Accounting and Management Information Systems

Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 6175, 2013

ACCOUNTING PROFESSIONALS
PERCEPTIONS OF ETHICS EDUCATION:
EVIDENCE FROM TURKEY
Ali UYAR1 and Ali Haydar GNGRM
Fatih University, Istanbul, Turkey

ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study is to investigate accounting professionals
perceptions of (1) importance of education phases and environmental
conditions in development of ethics awareness, (2) approaches in
accounting ethics education in university and professional
pre-qualification, and (3) coverage of accounting ethics education.
Data was collected from public accountants via an online
questionnaire during November and December, 2011. The
questionnaire was developed based on a review of earlier studies. A
total of 219 accountants replied to the survey. The findings
demonstrated that most of the respondents (i.e. practicing
accountants) have not taken ethics education previously. Secondly, the
results provided evidence that all stages of education life, ranging
from kindergarten to university, are important and contribute to the
development of ethics awareness. Environmental factors are also
important in the development of ethics awareness. Giving ethics as a
stand-alone course is considered the most appropriate approach in
teaching ethics. Responses indicated that auditing is the most and
only course in which ethics should be taught. Moreover, the
respondents approved the inclusion of ethics within various stages of
the certified accountancy curriculum.

Accounting, accountant, ethics, education, Turkey.

Corresponding author: Ali Uyar, Adress: Fatih University, 34500, Bykekmece, Istanbul,
Turkey, Tel: +90 212 8663300, Ext: 5042; Fax: +90 212 8663342, E-mail addresses:
[email protected]

Accounting and Management Information Systems

INTRODUCTION
Accounting education has been considered technical in nature (Gunz &
McCutcheon, 1998). However, emergence of corporate scandals raised the question
of how much are ethical issues covered in accounting education?. Acting
professionally requires more than technical knowledge. For example, professional
bodies and business organizations, which realize the importance of ethics, establish
codes of ethical behavior to guide and support individuals in ethical decisionmaking (Prodhan, 1998). However, these codes will not be sufficient for
individuals to behave ethically. It needs to be supported by moral development and
thought of others. Therefore, designing courses for enhancing moral reasoning is
relevant in ethics education (Prodhan, 1998).
Ethics in business practice has attracted a renewed interest in the wake of the
corporate scandals of the 1990s and early 2000s (Duarte, 2008). After those
infamous corporate scandals arising from misdeeds of accountants and executives,
ethics-related research has gained momentum. One of the streams of these works is
the education of ethics in business and accounting schools, because ethics
education is expected to reduce the level of fraud in the business world by
integrating ethics into accounting programs (Caliyurt & Crowther, 2006). Earlier
studies have been conducted on various samples, such as students, public
accountants, academics or various combinations of them since they represent
different facets of the subject. However, there some unanswered questions such as
which education phase is the most important in shaping ethical awareness of a
person?, how ethics should be taught in university?, which subjects should
ethics education cover?, and In which stage of Certified Public Accountancy
internship, professional ethics should be considered?. This study aims at
answering these questions taking into consideration gender, education level,
experience, and job title of the respondents.
The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. In the next section, a literature
review is provided. In the third section, scope and methodology is presented. In the
fourth section, results are analyzed. In the last section, concluding comments are
provided.
1. LITERATURE REVIEW
There are various issues regarding ethics education within accounting such as
giving it as a stand-alone course or integrating it with other accounting courses, its
content and coverage, targeted goals, methods employed, and so on. Unlike the
technical part of accounting education, teaching ethics in business schools seem to
be away from structured coverage, methods, and so on. Whose responsibility is
ethics education? is also one of the basic questions about ethics education. For
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Accounting professionals perceptions of ethics education: evidence from Turkey

example, family, religious groups, school, university, business, profession are

possible answers to the question (Bampton & Cowton, 2002). Actually, ethical
issues penetrate all veins of the life. Thus, people continuously face ethical
dilemmas in personal life and work life. Therefore, it cannot be squeezed to one
point of education life; rather it should be dispersed over various stages of
education life.
Proponents of ethics education argue that it has a positive effect on students
ethical attitude, whereas some others argue that ethics cannot be taught. Bean and
Bernardi (2007) state that ethics education is essential for certified public
accountants, and it must be learned either at college level or professional level
ethics courses in accounting. Before all, recognition of the importance of ethics
education in business and accounting schools by both faculty members and
students is the first step in achieving the targeted goals. Adkins and Radke (2004)
provided empirical evidence that students perceive ethics education in accounting
courses to be more important than faculty members do. In an Australian study, the
great majority of survey respondents, who were students, expressed the view that
it is important for future managers to study ethics, and also felt that they had
benefited from studying ethics in undergraduate management subjects (Duarte,
2008).
Bampton and Cowton (2002) state that the question of what place should ethics
have in the curriculum? is one of the basic issues regarding ethics education.
There has been much debate on the subject in scholarly publications. Dellaportas
(2006) indicated that a discrete course dedicated to accounting ethics education can
be designed. Gunz and McCutcheon (1998) argue that ethics can be integrated into
other courses rather than taught as a separate course. However, they contend that
this approach might affect the commitment of instructors as the coverage depends
on their will. Moreover, Richards et al. (2002) point out that finding sufficient time
and space within curriculum in business schools is not easy since the business
environment undergoes periodic changes and expansion which requires the
addition of some topics. Thus, addition of a course may lead to cutting some other
courses. A survey conducted on chairpersons of accounting departments in the US
indicated that ethics received the most coverage in auditing course rather than other
accounting courses (Cohen & Pant, 1989).
In the relevant literature, there are examples of two approaches; teaching ethics in
accounting as a stand-alone course (Dellaportas, 2006) or integrating it within other
accounting courses (Sims, 2000; Molyneaux, 2004). Dellaportas (2006) designed a
discrete course in an Australian University entitled Ethical Issues in Accountancy
(see course outline in Dellaportas, 2006, p. 396). He proved that the discrete
accounting course emphasizing dilemma discussion has a positive and significant
effect on students moral reasoning and development. Following another approach,

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Sims (2000) explains how the business faculty at Nova Southeastern University
instituted an Ethics Across the Curriculum Policy step-by-step. The business
facultys commitment to ensure that students learn ethical issues are relevant in
every business field is stated in policy statement for course syllabi. The policy
requires the incorporation of ethics formally within objectives of various business
courses, and inclusion of student assignments and classroom activities on the
course syllabi. Other universities might adopt similar approach following the
guidelines in the article (Table 1). Similarly, Dunfee and Robertson (1988) provide
guidance how a business ethics course can be incorporated into key MBA courses
based on a project implemented in The Wharton School. They show the inclusion
of ethics topics into a sample of courses in detail.
Table 1. Steps in developing Ethics across the Curriculum Policy
step 1
step 2
step 3
step 4
step 5
step 6
step 7

faculty agreement that business ethics is important

faculty agreement that universities should teach business ethics
faculty agreement that they should be the ones who teach business ethics
faculty share how they currently handle business ethics within their courses
ask for volunteers to formalize the teaching of business ethics within their
courses
write an ethics across the curriculum policy statement
provide faculty support
Source: Sims (2000: 441)

Prodhan (1998) succinctly states that the purpose of ethics education is to help
people resolve ethical dilemmas. Felton and Sims (2005) explain very well what
the targeted goals of teaching ethics should be. They suggest and provide examples
of ten goals and in brief these are (Felton & Sims, 2005):
Students should understand their core values at the end of the course, since
it is a prerequisite for ethical decision-making,
It should broaden students understanding of ethics and its complexities,
since it goes beyond simplistic view of what is right and wrong,
Students should realize that ethics is embedded in all business decisionmaking rather than an isolated discipline,
It should broaden students cultural perspectives as ethics reflects cultural
values,
Students should be aware of expanding number of stakeholders rather than
just investors and learn to take into consideration their interests,
Students should learn to consider the consequences of a managerial
decision-making for next generations,
It should enhance the comfort levels of students to discuss ethical issues in
managerial and other settings,
It should increase students awareness of ethical and leadership
accountabilities as managers such as exercising power responsibly and
judiciously,
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Accounting professionals perceptions of ethics education: evidence from Turkey

It should develop an awareness within students that accountable managers

need to expand their ethical sensitivities and accountabilities continuously
across time,
Students should be encouraged to understand the corporate cultures and
values of companies when searching for jobs.

There are several suggested pedagogical approaches to achieve the abovementioned targeted goals. McPhail (2001) suggests various methods that can be
employed to develop an ethics program and a moral sensitivity towards others for
accounting students such as group learning, real life case studies, role play, film,
literature, and personal value journals. He further emphasizes the importance of
interdisciplinarity about content of the course and composition of the class.
However, regardless of the method implemented, the commitment of faculty
members is very important in achieving desired result.
Moreover, there are some obstacles in front of ethics education in accounting.
Limited material or in sufficient coverage of the subject within accounting
textbooks (Bampton & Cowton, 2002), unwillingness of some academics to handle
the subject, insufficiency of expert in the field, and not believing in benefits of
ethics education might be among them.
2. METHODOLOGY
The questionnaire was developed based on a review of earlier studies, and put on
the World Wide Web. Data was collected during November and December, 2011.
A total of 219 accountants replied to the survey. This paper covers the analyses of
seven questions from the questionnaire, some of which were modified from
previous studies (Bampton & Cowton, 2002; Cohen & Pant, 1989; Caliyurt, 2007).
Thus, seven sections of the questionnaire were structured to answer the following
research questions:
RQ1: Whether respondents have received accounting ethics education?
RQ2: How important are education phases (i.e. kindergarten, secondary,
high school, university) in the development of ethics awareness?
RQ3: How important are environmental conditions (i.e. family, peers,
education life, and work environment) in the development of ethics awareness?
RQ4: How ethics education in accounting should be delivered to the
students in university?
RQ5: Which topics should accounting ethics course cover?
RQ6: In which course should accounting ethics be taught?
RQ7: How ethics education can be integrated into internship stage which is
the initial stage of professional development?

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3. ANALYSES AND RESULTS

3.1 Demographic background
As in every survey questionnaire, we asked demographic questions to the
respondents regarding respondents gender, job title, income level, education, and
experience. Out of 219 respondents, 179 are male and 40 are female. Furthermore,
124 respondents have experience of less than or equal to 10 years, the remaining 95
have more than 10 years. Most of the respondents are graduates of faculty, or
holders of master degree or PhD. Majority of the responding accountants earn
between 1,000-3,000 TL a month. The highest percentage in job title belongs to
Certified Public Accountants (48.4 percent). The detailed statistics for all
demographic properties are given in Table 2.
Table 2. Demographic background
Frequency

Percent

40
179
219

18.3
81.7
100.0

II. Experience
1-5 years
6-10 years
11-15 years
16-20 years
Over 20 years
Total

62
62
41
23
31
219

28.3
28.3
18.7
10.5
14.2
100.0

III. Education
High school
2-year college
Faculty
Master degree/PhD
Total

9
13
144
53
219

4.1
5.9
65.8
24.2
100.0

IV. Title
Intern
Independent Accountant
Certified Public Accountant (CPA)
Sworn-in Certified Public Accountant (SCPA)
No title
Total

66
14
106
6
27
219

30.1
6.4
48.4
2.7
12.3
100.0

I. Gender
Female
Male
Total

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Accounting professionals perceptions of ethics education: evidence from Turkey

V. Income level
Less than 1.000 TL*
1.000-3000 TL
3000-5000TL
5000-10.000TL
Over 10.000 TL
Total

Frequency

Percent

11
134
48
24
2
219

5.0
61.2
21.9
11.0
0.9
100.0

128
26
15
13
5
32
219

58.4
11.9
6.8
5.9
2.3
14.6
100.0

VI. Cities
stanbul
Bursa
Ankara
Kayseri
Ktahya
Others (Less than 5)
Total
* Turkish liras

Have you received accounting ethics education?

Initially, the respondents were asked whether they have received ethics education
previously. 73 accountants answered yes to this question, whereas the remaining
146 answered no. We have checked whether males or females are more educated
in terms of ethics; however the results did not show much difference. Those who
are educated are twice as much as those who are not in both genders. Table 3
presents cross-tabulation of accountants who received accounting ethics education
or not. In all titles, those who have received accounting ethics education are no
more than those who have not.
Table 3. Have you received accounting ethics education?
Have you received
accounting ethics
education?
Total

Yes
No

No title
7
20

Intern
21
45

IA
3
11

CPA
39
67

SCPA
3
3

Total
73
146

27

14

66

106

219

Importance of education phases in the development of ethics awareness

We asked respondents to evaluate the importance of education phases in the
development of ethics awareness based on a 5-point Likert scale of 1 (not
important) to 5 (very important) (Table 4). Responses regarding four primary
stages of education life, secondary school received the highest ranking
(mean=4.55), followed by high school (mean=4.44), preschool (mean=4.39), and
university (4.25). First of all, these means tell us that all stages of education life are
important and contribute to the development of ethics awareness certainly.
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However, comparison of means of items put forward that early and late education
stages are relatively less important than the others. This might be due to the fact
that children are too small to understand the ethical principles in their early lives.
On the contrary, it may be too late to shape ethics awareness of a person in the
university. Thus, ethics education should not be the concern of only university life,
but also the concern of secondary and high school stages. In those stages, at least
some of basic concepts can be taught to the students by using various tools such as
media. Bampton and Cowton (2002) also found that school has the second highest
responsibility in ethics education after family, but before university.
Table 4. Importance of education phases in the development
of ethics awareness
Preschool (kindergarten)
Secondary school
High school
University

Mean Std. Dev. Rank

4.39
0.944
3
4.55
0.773
1
4.44
0.657
2
4.25
0.891
4

Importance of environmental conditions in the development of ethics awareness

We asked respondents to evaluate the importance of four environmental factors
that shape the development of ethics awareness based on a 5-point Likert scale of
1 (not important) to 5 (very important) (Table 5). Responses indicated that family
life plays a key role (mean=4.72) since an individuals personality is shaped within
family primarily by behaviors of parents. If parents set a good example for
children, they are likely to mimic them in every situation. This finding corroborates
Bean and Bernardi (2007) which states the importance of parental instructions in
formation of personal values and ethical behaviors. Secondly, peers are considered
very important as well (mean=4.47). Thirdly, education life after family is very
important since children are spending years within schools. Curriculum, teachers,
and social activities can raise ethical values of children to a higher point. Work
environment is also important, because sometimes, environment pressure
employees to behave unethically, such as managers and work conditions. A study
conducted on university academics in British Isles also proved that family has the
highest responsibility in ethics education followed by profession, school,
university, business, and religious groups (Bampton & Cowton, 2002).
Table 5. Importance of environmental conditions in the development
of ethics awareness
Family life
Peers
Education life
Work environment
68

Mean Std. Dev. Rank

4.72
0.568
1
4.47
0.699
2
4.43
0.722
3
4.39
0.813
4
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Accounting professionals perceptions of ethics education: evidence from Turkey

Accounting ethics education in university

In previous studies, one of the commonly asked questions regarding ethics in
accounting was whether it should be taught as a stand-alone course or integrated
with other accounting courses. We required respondents to evaluate three choices
based on a 5-point Likert scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) (Table
6). Surprisingly, none of the three items received much support from the
respondents. The highest ranking belong to stand-alone course (mean=3.78),
followed by extracurricular activities (conference etc.) (mean=3.61). Contrary to
expectations, within other accounting courses (mean=3.26) got weak approval of
professionals. In a previous study conducted on academics in Turkey, the opinion
of teaching ethics integrated in other accounting courses was approved by most of
the survey participants (Caliyurt, 2007). Hence, practicing accountants and
academics think in a different way. This might be due to the reason that public
accountants are able to see how vital ethics is in the profession and the extent of
unethical practices. Therefore, they might think that the subject deserves to a
separate course. On the other hand, academics might think that teaching ethics
within other accounting courses in every relevant subject may cause students to
grasp the subject better.
Table 6. Accounting ethics education in university
Mean Std. Dev. Rank
3.78
1.303
1
3.26
1.271
3
3.61
1.289
2

Stand-alone course
Within other accounting courses
Extracurricular activities (Conference etc.)

Table 7. Independent samples t-test regarding accounting ethics education

in university

Stand-alone course
Within other
accounting courses
Extracurricular
activities

Have you received

accounting ethics
course?
Yes
No
t-test
(N=73) (N=146)
4.10
3.62
2.735**
3.23
3.27
-0.226
3.67

3.58

0.483

Gender
Male
(N=179)
3.86
3.24

Female
(N=40)
3.40
3.35

t-test
2.035*
-0.493

3.61

3.60

0.064

** Significant at 0.01 level; * Significant at 0.05 level

Furthermore we checked whether the responses of accountants to this question
changed based on previous exposure to an accounting ethics course. According to
the results of independent samples t-test, preferences of accountants differ
significantly (at 0.01 significance level) in terms of one item (Table 7). Those who
have received accounting ethics course previously support teaching accounting
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ethics course as a stand-alone course much more than those who have not received
that course in earlier life. This might be attributed to the positive impact the course
left on the accountants. Moreover, the same analysis has been conducted for
gender, experience, education level, and job titles. The results revealed that there is
a significant difference between male and female accountants. Male accountants
are the proponents of stand-alone course much more than female accountants. For
other demographic properties (i.e. experience, education level, and job titles), no
significant difference has been found.
Which topics should accounting ethics course cover?
We asked respondents opinion on the coverage of accounting ethics course by
providing five sentences. Their evaluation was based on a 5-point Likert scale of 1
(strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) (Table 8). Means of all of the items were
above 4.00 which corresponds agree or strongly agree. This means that all
items should be taken into consideration for the inclusion in a possible accounting
ethics course. However, accountants put a high priority on honesty concepts,
followed by ethical relationship among employees, national professional code
of ethics, social moral values, and international professional code of ethics.
Table 8. Which topics should accounting ethics course cover?
Honesty concepts
Social moral values
International professional code of ethics
National professional code of ethics
Ethical relationship among employees

Mean Std. Dev. Rank

4.66
0.547
1
4.37
0.921
4
4.29
0.843
5
4.38
0.766
3
4.42
0.708
2

In which course should accounting ethics be taught?

If ethics is taught within an accounting course, the question of which course is the
most suitable one? needs to be answered. Some previous studies investigated this
and found that auditing is the most suitable one (Bampton & Cowton, 2002; Cohen
& Pant, 1989). In a similar manner, we asked the same question to the accountants.
Their responses indicated that auditing is the most and only course in which
ethics should be taught (Table 9). This finding supports Cohen and Pant (1989) and
Bampton and Cowton (2002). The means of other courses are quite below 4.00,
and therefore, they received limited support from accountants. The acceptance of
auditing strongly might be attributed to the importance of function of auditing in
business organizations. Because, auditors ultimately confirm the practices of all
other accounting practices, and verify that financial statements do not include
material misstatements. Thus, when auditing does not function properly, there is no
other point to catch the misstatements in financial statements. Especially, the
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subject gains so much importance in case audited financial statements belong to

publicly traded companies. Because, millions of investors are deceived by those
statements, and make investment decisions based on these statements. However,
leaving ethics education to just auditing in accounting seems problematic, since
every accounting course includes some ethical issues.
Table 9. In which course should accounting ethics be taught?
Mean Std. Dev. Rank
4.34
0.951
1
3.48
1.369
2
3.07
1.386
4
3.21
1.394
3

Auditing
Tax
Financial accounting
Cost and managerial accounting

Table 10. Independent samples t-test regarding the inclusion

of ethics education in accounting courses
Have you received
accounting ethics
course?
Yes
No
(N=73) (N=146)

Experience

Auditing
Tax
Financial accounting

4.42
3.73
3.27

4.29
3.36
2.97

0.999
1.928*
1.502

<=15
years
(N=165)
4.35
3.41
2.93

Cost and managerial

accounting

3.53

3.04

2.509**

3.07

>15 years
(N=54) t-test
4.31
-0.205
3.70
1.390
3.50
2.643**
*
3.61
2.492**

*** Significant at 0.01 level; ** Significant at 0.05 level; * Significant at 0.10 level
Furthermore, we conducted independent samples t-test to investigate whether there
are significant differences among sub-groups in terms of the answer of this
question (Table 10). Those who received accounting ethics course support the
inclusion of ethics within tax, and cost and management accounting courses more
powerfully than those who did not. In addition, experienced accountants, which
have more than 15 years of experience, support the inclusion of ethics course
within financial accounting, and cost and management accounting courses more
than less experienced ones. Actually, one of the basic reasons of unethical behavior
is considered tax evasion, thus there are some ethical issues to be handled in tax
course. In financial accounting course, students learn complete accounting cycle
which begins with journal entries and ends up with preparing financial statements.
There are some accounting concepts to be considered when doing the entire job
within the cycle such as objectivity, reliability, social responsibility and so on.
These concepts are key points in behaving ethically. In cost and management

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accounting, there some ethical issues as well. Unit cost calculation affects directly
to the cost of inventories reported on the financial statements. Thus, a business can
impact the monetary amounts by manipulating cost calculations. Management
accounting also handles some topics which have ethical aspects. For example,
budgeting and performance analysis are two important subjects of this course.
There are a lot of behavioral aspects of these two practices. Many budgetary games
are played by employees during the process due to avoid punishment or get
rewarded. Manipulation of expenses or revenues is just one example. Teachers may
find plenty of instances at least to touch on ethical issues in these courses.
Integration of ethics education into internship stage of accounting profession
According to the findings of a survey, in terms of the delivery of ethics education,
there was a strong consensus among professional accounting bodies worldwide that
ethics should be learned as part of the pre-qualifying programs in the accounting
profession (Jackling et al., 2007). Therefore we asked another question to the
survey participants about how ethics education should be integrated into the
professional qualification at the start-up. Three answers were provided to the
respondents (Table 11). The most rated item is the exposure of candidate certified
public accountants during the education within internship stage (mean=4.06).
Second possible way is the inclusion of ethics questions into the examination
subjects of internship exam at the start-up of certified public accountancy
(mean=3.91). Alternatively, ethics questions can be asked at the finishing
examination of internship (mean=3.79). In general, we can say that all three
statements are supported by the respondents.
Table 11. Inclusion of accounting ethics education within internship
at the start-up of profession
Inclusion of ethical questions within start-up examination
of internship
Inclusion of ethics course within education given during
internship
Inclusion of ethics questions within examination at the end
of internship

Mean
3.91

Std. Dev.
1.212

Rank
2

4.06

1.028

3.79

1.282

CONCLUSION
The purpose of this study is to investigate accounting professionals perceptions of
ethics education in Turkey. The findings demonstrated that most of the respondents
have not taken ethics education previously. Secondly, the results provided evidence
that all stages of education life are important and contribute to the development of
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Accounting professionals perceptions of ethics education: evidence from Turkey

ethics awareness. However, comparison of means of items put forward that early
and late education stages are less important than the others. This might be due to
the fact that children are too small to understand the ethical principles in their early
lives. On the contrary, it may be too late to shape ethics awareness of a person in
the university. Thus, ethics education should not be the concern of only university
education, but also the concern of secondary and high school stages.
Responses indicated that family life plays a key role in the development of ethics
awareness since an individuals personality is shaped within family primarily by
behaviors of parents. If parents set a good example for children, they are likely to
mimic them in every situation. Peers are also considered very important as well.
Everyone knows that how much youth are affected from each other especially in
15th years. Furthermore, education life after family is very important since children
are spending years within schools. Curriculum, teachers, and social activities can
raise ethical values of children to a higher point. Work environment is also
important, because sometimes, environment put pressure on employees to behave
unethically, such as managers and work conditions.
Surprisingly, the methods of delivering ethics education to students were not
approved by the respondents. Giving ethics as a stand-alone course received the
highest score, followed closely by extracurricular activities (conference etc.).
Contrary to expectations, teaching ethics within other accounting courses did not
get the approval of professionals. Moreover, they agree on that the coverage of
accounting ethics course should include honesty concepts and moral values along
with professional code of ethics.
Furthermore, responses indicated that auditing is the most and only course in
which ethics should be taught. Other courses were not opted for possible exposure
of students to ethics. The acceptance of auditing and rejection of other courses in
this question might be attributed to the importance of function of auditing in
business organizations. Because, auditors ultimately confirm the practices of all
other accounting practices, and verify that financial statements do not include
material misstatements. Thus, when auditing does not function properly, there is no
other point to catch the misstatements in financial statements. Especially, the
subject gains so much importance in case audited financial statements belong to
publicly traded companies. Because, millions of investors are deceived by those
statements leading business to the bankruptcy. Moreover, the respondents approved
the inclusion of ethics within various stages of certified accountancy curriculum
since it is the last chance of receiving formal ethics education at the start-up the
profession.

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Finally, the findings have some implications for families, educators, business
schools, corporations, and professional and regulatory bodies. Families are the
fundamentals of a society which initially shape future generations characters and
personality. Primarily, parents contribution to the moral development of children
is great. In their subsequent lives, they will frequently refer to that moral
development while making decisions in ethical dilemmas. After families, educators
are the most influential on a generations ethical awareness development in every
stage of education. In addition to teaching sciences, they are expected to handle
social issues and behavioral factors. Similar to parents, teachers are great
references for todays children but tomorrows employees or managers in deciding
what is ethical or unethical. Other than educators, great responsibility also falls on
the shoulders of education system. Curriculum design, extracurricular activities,
and invitation of professionals to schools are important factors in heightening the
ethical awareness of students. Business schools are the places in where students
are exposed to the formal ethics education either as a stand-alone course or within
courses. As dealt with in literature review part, the faculties should deal with the
subject by formalizing how it should be delivered, developing policies and taking
concrete steps. If its importance is not recognized and not dealt with seriously,
everyone should expect more corporate scandals in the future years. Professional
and regulatory bodies in a country need to show that setting the regulations and
taking precautions about ethical work environment is one of their vital duties.
Corporations have also great responsibility in ensuring ethical behavior among
employees. They are assumed to prepare ethical work conditions, establish ethical
culture and policy so that employees can behave accordingly. Corporate culture
should not foster unethical behavior by some applications such as putting too much
pressure on employees and exaggerating in rewarding.
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