Responding to the recent concern expressed by society and the accounting profession about ethics, accounting researchers have attempted to investigate the level of ethical behavior by accountants. While the current state of ethical behavior is important, accountants' ability to detect ethical problems that may not be obvious should also be studied and understood. The purpose of this research is to address three questions: (1) are auditors alert to ethical issues?; (2) if so, how important do they perceive them to be?; and (3) what factors affect their sensitivity threshold and the perceived importance of the issues? This study defines ethical sensitivity as the ability to interpret a given situation and realize that a moral problem exists. / CPAs responded to an experimental instrument comprised of three auditing scenarios, each dealing with a different ethical problem. The accounting and/or auditing problems presented were also different, and the information relating to the ethical problem was embedded in each case. Multiway contingency tables were used to analyze the data; responses were categorized as mentioning or not mentioning the ethical issue, and those who mentioned it were categorized according to the terms used (value-laden or non-value-laden). / Factors useful in predicting whether a subject will mention an ethical issue include the nature of the ethical issue, the issue's severity and the subject's age. Employment position, expertise, prior exposure to a similar ethical issue and education level were not found to be significant. The nature of the ethical issue was also a significant factor in determining the type of description as well as the absolute importance given to the ethical issue, but employment position was again nonsignificant. / Furthermore, very few subjects used value-laden terms to discuss the issues that are not specific to the code. A large majority of subjects (84.8%) mentioned the independence issue in value-laden terms, while much smaller percentages used value-laden terms to describe the plant relocation and tax evasion issues (4.5% and 7.5%, respectively). / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-03, Section: A, page: 0873. / Major Professor: Charles D. Bailey. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1992.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_76589 |
| Contributors | Karcher, Julia Nancy., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 139 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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