Ethical Orientaton And Career Choice: A Case Of Accounting Students In Malaysia

Abstract

The purpose of this study are twofold, to categorise accounting students’ ethical orientation and to establish whether ethical orientation influences career choice. The research is motivated by the escalating number of high profile ethical misconducts in the corporate arena, where majority of the convictions relate to the accounting profession.This research looks into ethical orientation of accounting students in Malaysia and assess the relationship between each ethical orientation with their career choice. A total of 391 responses were collected from various universities in Malaysia. Forsyth’s ethics position questionnaire (EPQ) was used to evaluate the student’s ethical orientation. Further, a high majority of the accounting students are situationists, consistent with a previous study conducted on accounting practitioners in Malaysia. The survey instrument also measures accounting students’ career choice and career plan after completion of their studies. It is found that idealist accounting students prefer to join the accounting profession. Additionally, it was established that 89 per cent of the accounting students prefer to join the accounting profession after completing their studies. Some limitations of this research: the responses do not represent whole population of accounting students and limited number of previous research conducted in Malaysia on students using Forsyth’s EPQ. Recommendations among others: to include more variables representing ethical situations, and introduce ethics in every subject offered. Students should be surrounded by ethical values because it will help them to become familiar and understand the ethical values during their tertiary level and when they join the workforce in the future.