Individualism-Collectivism Cultural Differences Affecting Perceptions of Unethical Practices: Some Evidence from Australian and Indonesian Accounting Students

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of the individualism-collectivism dimension of culture on ethical perceptions in a sample of Australian and Indonesian Final Year accounting students. The study uses the Triandis instrument to establish that Australian students tended to be more individualistically- and Indonesian students more collectivistically-oriented. The study then proceeds to test the hypothesis of no difference in perceptions between these two country samples in their evaluations of questionable actions portrayed in five vignette situations. The findings reject the no difference cultural hypothesis, indicating that there are perceptual differences between the collectivistic Indonesian students and the individualistic Australian students. In general Indonesian students tend to perceive a lesser degree of risk for the questionable acts depicted by these cases where such acts would have beneficial impacts on close or moderately close in-groups. Consistent with this observation, they also tend to perceive a greater amount of gain if this gain impacts more on close or moderately close in-groups. These results suggest that ethics teaching, either as separate or integrated into other courses, is a delicate subject that is even more critical in a multicultural environment such as Australia where universities have growing numbers of culturally-distinct Asian students. Australian-based teachers of accounting students, in particular, should exercise extreme sensitivity when addressing issues of ethical conduct in the classroom to avoid offending those from different cultural backgrounds. More research into experiences of teaching business ethics to a group of culturally diverse students, as well as publications of suitable teaching materials that highlight and address these problems would be a significant step forward.