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Accountants’ Cognitive Styles and Ethical Reasoning: A Comparison Spanning Fifteen Years
Mohammad J. Abdolmohammadi,
Bentley College
Jane Fedorowicz, Bentley College
Ophera Davis, Davis Consulting
ABSTRACT. The collapse of corporate giants such as Enron and others has eroded public confidence in auditors. Critics argue that accountants’ lapses in professional judgment may have been due to “poor ethics” or inadequate ethical reasoning. In this study we document the cognitive styles and ethical reasoning levels of a large sample of accounting students and entering professionals before and after the recent corporate scandals. We hypothesize, and provide evidence, that the dominant cognitive make-up of accountants is associated with lower levels of ethical reasoning. Consistent with the literature, we find no gender effects, but significant positive effects for some other demographic descriptors. Finally, we hypothesize that due to the attention to ethics in both academia and the accounting profession in recent years, the ethics scores of accountants in 2005 should be higher than that of 1990. However, we were surprised to find the opposite to be true.
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