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Typical pathways to professional qualification
Source publication
This paper investigates how ethics is incorporated in the qualification process for prospective professional accountants across Australia and New Zealand. It does so by examining the structure of these qualification processes and by analysing the learning objectives and summarised content for ethics courses that prospective accountants take either...
Citations
... Changes in accounting curricula such as inclusion of sustainability-related accounting procedures (Miller & Willows, 2023), ethics (Boyce, 2014;West & Buckby, 2020) and sociological concepts (Boyce et al., 2019), as well as emphasis on how senior managers need to be made accountable to both capital and labour (James, 2009) can challenge conventional discourses in accounting. It is not only the teaching practices that need to be altered but even the ideologies embedded in them (Deegan, 2017). ...
... Students were asked about the nature of their courses and modes of delivery. Attention was also paid to investigating whether in the teaching of accounting ethical matters and the social implications of accounting itself were explored and what was the student's perception of such issues (Boyce, 2014;Boyce et al., 2019;West & Buckby, 2020). ...
Studies of accounting education have exposed the link between traditional ways of teaching accounting and neoliberal beliefs. Nevertheless, the perspectives of students are yet to attract a level of attention that is consistent with their crucial role in the accounting education system. Drawing upon Scott's understanding of 'infrapolitics' and resistance, the study investigates how students make sense of neoliberal accounting education and react. Interviews with students at five highly regarded universities in Pakistan show how the former are aware of the challenges posed by neoliberal approaches to accounting education. By investigating the under-explored context of Pakistan, this study enhances understanding of power and resistance by illuminating how accounting students perceive neoliberal values taught in higher education and resist their inculcation. The study focuses on less obvious forms of resistance, showing how allegedly passive actors as students may well be resisting neoliberal principles enshrined in accounting education in unobstructive forms.
... Despite the prevalence of teaching-related issues, previous studies in ethical issues have focused on moral reasoning and ethics of teachers (Nwanyanwu, 2018;Prayoga & Afrizal, 2021;West, 2017;Gaffikin & Lindawati, 2012) with few of them focusing on how ethics are useful and necessary for a teacher's profession (Flanagan & Clarke, 2017;Rossouw, et al., 2010;West & Buckby, 2020). There have also been a few studies on teachers' ethical perceptions (Felton, Dimnik & Bay, 2008;Odar, et al., 2017). ...
... Sensitivitas etis berkorelasi positif dengan pendidikan etis (Taylor, 2013), tetapi perilaku yang benar secara moral membutuhkan lebih dari sekadar kepekaan dan penilaian moral. Dalam banyak kasus, pendidikan etika tidak melampaui ini untuk menangani masalah motivasi moral dan karakter (West and Buckby, 2020). Abdolmohammadi dan Reinstein (2012) merekomendasikan perlunya memperhatikan pandangan para sarjana, praktisi, regulator dan pemangku kepentingan lainnya dalam merancang kurikulum moral dan etika akuntan. ...
Studi ini mengeksplorasi mengenai banyaknya keterlibatan akuntan dalam skandal laporan keuangan yang disebabkan oleh penilaian etis akuntan tertentu dan sejumlah akademisi merekomendasikan bahwa sistem pendidikan ikut bertanggung jawab. Makalah berpendapat bahwa dalam penerapan etika akuntansi, khususnya islam, pendidikan akuntansi harus fokus pada kode etik dan nilai-nilai agama.
... Sensitivitas etis berkorelasi positif dengan pendidikan etis (Taylor, 2013), tetapi perilaku yang benar secara moral membutuhkan lebih dari sekadar kepekaan dan penilaian moral. Dalam banyak kasus, pendidikan etika tidak melampaui ini untuk menangani masalah motivasi moral dan karakter (West and Buckby, 2020). Abdolmohammadi dan Reinstein (2012) merekomendasikan perlunya memperhatikan pandangan para sarjana, praktisi, regulator dan pemangku kepentingan lainnya dalam merancang kurikulum moral dan etika akuntan. ...
This study explores the extent to which accountants are involved in financial reporting scandals causedby the ethical judgment of certain accountants and a number of academics recommend that theeducation system be held accountable. The paper argues that in applying accounting ethics, especiallyIslam, accounting education must focus on ethical codes and religious values.
... Personality is the values possessed by individuals, which are reflected in their ethical attitudes and actions. In contrast, the ethical attitudes and actions of accountants will significantly determine the trust of public accountants as users of their services (Onumah et al., 2021;Sonnerfeldt & Loft, 2018;West & Buckby, 2020). Regarding accountant performance, Rafa and Dwi argue that: "Accounting profession is not only a theory like what students get in class, and the output is the ability to read reality, even though accountants need that ability" (Rafa). ...
Abstrak – Prinsip Dasar Etika Akuntan: Perspektif Al-Baqarah dan Pancasila
Tujuan Utama – Penelitian ini berupaya untuk mengembangkan prinsip dasar etika akuntan bernilai religius dan Pancasila.
Metode – Penelitian ini menggunakan metode wawancara dengan informan akademisi akuntansi dan penyedia jasa akuntan. Teknik analisis data menggunakan nilai Al-Baqarah dan Pancasila.
Temuan Utama – Kondisi kebebasan nilai pada kualitas etika akuntan saat ini tidak memiliki kecondongan pada keserakahan duniawi. Hal tersebut mendorong pentingnya pemahaman utuh seorang manusia untuk menyelaraskan keilmuan dan tindakannya dengan hati. Penelitian ini mengusulkan konsep prinsip dasar etika yang berlandaskan Al-Baqarah dan Pancasila sebagai suatu alternatif.
Implikasi Teori dan Kebijakan - Penelitian ini menemukan perspektif spiritual dan pancasila saling utuh dan berkorelasi. Kedua nilai tersebut dapat posisi untuk mengakomodir kualitas etika akuntan.
Kebaruan Penelitian – Landasan agama dan Pancasila dikombinasikan untuk menjadi prinsip dasar etika akuntan yang utuh.
Abstract – The Basic Principles of Accountant Ethics: Al-Baqarah and Pancasila Perspectives
Main Purpose – This study seeks to develop the basic principles of ethical accounting with religious values and Pancasila.
Method – This study uses interviews with accounting academics and accounting service providers. The data analysis technique uses the values of Al-Baqarah and Pancasila.
Main Findings – The condition of value freedom on the ethical quality of accountants currently does not tend towards worldly greed. This condition encourages the importance of a complete understanding of a human being to harmonize his knowledge and actions with the heart. This study proposes the concept of basic ethical principles based on Al-Baqarah and Pancasila as an alternative.
Theory and Practical Implications - This study finds that spiritual and Pancasila perspectives are integral and correlated. Both of these values can be positioned to accommodate the ethical quality of accountants.
Novelty – Religious foundations and Pancasila are combined to become the basic principles of accounting ethics.
... Education in general and universities in particular may play a significant role in contributing to the development of the ethical self. There is an emerging stream of literature examining ethics education (Nguyen & Dellaportas, 2020), investigating whether ethics can be taught in accounting (Kaufmann, 2018;Kerr & Smith,1995;Ponemon, 1993), who should be teaching ethics (Caglio & Cameran, 2017) and how ethics should be taught (Davidson, 2011;Kaufmann, 2018;West & Buckby, 2020;Young & Annisette, 2009). Prior studies have mixed results regarding the approaches in which ethics should be taught and about the impact of ethics education. ...
... First, it is debated whether ethics should be taught in a selfstanding course or integrated throughout the curricula. Several studies (e.g., Evans et al., 2006;Eynon et al., 1997;West & Buckby, 2020) find that in many courses ethics education is limited and advocate for introducing mandatory ethics course from academic to professional environments. Other studies (Miller et al., 2014;Shawver & Miller, 2017) investigate the moment and timeline of the ethics intervention (whether it is one-off and self-standing or it is spread across the accounting curricula of universities and accounting associations). ...
... In this approach, ethics is taught first as a general selfstanding course, not necessarily under the accounting department, then students are supported to discover ethical issues and develop their reasoning throughout accounting courses and, finally, a self-standing course in ethics is taught by the accounting department. This proposed approach was further researched by West and Buckby (2020) who provide support for the proposal but find that it is not available in most education programs (only a few include a mandatory course with ethics at its core) and, where it is available, they are most likely undergraduate than postgraduate programs. ...
Research Question: How do accounting versus non-accounting Romanian students perceive the factors influencing the construction of the ethical self? Motivation: The answer is important in the context of accountants’ ethics being increasingly under scruity following corporate scandals. Probably because in Romania we do not have the same context, prior research on accounting ethics is scarce, so little is known about how various educational aspects impact skills and behavior. Idea: In this study we offer insights about the academic ethics education in Romania and discuss its complexity, usefulness and effectiveness. To this purpose, we involve the Romanian end-users of the academic accounting ethics education (the students) to ask for their perception regarding the role education plays in developing the ethical self. Data: We survey 413 students from five Romanian universities. Tools: We conduct descriptive statistics, cross-sectional analysis and regression analysis on the data from the survey and we mobilize an institutional-based theoretical framework (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983) to discuss the factors associated with the construction of the ethical self. Findings: Our results indicate that while all isomorphic pressures are present in the creation of the ethical self, the most important factors appear to be the coercive (from classes on ethics) and mimetic ones (resulting from the need to follow immediate proxies such as classmates, professors, and the profession), and to a lesser extent the normative ones. Contribution: Understanding students’ perception of their ethics education will help both academia and professional associations adapt their style of teaching ethics so that it becomes more effective and applicable to the users.
... As maintained by Young and Annisette (2009, p. 99), ethics (and by extension ethics teaching) is a domain which is not "separable from accounting or business contexts". We suggest that past accounting ethics research centered on course descriptions and formal pedagogical designs (e.g., West & Buckby, 2020) may underestimate what happens in the classroom. One telling example is our own case: although ethics did not appear from the course outline to be a central topic, it nonetheless dominated in-class discussions and permeated students' end-of-term assignment. ...
For many years questions have been posed about the way ethics is taught in accounting education. The teaching of ethics is often criticized for emphasizing the legal dimension to the detriment of the moral one, among other reasons. This case study focuses on an accounting course intended to develop and stimulate students’ critical thinking on accounting and its role in daily life. The investigation is based on an empirical study that took place in the 2015–2016 academic year, when the first author undertook non-participant observation and examined the final term assignment (a short essay) of the great majority of the 120 students enrolled in this course. One of the course’s main features was to expose the students to critical thinking, through analyses and discussions of the roles of accounting and accountants in organizations and society—using research articles as a backdrop to stimulate analysis and discussion. Our investigation suggests that the course is able to sensitize students to professional ethics and responsibilities. Our argument, broadly supported by an empirical case analysis, is that a course centered on a dialogical approach and critical thinking on the role of accounting and accountants in society may impact the development of ethical sensitivity in future accounting practitioners.
... In response to this call, several studies (Abdelhak, 2019;Adekoya et al., 2020;Mohd Ghazali, 2021;Mustapha and Nadaraja, 2014;Nadaraja and Mustapha, 2017;Odar et al., 2017;West and Buckby, 2020) have in the past examined issues concerning ethical judgement and conduct of accounting professionals. In part, most of these studies have been motivated by the fact that several of the accounting scandals have occurred due to non-observance of ethical standards on the part of accountants. ...
... All the concerns raised resulted in numerous research on ethics in the accounting curriculum as a way to promote ethical sensitivity and increase ethical awareness in the profession. (Arfaoui et al., 2016;Avci, 2017a;Azhar et al., 2019;De Los Reyes et al., 2017;Dow et al., 2018;Nadaraja and Mustapha, 2017;Venkat Raman et al., 2019;West and Buckby, 2020). In assessing the ethics education features of the current ethics programs rolled out in schools to ascertain the level of quality in ethics education, Avci (2017b) found both educators and students believing that ethics education generates a positive impact on ethical knowledge, awareness and reasoning; hence, it is significant in accounting education. ...
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the attitude of accounting students towards money and their ethical perceptions, and ascertains whether ethical perception of students could be influenced by their attitudes towards money.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey method of research was adopted, and a set of questionnaires based on the money ethic scale (MES) and existing ethical scenarios was administered to the target respondents. The MES was subjected to an exploratory factor analysis to examine its dimensionality and, by means of a cluster analysis, the respondents were classified based on similarities in attitude towards money. The relationship between attitude towards money and ethical perception was ascertained by means of a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) test.
Findings
The results suggest the respondents are generally ethically oriented and that the females are more ethical than males. Differences exist in terms of the attitude of respondents towards money and the MANOVA results show that money attitudes are good predictors of ethical perceptions of students.
Research limitations/implications
Findings of this study demonstrate that an understanding of individuals' attitude towards money may be an important way of predicting how they will behave when faced with ethical dilemmas.
Originality/value
The analysis makes an important contribution to prior literature by highlighting the effect of money attitude on ethical perception.
... Annual Global Ethics Day came to its 6 th anniversary in October 2019 (Carnegie Council, 2019). Over the past few decades, ethic education and studies has been preaching across the globe (Andersen & Klamm, 2018;Miller & Shawver, 2018;West & Buckby, 2018). Therefore, theoretically corporate scandals such as bribe, corruption fraud, and earning management should be minimized. ...
A competent board of directors (BOD) is one of the firm's resources to attain competitive advantage of a firm. It impacts firm in different perspectives including firm performance. BOD diversity is a subset of board composition. It is a key factor of firm performance as women directors enhance BOD function in multiple approaches. Nonetheless, majority of the previous studies were focused on the direct relationship between women directors and firm performance without the consideration of its moderating effect. This paper proposes a need to initiate another study to address the knowledge gap by examine the moderating effect of women directors on the relationship between BOD and firm performance. This conceptual paper discusses from the point of academic and professional perspectives. Academically, it could verify the preference of developed countries in employing women force to improve firm performance. Besides, it could address the controversial view of the way how women directors enrich BOD function since they are a key element in governance. In additional, scouting the moderating effect of women directors between BOD and firm performance could contribute a novelty since existing evidence are scare and incomprehensive. Professionally, this paper will provide valuable insight to policy makers in drafting Corporate Governance guideline in future for the best interest of both company itself and country's economic prosperity as a whole. Moreover, it could also supply valuable insight to nomination committee in recruiting new member especially female member to revamp firm performance. Finally, it could serve as an extra consideration to investor in making economic decision as it could increase the possibility of a desirable investment return.
... Ellis (2013) presents the advantages of a stand-alone accounting ethics course addressing specific ethics applications across the curriculum, and Caliyurt and Crowther (2006) call upon accounting academics to revise course materials to educate students on ethics by integrating ethics subject matter into diverse accounting courses. A large amount of literature supports the integration of ethics education in the accounting curriculum (see for example Blanthorne et al., 2007;Burns et al., 2015;Chen, Chen, & Chenoweth, 2013;Jackling et al., 2007;Langenderfer & Rockness, 1989;Levy & Mitschow, 2008;Mintchik & Farmer, 2009;Simpson et al., 2016;Sisaye & Lackman, 1994;Thomas, 2004;West & Buckby, 2018). Bampton and Cowton (2002) argue that integration provides an opportunity to expose students to a variety of ethical issues as well as reflect on broader ethical scenarios which accounting students may face in real life. ...
This study conducts a historical review of accounting ethics education literature over a forty-eight-year period from 1970 to 2018. It synthesizes accounting ethics education research published in academic research journals to identify trends and key themes. The study contributes to the body of accounting and education literature by giving meaning and shape to the development corpus of accounting ethics education research. Early research highlighted the need for ethics education in the accounting curriculum, while research in the latter part of the relevant period, moved toward understanding the impact of ethics education on students’ cognitive moral development and decision-making. Key topic themes inherent in the data include teaching methods, the importance of ethics education, ethical decision-making, moral development, the integration of ethics into accounting courses, and curriculum related issues. Alongside the rising number of publications during the relevant period, the findings suggest an increasing sophistication in teaching pedagogies and growing interest of ethics education research in developing countries. Overall, this study underlines the importance of ethics education research to the edification and ethics of future accountants.
