Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.1080/1331677X.2017.1392885
Accountants’ ethical perceptions from several perspectives: evidence from Slovenia
Marjan Odar
; Faculty of Economics, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia;
Mateja Jerman
; Faculty of Management, University of Primorska, Koper, Slovenia
Anton Jamnik
; Faculty of Theology, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Slavka Kavčič
; Faculty of Economics, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia;
Abstract
The purpose of the article is to explore the ethical perceptions of
accountants in selected Slovene organisations towards ethicallysensitive
scenarios. The article explores ethical perceptions among
‘internal accountants’ and those working in companies operating as
providers of external accounting services. Since external accounting
services companies are not specifically regulated by the profession, we
hypothesise that accountants working in external accounting service
companies are more lenient to ethically-sensitive scenarios. Moreover,
we analyse if ethical perceptions differ between accountants having
a professional certificate and those that do not. We believe those that
have a certificate are harsher towards ethically-sensitive scenarios.
For the purpose of our analysis a questionnaire was distributed to
accounting professionals. Our analysis is made on a large sample of
451 accountants. Results of ordered probit regression support the first
two hypotheses, despite the fact that not all of the vignettes resulted
as statistically significant. Our study contributes to the literature in that
the ethics of accountants from countries with non-regulated markets
of accounting services have not yet been investigated in the literature.
Keywords
Accountants; external accounting service providers; ethics; ethical perceptions; ethical dilemmas; accounting manipulations
Hrčak ID:
193212
URI
Publication date:
1.12.2017.
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