Abstract

This study conducts a historical review of accounting ethics education literature over a forty-eight-year period from 1970 to 2018. It synthesizes accounting ethics education research published in academic research journals to identify trends and key themes. The study contributes to the body of accounting and education literature by giving meaning and shape to the development corpus of accounting ethics education research. Early research highlighted the need for ethics education in the accounting curriculum, while research in the latter part of the relevant period, moved toward understanding the impact of ethics education on students’ cognitive moral development and decision-making. Key topic themes inherent in the data include teaching methods, the importance of ethics education, ethical decision-making, moral development, the integration of ethics into accounting courses, and curriculum related issues. Alongside the rising number of publications during the relevant period, the findings suggest an increasing sophistication in teaching pedagogies and growing interest of ethics education research in developing countries. Overall, this study underlines the importance of ethics education research to the edification and ethics of future accountants.

Highlights

  • The business ethics literature is littered with examples of corporate collapses, scandals, corruption, and audit failures impacting negatively on society’s belief that accountants possess the ethical commitment to protect the public interest

  • The present study reviewed and profiled published research on accounting ethics education during the period 1972 to 2018

  • This study contributes to the current state of accounting ethics education research providing insight into the field’s strengths and weaknesses

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Summary

Introduction

The business ethics literature is littered with examples of corporate collapses, scandals, corruption, and audit failures impacting negatively on society’s belief that accountants possess the ethical commitment to protect the public interest. The call for ethics interventions in the accounting curriculum is reinforced by accrediting bodies when education standards are revised to include ethics coverage at all levels. Responding to these calls, has seen ethics education firmly entrenched in the accounting curriculum (Blanthorne, Kovar, & Fisher, 2007; Dellaportas, Kanapathippillai, Khan, & Leung, 2014). This was followed a burgeoning body of research to understand and improve the impact of ethics interventions in accounting education. The present study will examine publications in academic research journals on accounting ethics education to capture and summarise what has been learned in four decades of research

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