experience ◽

Quantitative Research ◽

Ethical Decision ◽

Ethical Decision Making ◽

Rank Order ◽

Future Research ◽

Ethical Awareness ◽

Ethical Decisions

Many corporations and their accountants have taken ethics for granted. This oversight has led to the closing of companies such as Enron and WorldCom. Accountants are placed in positions of having to render ethical decisions daily, and when they lose sight of ethical values, the dissolution of corporations can occur. The goal in this quantitative research is to investigate the relationship between the independent variables of marital status, religiosity, and years of work experience and the dependent variable of ethical decision-making. Eighty-three members of the Michigan Association of Certified Public Accountants (MACPA) completed an internet-delivered survey on ethical dilemmas. Because they were contacted through the MACPA weekly E-newsletter, the respondents were those members who chose to accept the weekly electronic newsletter and who read it. The 83 participant responses were saved within Survey Monkey and extracted by the authors. A nonparametric Kruskal-Wallis test examined differences in mean rank order of ethical decision-making scores among the marital status groupings and revealed no significant differences in mean ranks (?2 (4, N=83) = 3.810, p = .432) or among the years of work experience (?2 (5, N = 83) = 7.768, p = .170). Based on results of the tests, the hypothesis that there is no relationship between ethical decision-making and marital status and between ethical decision-making and years of work experience cannot be rejected. A Spearman correlation analysis revealed no significant association (rho = -0.084, p = 0.226, n = 83) between ethical decision-making and religiosity. Based on the results of these and related tests, the hypothesis that there is no relationship between ethical decision-making and religiosity could not be rejected. The results from this study have added to the limited literature on ethical decision-making and three variables of marital status, religiosity, and years of work experience. The authors recommendation for future research is to conduct studies within different professional organizations and with additional variables including gender, sexual orientation, age, and self-assessments. Also, given the small response size of this study, a larger, more representative sample size would give the study more credibility.

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