How South African societal and circumstantial influences affect the ethical standards of prospective South African Chartered Accountants
Abstract
To effectively address ethical consciousness through formalised tertiary education, ethical rationale needs to be further understood. This paper attempted to investigate the effect of South African societal influences on prospective South African Chartered Accountants, through exploratory questionnaire research. Findings indicated that although participants perceived low levels of ethical behaviour in South Africa, they generally were not negatively influenced, most feeling the need to behave more ethically as a result. Influences from the country’s environment, including justification, lack of consequences and self-interest, were found to have negatively affected some participant’s ethical rationale and although not statistically significant, were considered qualitatively relevant findings. Many participants appeared to maintain the belief that it’s not possible to be completely ethical in business and that by remaining ethical in South African business they will be at a disadvantage.    Females’ ethical rationale was found to have been less affected by societal influences than their male counterparts.ÂReferences
The list of references, correctly formatted has been provided at the end of the article uploaded.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ahmed, M.M., Chung, K.Y. and Eichenseher, J.W. 2003. Business Students’ Perception of Ethics and Moral Judgment: A Cross-Cultural Study. Journal of Business Ethics, 43 (89): 89-102.
Armstrong, M.B. 1993. Ethics and Professionalism in accounting education: A sample Course. Journal of Accounting Education, 11: 77-92.
Bartels, R. 1967. A Model for Ethics in Marketing. Journal of Marketing, 1: 20-26.
Bateman, C.R. and Valentine, S.R. 2010. Investigating the effects of gender on consumers’ moral philosophies and ethical intentions. Journal of Business Ethics, 95 (3): 393-414.
Bucar, B., Glas, M. and Hisrich, R.D. 2003. Ethics and entrepreneurs: An international comparative. Journal of Business Venturing, 18 (2): 261-281.
Cooper, B.J., Leung, P., Dellaportas, S., Jackling, B. and Wong, G. 2008. Ethics Education for Accounting Students – a Toolkit Approach. Accounting Education: an international journal, 17 (4): 405-430.
Elias, R.Z. and Farag, M. 2010. The relationship between accounting students’ love of money and their ethical perception. Managerial Auditing Journal, 25 (3): 269-281.
Frank, R.H 2005. What Price the Moral High Ground? Ethical Dilemmas in Competitive Environments. Princeton University Press, Princeton New Jersey.
Ghaffari, F., Kyriacou, O. and Brennan, R. 2008. Exploring the Implementation of Ethics in U.K. Accounting Programs. Issues in Accounting Education, 23 (2): 183-198.
Guffey, D. and McCartney, M. 2008. The Perceived Importance of an Ethical Issue as a Determinant of Ethical Decision-making for Accounting Students in an Academic Setting. Accounting Education, 17 (3): 327-348.
Harman, G. 2000. The non-existence of character traits, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society. 100: 223 -226.
Haswell, S. and Jubb, P. 1995. Unethical tendencies. Charter, 66 (3): 102-3
IRBA (Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors). 2014. [Online]. Available: http://www.firststep.me/ultimate-careers/careers-uncut/1132-south-africa-maintains-first-position-for-the-strength-of-auditing-and-reporting-standards-for-four-years-in-a-row. [Last accessed 29 August 2014].
International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) 2014. Code of Professional Conduct, South African Institute of Chartered Accountants Members’ Handbook, 2014 Edition, Volume 2A: LexisNexis, Pietermaritzburg.
Jackling, B., Cooper, B.J, Leung, P. and Dellaportas S. 2007 Professional Accounting Bodies' Perceptions of Ethical Issues, Causes of Ethical Failure and Ethics Education. Managerial Auditing Journal, 22 (9): 928–944.
Kohlberg, L. 1969. Stages and sequences: The cognitive development approach to socialization. In D. Goslin (Ed.), Handbook of Socialization Theory and Research: 485-546 Chicago, IL: Rand McNally.
Laing, A. 2011. South Africa considers ethics lessons in schools, The Telegraph, 18 August 2011. [Online]. Available from: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/southafrica/8709655/South-Africa-considers-ethics-lessons-in-schools [Accessed on 8 October 2013].
Lampe, J. 1996. The Impact of Ethics in Accounting Curricula. Research on Accounting Ethics, 2: 187-220.
Langlois, L., and Lapointe, C. 2010 Can ethics be learned? Results from a three-year action-research project. Journal of Educational Administration, 48 (2): 147-163.
Loeb, S.E. 2007. Issues relating to teaching accounting ethics: an 18 year retrospective. Research on Professional Responsibility and Ethics in Accounting, 11: 1-30.
Low, M., Davey, H. and Hooper, K. 2008. Accounting Scandals, ethical dilemmas and educational challenges. Critical perspectives on Accounting, 19 (2): 222-254.
Mandela, N. 1995. Speech to Parliament (February 17, 1995): quoted in: Rossouw, G. 1997. Business Ethics in South Africa. Journal of Business Ethics, 16: 1539-1547.
Mitchem, C.E. 2009. Analysis of International Ethical Standards in Accounting. International Business and Economic Research Journal, 8 (1): 41-49.
Morris, M.H., Marks, A.S., Allen, J.A., and Peery N.S. 1996 Modeling Ethical Attitudes and Behaviors under Conditions of Environmental Turbulence: The Case of South Africa. Journal of Business Ethics, 15: 1119-1130.
Moore, R.S. and Radloff, S.E 1996 Attitudes Towards Business Ethics Held by South African Students. Journal of Business Ethics, 15: 863 – 869.
Nejati, M., Ismail, S. and Shafaei, A. 2011. Students’ unethical behaviour: Insights from an African country. Global Business and Management Research: An International Journal, 3 (3-4): 276-95.
Nienaber S.G. 2010. Factors that could influence the ethical behaviour of tax professionals. Meditari Accountancy Research, 18 (1): 33-46.
Ogunyemi, K 2013. Ethics education and locus of control: Is Rotter’s scale valid for Nigeria? African Journal of Business Ethics, 7 (1): 1.
O’Leary, C. and Cotter, D. 2000. The ethics of final year accountancy students: an international comparison. Managerial Auditing Journal, 15(3): 108-115
O’Leary, C. 2009. An Empirical Analysis of the Positive Impact of Ethics Teaching on Accounting Students. Accounting education: an international journal, 18 (4-5): 505-520.
Pianter-Morland, M. and Werhane, P. 2008. Cutting Edge Issues in Business Ethics Continental challenges to Tradition and practice: Springer, Chicago.
Piper, T.R; Gentile, M.C; and Parks, S.D 1993. Can Ethics Be taught? Perspectives, Challenges and Approaches at Harvard Business School. Boston Harvard Business School, United States of America.
Ponemon, L. A. 1993. Can Ethics be taught in accounting? Journal of Accounting Education, 11(2): 185-209.
Preble, J. F. and Reichel, A. 1988. Attitudes towards business ethics of future managers in the US and Israel. Journal of Business Ethics, (7): 941-949.
Rest, J. 1986. Moral Development: Advances in Research Theory. Praeger, New York.
Robinson, D.A., Davidsson, P., van der Mescht, H. and Court, P. 2007. How Entrepreneurs Deal with Ethical Challenges – An application of the Business ethics synergy star technique. Journal of Business Ethics, 71 (4).
Rossouw, D., du Plessis, C., Prinsloo, F. and Prozesky, M. 2011. Ethics for Accountants and Auditors, 2nd Edition. Oxford University Press, Cape Town.
Rossouw, G.J, 1997. Business Ethics in South Africa. Journal of Business ethics, 16 (14): 1539-1547.
Salter, S., Guffey, D. and McMillan, J. 2001. Truth, Consequences and Culture: A Comparative Examination of Cheating and Attitudes about cheating among U.S and U.K Students. Journal of Business Ethics, 31: 37-50
Shaw, W. H. 2008. Business Ethics. Wadsworth Inc., Belmont California.
Shaub, M. 1994. An analysis of factors affecting the cognitive moral development of auditors and auditing students. Journal of Accounting Education: 1-24.
SAICA 2011a, July 29. CA (SA) Training Programme, November 2011, [Online].Available:https://www.saica.co.za/Training/Training/CASATrainingProgramme/tabid/1657/language/enUS/Default.aspx [Last accessed on 27 August 2014].
SAICA 2011b, November 7. The value of the CA (SA) Designation, SAICA Member Services Newsletter, newsletters@ saica.ensight.co.za.
SAICA 2012, October 23. CA World, Member subscriptions 2013 Newsletter, newsletters@saica.ensight.co.za.
The SAICA (South African Institute of Chartered Accountants) Code of Professional Conduct. 2014. [Online]. Available: https://www.saica.co.za/TechnicalInformation/Discipline/CodeofProfessionalConduct/tabid/701/language/en-ZA/Default.aspx [Last accessed on 27 August 2014]
The SAICA (South African Institute of Chartered Accountants) Competency Framework (2010) [Online]. Available: https://www.saica.co.za/trainees/training/theca2010trainingprogramme/tabid/1657/language/en-US/default.aspx [Last accessed on 27 August 2014]
Tang, T.L. and Chen, Y. 2008. Intelligence vs. Wisdom: The love of Money, Machiavellianism, and Unethical Behaviour across college major and gender. Journal of Business Ethics, 82 (1): 1-26.
Transparency International 2013. Corruption Perceptions Index. [Online]. Available: http://cpi.transparency.org/cpi2013/results/ [Last accessed on 2 June 2014].
Verschoor, C.C. 2004. Accountancy students develop a unique code of ethics. Strategic Finance, 86 (2): 15-1
Vitell, S.J, Nwachukwu S.L. and Barnes, J.H 1993. The Effects of Culture on Ethical Decision-Making: an Application of Hofstede’s Typology. Journal of Business Ethics, 12, 753-760.
World Economic Forum 2014. Global Competitiveness Report 2013-2014, February 2014. [Online]. Availalbe: http://www.weforum.org/reports [Last accessed on 2 June 2014]
This journal is an open access journal, and the authors and journal should be properly acknowledged, when works are cited.
Authors may use the publisher's version for teaching purposes, in books, theses, dissertations, conferences and conference papers.
A copy of the authors’ publisher's version may also be hosted on the following websites:
- Non-commercial personal homepage or blog.
- Institutional webpage.
- Authors Institutional Repository.
The following notice should accompany such a posting on the website: “This is an electronic version of an article published in the African Journal of Business Ethics, Volume XXX, number XXX, pages XXX–XXX”, DOI. Authors should also supply a hyperlink to the original paper or indicate where the original paper (http://ajobe.journals.ac.za/pub) may be found.
The following Creative Commons license applies:
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
