Effect Of Moral Reasoning Research Articles

The Effect of Moral Reasoning on Intention to Fraud in the Procurement of Goods and Services under Obedience Pressure: An Experimental Study

This study examines the influence of obedience pressure and individual moral reasoning on the attention to commit fraud in the context of the procurement of goods and services. This study uses a 2x2 factorial experimental design. The participants in this study were undergraduate accounting students who have passed courses in Professional Ethics, Public Sector Accounting, and Forensic Accounting who acted as implementers of the procurement of goods and services. Hypothesis testing in this study used ANOVA. The results of this study found the effect of obedience pressure and individual moral reasoning in committing fraud in the procurement of goods and services. Under conditions of obedience pressure, individuals with low moral reasoning will tend to commit fraud compared to individuals with high moral reasoning. Thus, individuals who have high moral reasoning tend to behave ethically, even though they are faced with pressure from superiors.

The effect of moral reasoning and values as the mediator towards student’s prosocial behaviour

ABSTRACT This study aims to determine the relationship between religiosity, moral reasoning, and internalization of pure values as the mediator of prosocial behaviour among students in Banda Aceh, Indonesia. The Secondary Islamic Education Internalization Scale (SPPIP-M), Behaviour Reasoning Scheme Indicator (UPSTA), and Prosocial Tendencies Measure (PTM) scale were used to measure the religiosity, moral reasoning, and internalization of pure values prosocial behaviour of students. The result showed a link between religiosity, moral reasoning, and internalization of pure values with prosocial behaviour of secondary school students in Banda Aceh.

School Bullying and Moral Reasoning Competence

AbstractTo examine whether high moral reasoning competence of adolescents is associated with low levels of bullying, and to understand whether moral disengagement mediates or moderates this relationship, 925 German children ranging from 11 to 17 years of age (M = 14.18, SD = 1.21) completed questionnaires on moral reasoning competence and moral disengagement in surveys at three different schools. The children were classified according to their bullying role, based on a peer‐nomination procedure. Multinomial logistic regression analyses showed that moral reasoning competence negatively predicted whether a student took an aggressive role. Moral disengagement partially mediated this relationship. Corresponding effects for defenders and outsiders were not found. These results extend previous findings about the effect of moral reasoning on bullying in primary school. The implications for the prevention of bullying are discussed.

Legal systems and auditor independence

This paper examines whether an appropriate legal system, which is a combination of a legal regime and a damage apportionment rule, effectively enhances auditor independence. Economic and psychological hypotheses derived from a one-period game model in which the auditor may commit either a technical audit failure (resulting from the auditor’s inability to detect true output given a lack of audit effort) or an independence audit failure (resulting from the auditor’s intentional misreporting on false output) are tested. Three major findings are documented. First, auditor independence affects firm investment, which in turn affects audit effort. Under this strategic dependence, no single legal system can provoke audit effort, improve auditor independence, and encourage firm investment simultaneously. To enhance auditor independence and motivate investment, a legal system consisting of both a strict regime and a proportionate rule is preferred. Second, the strict regime induces more auditor independence than the negligence regime, while the proportionate rule induces higher audit effort than the joint-and-several rule. Finally, auditors’ moral reasoning and penalty for misreporting are both positively associated with their independence. In addition, the effect of moral reasoning on auditor independence diminishes as the level of penalty increases. These two results hold only when the legal systems that auditors face are considered.

Effects of moral reasoning and management level on ratings of charismatic leadership, in-role and extra-role performance of managers: A multi-source examination

This study investigated whether upper and lower-echelon managers' moral reasoning (n=377) was associated with the levels of charismatic leadership, in-role and extra-role performance they displayed as perceived by their subordinates (n=1731), superiors, and self. Managers completed the Defining Issues Test (Rest, 1990) to assess their moral reasoning capacity. Self-ratings of managers' charismatic leadership, in-role and extra-role performance were collected two weeks later. Subordinate- and superior-ratings of these constructs were collected one month later. Analysis of covariance indicated that managers possessing the highest (i.e., postconventional) level of moral reasoning outperformed managers at the lower preconventional and conventional levels, but displayed lower levels of self-rated charismatic leadership. Upper-echelon managers displayed higher levels of charismatic leadership and extra-role performance than lower-echelon managers. Within and between analysis (WABA) indicated that upper-echelon managers at conventional and postconventional levels of moral reasoning agreed with their subordinates and superiors that their charismatic leadership ratings exceed those in lower management, but are lower than those of leaders who possess preconventional moral reasoning.

The Effects of Moral Reasoning on Financial Reporting Decisions in a Post Sarbanes-Oxley Environment

Our study examines whether the certification requirements under Section 302 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 affect financial reporting decisions. Using 74 part-time MBA students as a proxy for corporate managers, we find that the participants' level of moral reasoning and their assessed influence of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act were significantly positively associated with the amount of loss recognized through their financial statement adjustment decisions. Consistent with expectations, there was also a significant interaction whereby the influence of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act was significantly positively associated with the adjustment decision for those participants at lower levels of moral reasoning, but not with the adjustment decision for those participants at higher levels. Thus, the findings from our study suggest that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act may be an effective deterrent for an overstatement of financial statement income by individuals at lower levels of moral reasoning. These results should be of considerable interest to regulators as they attempt to assess the effects of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

Social influence on group moral decisions: the interactive effects of moral reasoning and sex role orientation.

In this study, we examined the effects of moral reasoning level and sex role orientation on social influence in group decision making. We predicted that these two individual difference constructs would have an interactive effect such that people who are compatible or nonconflicted on the two dimensions would have more influence on a group task with moral implications than would people who are conflicted. All subjects individually completed a distributive decision task that required ranking terminally ill patients for access to a life-saving kidney machine. They then met in small groups and reached a group decision on the same task. The subjects' moral reasoning level and sex role orientation--assessed via the Rest Defining Issues Test (Rest, 1979) and the Bem Sex Role Inventory (Bem, 1974), respectively--were used to predict influence on the group decision. Influence was measured in three ways: similarity between individual and group ranks, self-rated influence, and selection of the most influential group member. The results of all three influence measures provided support for the interactive hypothesis. In the discussion we consider the implications of the data for individual difference models of moral reasoning, the need for further understanding of goal competition and personality conflict, and the importance of considering the impact of moral factors on group decision-making proceses.