An empirical reanalysis of the selection–socialization hypothesis: a research note

Abstract

Ponemon [Ponemon, L. (1988). A cognitive–developmental approach to the analysis of Certified Public Accountants’ ethical judgments. PhD dissertation, Union College of Union University; Accounting, Organizations and Society 17 (1992) 239] contends that a selection–socialization process exists in which (1) senior-level public accountants in the United States have less capacity to comprehend and resolve basic ethical problems than do accountants in subordinate ranks, and (2) the senior-level accountants perpetuate their ranks by promoting persons of low moral reasoning capacity. Using large, national random samples from 1995 and 2001, and correcting for inherent problems in the key study supporting this hypothesis, the current study yields results that materially contradict that earlier research. The sample sizes provide ample statistical power to conclude that, in the United States, capacity for moral judgment does not differ across rank (position) and this is not a factor in promotion in the public accounting profession as a whole. The study examines both political conservatism and gender as potential confounding variables, but finds that they do not drive the results. A sample of attorneys also gives no hint of selection–socialization. Instead, differences in moral cognition seem to be most relevant when people are making a choice of profession and less so after entering a particular profession.