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Assessing the Ethical Behavior of Accounting and Business Majors
Thomas G. Calderon, The University of Akron
Akhilesh Chandra, The University of Akron
Mark Welfley, The University of Akron
ABSTRACT. Students in a computer-based experiment made choices that we classified as either ethical or unethical. The choices we evaluated for ethical conduct were based on actual due diligence work that students performed, and on the way they reported their work. We found that a relatively large proportion students claimed in documented working papers that they did work, which they actually did not perform. We also observed significant differences between the ethics of students in higher and lower level classes. Students in higher level classes did not always demonstrate the type of moral development that the literature indicates comes with age and experience. Our results suggest that older and more experienced subjects may be less willing to compromise technical competence than their less experienced, younger peers.
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