Abstract
This research aims to investigate whether gender and age of Professional Accountants influence their opinion upon accounting judgments and sustainable decision-making. Through a questionnaire, accountants were interrogated about their education, professional profile, age, gender, personality traits, and their perception on accounting judgment and professional behavior. On one hand, results showed that women accountants are more inclined to comply with accounting regulations and more interested in following an ethical behavior. Moreover, women tend to be more interested in fulfilling managers’ expectations and more willing to collaborate. On the other hand, men accountants proved to be more independent in judgments and more skeptical. Furthermore, men have a greater propensity to make accurate, sustainable judgments, considering the evaluation of goodwill as more important than women. However, no correlations were found between age, gender and accountants’ perception on the theoretical framework of professional accounting judgment. As the age of accountants grows, the compliance degree to regulations increases. This study adds value to gender accounting literature by the way it examines accountants’ behavior and perception towards accounting judgments and sustainable decisions in correlation to gender diversity and age.
Highlights
The study of gender differences across different sciences has always been of interest since the scientific analysis of the original sin.the international feminist movement has generated an increase in interest in gender literature in the 1970s
Taking into account our previous research conducted on professional accounting judgment [28], we have investigated if there are significant differences between male and female Professional Accountants related to the exercise of accounting judgments and the theoretical framework of accounting judgments, as well as the skepticism of accountants in analyzing the economic transactions and events that require an accounting judgment (H2, Hypothesis 3 (H3) and Hypothesis 4 (H4))
We built our qualitative approach starting from Naranjo-Gil et al (2010)’s statement, that researching issues that approach aspects related to accounting, gender and diversity can offer important foundations for a better understanding of the benefits that gender diversity and equity can bring to management and business sustainable decision-making [80]
Summary
The study of gender differences across different sciences has always been of interest since the scientific analysis of the original sin. The international feminist movement has generated an increase in interest in gender literature in the 1970s. The decade brought an increase in gender research in the economic and management literature. As reported by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), a large disparity is found in the partaking of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), in particular at the more advanced career levels [2]. As reported by the United Nations’ Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), a gender perspective finds its correspondent in the “process of assessing the implications for women and men of any planned action, including legislation, policies or programs in all areas and at all levels” [3]
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