Ethical Evaluations and Behavioural Intentions of

See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.
net/publication/46540095
Ethical Evaluations and Behavioural Intentions of Early Career Accountants:

The Impact of Mentors, Peers and Individual Attributes
Article in Accounting and Finance · September 2009

DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-629X.2009.00301.x · Source: RePEc
CITATIONS READS
36 610
2 authors:
Lisa McManus Nava Subramaniam

Queensland University of Technology RMIT University
27 PUBLICATIONS 809 CITATIONS 95 PUBLICATIONS 2,812 CITATIONS
SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE
Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:
An exploratory examination of customer accounting: antecedents and applications View project
Stakeholder perspectives of WIL design for undergraduate business degrees: Where is the common-ground? View project
All content following this page was uploaded by Nava Subramaniam on 21 October 2017.
The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

Accounting and Finance 49 (2009) 619–643
Ethical evaluations and behavioural intentions of early

career accountants: the impact of mentors, peers and
individual attributes
Lisa McManusa, Nava Subramaniamb

a
Department of Accounting, Finance and Economics, Griffith University, Gold Coast, 4222, Australia
b
School of Accounting, Economics and Finance, Deakin University, Burwood, 3125, Australia
Abstract
This study examined how mentoring support, peer influence and individual
attributes of early career accountants (ECA) influence their ethical evaluations
and behavioural intentions. Respondents indicate that their evaluation of the
seriousness of the ethical conflict is affected by the perceived standard of ethical
conduct of their peers, their personal ethical orientation, the extent of ethics
education at university, and gender. ECAs’ evaluation of a senior colleague’s
unethical behaviour is affected by mentoring support and the perceived standard
of ethical conduct of peers. In terms of ECAs’ willingness to contact accounting
professional bodies for ethical advice, the size of the accounting firm and the
extent of their ethics education at university are significant factors. Furthermore,
the likelihood of respondents choosing a more ethical decision is correlated
with his or her individual ethical orientation and the extent of ethics education
at university.
Key words: Early career accountants; Ethical evaluations; Behavioural intentions;

Mentoring; Peer influence
JEL classification: I20, M40, M41
doi: 10.1111/j.1467-629X.2009.00301.x
The authors would like to gratefully acknowledge the Accounting and Finance Associa-
tion of Australia and New Zealand (AFAANZ) for the research grant for this project as
well as Barry Cooper, Steven Dellaportas, Jenny Stewart, and participants at the 2008
Annual AFAANZ Conference for their comments.
Received 30 September 2008; accepted 11 February 2009 by Robert Faff (Editor).
The Authors
Journal compilation 2009 AFAANZ
620 L. McManus, N. Subramaniam/Accounting and Finance 49 (2009) 619–643
1. Introduction
The recent wave of corporate scandals has increased public scrutiny over the
professionalism of accountants, calling into question the ethical behaviour of
accounting professionals yet again. Prior research relating to accounting ethics
has largely focused on two groups: accounting students and accounting
practitioners. For example, the work by Cohen et al. (1998), Mintz (1996) and,
more recently, Malone (2006) have focused on accounting students’ ethical
attitudes, and the findings in general suggest that factors such as gender, formal
ethics education and moral reasoning ability affect accounting students’ evaluations
of ethical issues and their subsequent actions to such issues. Research by Buchan
(2005), Dreike and Moeckel (1995), Karcher (1996), Ponemon (1999) and the
early work by Aranya and Ferris (1984) have, in contrast, focused on accounting
practitioners’ ethical attitudes and decision-making behaviour. In the case of
accounting practitioners, personal values, seniority, gender and moral sensitivity
were found to be significant factors affecting their attitudes towards situations of
ethical conflicts and their intended behaviour (i.e. choosing ethical actions).
However, no study to date has been undertaken in this area with respect to early
career accountants (ECA) or new accounting graduates who have recently
started their career in a public accounting firm. As such, the present study aims
to fill this gap in the extant literature.
This paper presents a study on the impact of mentors, peers and individual
attributes on ECAs’ ethical evaluations and behavioural intentions. For the
purposes of this study, an ECA is defined as ‘an accounting graduate recruit in a
public accounting firm who has 3 or less years of work experience’. Furthermore,
ethical evaluations pertain to (i) the extent to which ECAs interpret the seriousness
of a situation involving an ethical conflict, and (ii) their assessment of the actions
of their senior colleagues in such a situation. Ethical behavioural intentions, on
the other hand, relate to the following two dimensions: the likelihood of an ECA
contacting his or her professional accounting body for guidance on an ethical
conflict situation, and the willingness of such an accountant to act ethically
when confronted with such a situation. The overall objective of this study is to
determine the effects of mentoring support, the perceived standard of peers’
ethical conduct, and selected individual attributes of ECAs (namely, their
personal ethical orientation and the extent of ethics education at university) on
their ethical evaluations and related behavioural intentions. The motivations for
this study are discussed in the following section.
2. Motivations for the study
The first motivation for the present study relates to the scant and limited
empirical evidence on the factors affecting the ethical evaluations and behaviour
of ECAs at the workplace. This shortcoming is surprising given that new
accounting recruits are a vital segment of the accounting profession in that they
The Authors
L. McManus, N. Subramaniam/Accounting and Finance 49 (2009) 619–643 621
represent an invaluable resource pool of accountants for future generations.

Furthermore, given the escalating problem of accounting skills shortage, there is
now even a greater need to nurture, train and retain high-quality accountants,
which in turn has significant implications for competitive advantage (Cohen
et al., 1998). The relevance of ethics education for new accounting graduates is
also reflected by the findings of Ahadiat and Mackie (1993) whereby employ-
ment recruiters from both Big Six and non-Big Six accounting firms ranked
students’ ethical propensities as the most important criteria in their recruiting
decision. However, prior research has mainly focused on understanding the
ethical attitudes and decision-making of tertiary accounting students and senior
public accounting professionals, such as partners and managers (Zeigenfuss,
1999; O’Leary and Cotter, 2000; Guntz et al., 2002). Therefore, the present
study aims to fill this gap in the extant literature by providing a better under-
standing of the factors that affect the ethical stance of budding professional
accountants, which in turn has implications for the overall quality of the future
workforce.
A second motivation for the present study is that prior studies on mentorship
indicate that mentors play an important role in affecting their protégés (Scandura
and Viator, 1994; Kaplan et al., 2001). In general, mentors can be defined as
‘high-ranking organisational members who possess significant experience and
knowledge and are committed to providing support to a protégé’s professional
career’ (Kaplan et al., 2001, p. 195). Accounting professional firms are naturally
designed to train young accountants through a mentoring system where audit
partners and senior managers keep close watch on the professional development
of young or new recruits. Furthermore, as new accounting recruits in the work-
force can be highly impressionable and open to socialisation effects, mentors
can have a strong effect on shaping their professional and ethical values.
According to the organisational socialisation perspective (Anderson-Gough
et al., 1998; Fogarty and Ravenscroft, 2000), the professional development of a
new accounting recruit is open to numerous organisational-related factors and
formal mentoring. Prior studies, such as Wimbush and Shephard (1994), have
shown that supervisors have a significant impact on the ethical behaviour of their
subordinates. However, no study has attempted to directly examine the impact
of mentoring on new accounting recruits’ ethical evaluations and behaviour.
Furthermore, most of the prior studies have been undertaken in large accounting
firms (e.g. a Big Four or a Big Six firm). Therefore, the impact of mentoring on
new accounting recruits in small to medium-sized accounting firms remain
unclear, warranting further study in this area.
Besides mentors, new professional recruits also learn from their peers and
might even tend to mimic them (Jones and Kavanagh, 1996). According to
Kram and Isabella (1985), peer relationships that involve individuals of similar
position potentially have a similar effect as mentors in terms of providing
psychological and work support. In most accounting firms, there will be a
number of ECAs at any one time, and such accountants from smaller firms also
The Authors
have opportunities to interact with other new accounting recruits when enrolled
in professional development courses. Given the lack of empirical evidence of
the influence of peers on ECAs’ ethical evaluations and their behavioural
intentions, the third motivation for the present study relates to filling this gap in
the literature.
The fourth motivation for the present study is to provide a better understanding
of the relationship between ECAs’ ethics education undertaken at university
and their ethical evaluations at work. Armstrong et al. suggest that ethics
educators ‘set the stage for ethical behaviour by increasing moral sensitivity,
moral reasoning and moral motivation’ (2003, p. 10). Furthermore, Gaa and
Thorne (2004) highlight the need for ethics education at university to be given
greater importance. The study of Armstrong et al. (2003), which reviewed
empirical evidence linking ethics education to accounting student’s moral
sensitivity and development, further suggests that education is likely to be a key
factor. Yet there is little empirical evidence on the relationship between ethics
education at the university level and ECAs’ ethical evaluations and behaviour
from an organisational context.
The fifth and final motivation for the present study is to inform on the link
between accounting professional bodies and ECAs’ information seeking behaviour.
A recent study by Jackling et al. (2007) involving 66 respondents from the
International Federation of Accountants indicates that accounting professional
bodies ought to play a more active role in prescribing the nature of ethics
education. Furthermore, both CPA Australia and the Institute of Chartered
Accountants in Australia, the two largest accounting bodies in Australia, are
involved in the professional training of accountants and have clear policies and
guidelines on the standard of ethical behaviour. In July 2006, APES 110: Code
of Ethics for Professional Accountants by the Accounting Professional and
Ethical Standards Board (APESB) was released and became mandatory for all
members of the accounting professional bodies.1 From a professional socialisation
perspective, it can be argued that professional training and support are key
mechanisms for promoting particular values and beliefs among newcomers to a
profession. Yet little is known as to how willing ECAs are to gain advice and
support from their respective professional bodies. However, such an under-
standing will be useful for professional accounting bodies to identify new and
better ways of supporting ECAs in their ethical development.
1
The APESB, established by CPA Australia and the Institute of Chartered Accountants
in Australia, is an independent body that sets the code of ethics and the professional stan-
dards by which their members are required to abide. The new Australian audit standards,
which apply from 1 July 2006, require auditors to comply with the relevant ethical
requirements relating to audit engagements. Consequently, the ethical requirements of
accounting professional bodies (e.g. CPA Australia’s) have become legally enforceable for
auditors performing audits under Australia’s Corporations Act.
The Authors
Figure 1 Overall conceptual framework.
The remainder of this paper is organised as follows. In the next section, an

overview of the conceptual framework for the study is provided with the
development of several hypotheses based on organisational socialisation,
mentoring and ethical development theories. This is followed by the research
method, data analysis and results of the study. Finally, a discussion of the
results, followed by the study’s conclusions and limitations, are provided.
3. Hypotheses development
Figure 1 provides an overview of the conceptual framework for this study.

A review of prior literature indicates that the ethical reasoning ability and the
associated behavioural intentions of accountants can be affected by both
organisational- and individual-related factors (Karcher, 1996; Guntz et al.,
2002; Buchan, 2005). The present study brings together several factors from
both areas, and in doing so, focuses on the different types of support available
to new accounting recruits (i.e. mentor, peer and professional level support,
as well as individual- or personal-level ethical orientations and prior ethics
education).
3.1. Mentoring support
According to organisational socialisation research, an employee’s adjustment

to the organisation is directly affected by the methods of socialisation adopted
by the organisation (Anderson-Gough et al., 1998; Fogarty and Ravenscroft,
2000). At entry, a new recruit is generally confronted with an unfamiliar and
The Authors
ambiguous organisational context, and will attempt to make sense of that

context (Siegel et al., 1995). Such recruits, in turn, are seen to look to individuals
in senior positions, and/or to company norms and procedures as displayed by
the other staff for guidance on what is acceptable or unacceptable behaviour.
Mentoring is regarded as a sponsorship system in which a senior staff member
will take a personal interest in and perform advisory and guidance functions to
develop their protégés’ careers (Siegel et al., 1995). Early studies by Kram (1983),
Noe (1988) and Scandura and Viator (1994), indicate that mentors might provide
a career-related mentoring function at a more social level. Career development
mentoring involves activities that guide the protégé on career advancement
through the provision of challenging work assignments, coaching, sponsorship,
protection, exposure and visibility. By contrast, a social support function
involves providing social acceptance, confirmation and personal friendship.2
Much of the research on mentoring relationships in public accounting firms has
focused on documenting the extent to which these different types of mentoring
functions are undertaken (Scandura and Viator, 1994; Barker et al., 1999; Viator,
2000) and have also found significant associations with outcomes such as the
protégé’s intention to leave and their organisational commitment (Scandura and
Viator, 1994; Stallworth, 2003). Several studies have also found that mentoring
functions and their impact on the protégés might vary across different national
cultures (Scandura and Viator, 1994; Barker et al., 1999; Herbohn, 2004). For
example, Herbohn (2004) found the importance of social support was lower for
Irish and Australian accountants compared to their US counterparts.
Mentors can positively influence a protégé’s perceptions of what is acceptable
ethical behaviour and what is not acceptable behaviour in various ways. First,
since a career development function involves coaching and setting high-quality
standards of work, mentors can impress upon their protégés the importance of
ethical behaviour. Mentors can illustrate how poor ethical behaviour will not be
tolerated within the firm and how such behaviour would risk jeopardising the
firm’s reputation as a whole. Furthermore, mentors in their social support role
could foster trust and encourage frank and full discussions of issues that an
ECA might feel sensitive or unclear on. For example, receiving gifts from clients,
close personal relationships with clients, and a lack of clarity in client billing mat-
ters are some of the issues that potentially raise ethical conflict, and a new recruit
is likely to benefit from guidance by his or her mentor.
Based on the discussion above, the first set of hypotheses for this study is as
follows:
H1: The perceived mentoring support received by an early career accountant is

positively related to their ethical evaluations and behavioural intentions.
2
A third type of mentoring function is a more passive one, whereby a mentor may act as
a role model on which the protégé models appropriate organisational behaviour.
The Authors
Ethical evaluations are perceptions of:

(a) the seriousness of an unethical situation; and,
(b) ethical behaviour of their senior colleagues.
Ethical behavioural intentions relate to the:
(c) likelihood of calling the professional accounting bodies for advice; and,
(d) choosing a more ethical decision.
3.2. Peer influence: perceptions of peers’ ethical conduct
Jones and Kavanagh (1996) highlight two ways in which peers might influence
unethical behaviour of their colleagues: through norms and through differential
association. First, peers are seen to set the norms (i.e. standards of behaviour
and rules on what is and what is not acceptable behaviour). According to Schein
(1984), in an organisation where the organisational culture is not strongly driven
by superiors, peers are likely to guide normative behaviour. Second, from a
differential association theory of criminal behaviour (Sutherland, 1949, 1983),
unethical behaviour is seen to be learned through association with a peer group
whereby an unlawful action can be perceived as being acceptable when a group
sanctions it. Empirical evidence from early studies by Hollinger and Clark (1983)
and Horning (1970) reveal that employee deviant behaviour is often sanctioned
or supported by a group, although the crime may be conducted by an individual.
Jones and Kavanagh (1996), based on an experimental study involving 138
upper-level undergraduate students, found that peer influence was a significant
factor affecting the intentions of respondents’ ethical behaviour. More recently,
Westerman et al. (2007) based on a survey of 165 graduate business students
from Germany, Italy and Japan found that peers exerted a much stronger influ-
ence on an individual’s ethical decision-making than national culture. Similarly,
based on a survey of 191 undergraduate advertising students, Keith et al. (2003)
found that peer ethical behaviour has a strong effect on the ethical behavioural
intentions of the respondents.
We predict peer influence to have a significant effect on the perceptions and
behaviour of accountants who are early in their career in public accounting
firms. This is because new accounting graduates generally go through a period of
intensive professional training and tend to undertake professional qualification
studies in the first few years of their career. Subsequently, they often come to rely
and support each other at work, and such close interactions in turn is likely to
result in the newly recruited accountants coming to a shared understanding of
what are acceptable and what are not acceptable ethical behaviours.
Based on the discussion above, the second set of hypotheses for this study is as
follows:
H2: The perception of the standard of ethical conduct of peers of an early

career accountant is positively related to their ethical evaluations and behavioural
intentions.
The Authors

3.3. Individual attribute: ethical orientation
Ethical orientation refers to an individual attribute that reflects one’s personal

values in relation to ethical and unethical acts. Individuals develop values from
an early age. These individual values or factors establish a context in which
decision-makers choose to act. Bommer et al. (1987) developed a model of
ethical and unethical behaviour at the individual level with several attributes,
such as individual moral level, self-concept and demographics, as predictor
variables. An individual’s moral level, or orientation, is contended to have a
large degree of influence on an individual’s ethical or unethical behaviour.
Empirical evidence based on a study of 41 owners/managers of small
businesses by Quiin (1997) indicates a significant link between respondents’
personal ethical values and their attitudes to ethical problems in business.
Respondents who were fairly active members of religious groups expressed an
overall higher concern for ethical business issues than respondents involved in
at least one business-related organisation and those involved in at least one
wider community activity group, suggesting that business issues are impacted
by personal ethical orientation.
Furthermore, an individual’s values have not only been found to play a key
role in affecting one’s attitude to ethical problems but also in his or her resolution
of ethical dilemmas (Glover et al., 1997). Using experimental research methods,
Glover et al. (1997) studied 367 university students and observed that individuals
who valued achievement made a more ethical decision when the moral intensity
of the decision was not extreme. Similarly, Al-Kazemi and Zajac (1999) found
that employees in public organisations in Kuwait who had a high ethical orien-
tation (sensitivity) tended to identify a greater number of unethical behaviours.
On the basis of Ruch and Newstrom’s (1975) research instrument, Al-Kazemi
and Zajac (1999) explored 14 interpersonal ethics and illegal and organisational
ethics behaviours of 170 Kuwaiti employees. These behaviours measured
respondents’ ethical orientation or their personal moral ‘roadmap’ (Schott,
1991). It was found that respondents had a high ethical orientation, with a
minimum of 62 per cent of respondents identifying each of the 14 behaviours
as being unethical. Nevertheless, much of the extant evidence is based on man-
agers’ ethical orientation, and no study to date has investigated the association
between individual ethical orientations of public accountants and their ethical
evaluations and behaviour. Based on the above discussion, it is therefore
hypothesised that:
The Authors
H3: The level of an early career accountant’s personal ethical orientation is

3.4. Individual attribute: extent of ethics education
Accounting faculties at universities have started to not only integrate ethics in

individual courses or subjects, but also advocate separate standalone units.
Wu (2003) conducted a survey of 126 business ethics students in two universities in
Taiwan and mainland China and concluded that, after receiving an education in
business ethics, students from both universities showed significant improve-
ments in the ethical weighting of their individual values, their recognition of
ethical issues and their performance in ethical decision-making. Thoma (1986)
and McNeel (1994) also found that a college education positively influences an
individual’s level of moral reasoning. In comparison, Zeigenfuss (1999), based on a
survey of 84 university students, reported no significant differences between
education level (sophomore, junior, senior and graduate) and personal ethical
philosophy, suggesting that undergraduate programs that integrate ethics through-
out a curriculum have little or no effect on a student’s personal ethical philosophy.
Based on the discussion above, the fourth set of hypotheses is as follows:
H4: The extent of an early career accountant’s ethics education at university is
4. Research method
4.1. Sampling procedures
Data were collected via a mail questionnaire survey conducted in late 2007.
First, 30 accounting firms from each of the seven Australian states and territories
were randomly selected from the ‘white pages’ and ‘yellow pages’ telephone
websites, leading to a sample of 210 firms in total. A mail-out package was
sent to each firm, which included a covering letter to the firm’s partner or manager
The Authors
and three separate sealed envelopes – each addressed to an ECA.3 The covering
letter to the partner or manager provided information about the project and
requested that the sealed envelopes be forwarded to three randomly selected
new accounting recruits from their firm. In each of the separate sealed envelope,
a covering letter to the ECA, a questionnaire and a return self-addressed
envelope were included. Eight mail-out packages were returned unopened due
to incorrect address; and one facsimile was received advising that the firm did
not have any ECAs employed. Hence, the final adjusted sample population
involved 603 ECAs from 201 accounting firms. A number of random follow-up
calls were made about 3 weeks after the initial mail-out to check if the mail-out
packages were received, and if the partner or manager was willing to distribute
the sealed envelopes with the questionnaire to the ECAs, and all replies were in
the affirmative.
A total of 86 useable responses were received. This equates to a response rate
of 14.3 per cent. Non-response bias was investigated by applying the Mann–
Whitney U statistic for differences in responses provided by early and late
respondents. The first and last 25 per cent of questionnaires returned were
analysed and no statistically significant differences were found. On hindsight, a
possible reason for the relatively low response rate might relate to the time-
constraints face by new accounting recruits who are not only learning a new job,
but are also likely to be enrolled in professional qualification and development
programmes such as in the chartered accounting or the certified practising
accountant (CPA) programmes. In fact, 92 per cent of respondents of our study
report as being enrolled in a chartered accounting or CPA programme.
4.2. Survey questionnaire design
The survey questionnaire collected information on issues relating to mentoring

styles, perceived ethical behaviour, ethical behavioural intentions, and individual
attributes. A pilot study of the questionnaire was undertaken involving five
academics who all had public accounting experience as well as four newly
recruited accountants. Based on their feedback, some minor changes to wordings
of the questionnaire were subsequently undertaken.
The first part of the questionnaire provided a hypothetical case scenario
(adapted from the study of Brennan and Kelly, 2007), whereby an ECA discovers
improper accounting treatment of research and development expenditure. This
treatment is said to have significant implications to the financial statement and
when the matter is brought to the attention of the audit partner, no action is
undertaken with the suggestion that the client (who is also a large and important
client) would prefer the matter to be treated as it is. (Please see Appendix A for
3
For each firm, the name of the partner or manager was obtained from either the tele-
phone or the firm’s website.
The Authors
the full case description.) The survey respondents were then asked to respond to
various questions relating to the scenario on a seven point Likert-type scale,
including their perception on the seriousness of the ethical issue involved
(SERISS), the likelihood that they would make the same decision (EBI) (Patel,
2003), how ethical would they rate the Audit Partner’s response (APR) to be,
the likelihood they would call an accounting professional body for advice
(ACCPRO) and the likelihood that they will undertake another course of action
to that undertaken by the ECA in the hypothetical case.
Respondents’ ethical orientation (ETHOR) was measured using an abridged
version of Al-Kazemi and Zajac’s (1999) 14 item instrument, which was adapted
from a longer list of ethical behaviours originally developed by Ruch and
Newstrom (1975). Respondents were asked to indicate, on a seven point Likert-
type scale, how ethical or unethical they considered six different behaviours. The
six behaviours appraised were divulging confidential information, accepting gifts
in exchange for preferential treatment, taking longer than necessary to do a job,
concealing one’s errors, conducting personal business in the firm’s time, and
misappropriating firm resources for personal use. As each of these behaviours is
considered unethical, each of the items were reversed scored for data analysis.
Therefore, the higher the score, the more ethical the response was considered to
be. Cronbach alpha for the six items was 0.78, which suggests acceptable scale
reliability. Responses to the six items were summed and the weighted average
calculated to form the measure of ETHOR.
The second section of the survey questionnaire appraised ECAs’ formal and
informal mentoring relationships. Respondents were asked how many formal
mentors as well as informal mentors – both internal and external – they had, the
gender of their mentors, and how often they had meetings with them (i.e.
weekly, monthly, quarterly, twice a year or once a year). In addition, respondents
were asked how often they had formal set meetings and informal ad hoc meetings
with their mentors and what position each mentor holds. If a respondent did not
have a mentor, they were asked to describe the reasons why.
Mentorship style was measured using the instrument developed by Scandura
and Viator (1994) and also applied by Barker et al. (1999) and Herbohn (2004).
Respondents were asked to rate their relationship with their formal mentor on a
seven point Likert-type scale ranging from ‘1’ (strongly disagree) to ‘7’ (strongly
agree), for 15 issues including ‘my mentor takes a personal interest in my
career’, ‘I share personal problems with my mentor’ and ‘my mentors helps
me coordinate professional goals’. A principal components analysis of the 15
items yielded two factors with eigenvalues greater than 1 (5.947 and 4.831,
respectively). The final two factor solution is reported in Table 1. Nine items
loaded strongly on factor 1, the career development mentoring factor (CARDEV).
In the studies of Scandura and Viator (1994) and Herbohn (2004), items 8 and 9
(Herbohn) as well as items 11 and 14 (Scandura and Viator) loaded on a third
factor called role modelling. In this study, role modelling is seen as a compon-
ent of the career development function of formal mentors with a total of
The Authors
Table 1
Varimax factor loadings on the style of mentoring measurement instrument
Factor 1: Factor 2:
Mentoring item Career development a Social support
1. My mentor takes a personal interest in my 0.80 0.25

career
2. My mentor has placed me in important 0.88 0.15
assignments
3. My mentor gives me special coaching on 0.85 0.29
the job
4. My mentor advises me about promotional 0.64 0.39
opportunities
5. I share personal problems with my mentor 0.24 0.82
6. My mentor helps me coordinate 0.46 0.63
professional goals
7. I socialise with my mentor after work 0.34 0.76
8. I try to model my behaviour after my 0.70 0.52
mentor
9. I admire my mentor’s ability to motivate 0.72 0.50
others
10. I exchange confidences with my mentor 0.48 0.73
11. I respect my mentor’s knowledge of the 0.73 0.38
accounting profession
12. I consider my mentor to be a friend 0.52 0.72
13. I respect my mentor’s ability to teach 0.62 0.52
others
14. My mentor has devoted special time and 0.74 0.44
consideration to my career
15. I often go to lunch with my mentor 0.16 0.83
Percentage of total variance in mentoring 39.65 32.21
explained by factor
Cronbach alpha 0.945 0.912
a
A factor loading cut-off of 0.50 was used as the criterion for an item to be considered significant to
a factor.
39.6 per cent of the variance in mentoring explained by this factor. The six items
that loaded strongly on factor 2 – share personal problems, coordinate profes-
sional goals, socialise after work, exchange confidences, consider a friend and
go to lunch – were the same as the combined factor items from the studies of
Scandura and Viator (1994) and Herbohn (2004) that loaded on the factor called
social support mentoring function (SOCSUPP).4
4
Items 5, 7, 10, 12 and 15 in the study of Scandura and Viator (1994) loaded on the social
support factor, and items 5, 6, 7, 12 and 15 loaded on this factor in the study of Herbohn
(2004).
The Authors
A number of ethics themes were examined in the following section of the

questionnaire. Respondents were asked to respond on a seven point Likert-
type scale ranging from ‘1’ (never and poor standard) to ‘7’ (often and high
standard). The ethics themes section incorporated the questions ‘how often have
you encountered ethical conflicts in your workplace’, ‘how often have you
encountered ethical issues in relation to your work with clients, billing hours to
clients and behaviour of colleagues’, and ‘how often does your mentor provide
advice, career guidance and information to help you deal with ethical conflicts’.
Respondents were then asked to rate, from a poor to high standard, the ethical
behaviour of their peers in the workplace (PEERS).
The final section of the questionnaire gathered background information about
the ECA. Respondents were asked their age, gender (GENDER), professional
programme enrolled in, proportion of professional programme completed,
whether their firm was a Big Four firm, middle-tier firm or a small firm with
less than 10 accountants (SIZE), their position title, length of time working as
an accountant, length of time working with the current firm, graduating univer-
sity, year graduated, what extent was ethics taught at university (EXTETH) and
whether ethics was taught as a distinct course or integrated into accounting
courses.
4.3. Control variables
Both gender and firm size were included as control variables for the following
reasons. Although many studies have found that women are more ethical than
men, some also have found no significant difference between genders. For
example, Miceli and Near (1988) found that women were less likely to be
whistleblowers than men and Thorley et al. (1998) found that female accountants
have higher level of moral reasoning ability. While Brennan and Kelly (2007)
found no significant differences in regards to gender in the willingness of
trainee auditor’s to report wrongdoing externally. Furthermore, O’Leary and
Cotter (2000) found that males were between two and four times more likely
than females to act unethically and Haswell and Jubb (1995) noted that almost
50 per cent of male and 25 per cent of female students would accept a bribe
if there was no risk of being caught. In a similar vein, Cohen et al. (1998)
examined the effect of gender on ethical evaluations, ethical intentions and
ethical orientation of potential public accounting recruits and found that women
consider questionable actions to be more unethical and are less likely to perform
these actions than men. In addition, Adkins and Radtke (2004) find that females
find accounting education concepts and goals more important than males. In
contrast, Jones and Kavanagh (1996), in their study of the effects of individual
and situation factors on unethical behavioural intentions in the workplace,
found no gender differences.
Firm size, conceptualised as Big Four firm versus non-Big Four firm, was
also included as a control variable. Previous studies have shown inconsistent
The Authors
results in relation to the impact of firm size on ethical behavioural intentions.

For example, Thorley et al. (1998) found that accounting practitioners from
small firms generally have the same level of moral reasoning as Big Six practitioners
and Brennan and Kelly (2007) found no significant differences based on firm
size in regard to the willingness of auditor’s to whistle-blow. In comparison,
Sweeney and Boyle (2005) found significant differences between Big Four and
non-Big Four respondents in regard to supervisory actions, job satisfaction
and intentions to remain in the firm for a sample of 166 Irish trainee chartered
accountants. Patten (1995) found significant differences between small firms
and Big Six firms in the USA relative to working conditions and job satisfaction,
but not for leadership and mentoring. While Guntz et al. (2002) reported that the
larger the accounting firm, the more likely that a respondent would seek help
from their colleagues, while no differences were found between accountants
from large versus small firms relying on accounting professional bodies for
advice.
4.4. Characteristics of sample and descriptive statistics
The characteristics of the sample include having a comparable proportion of

males and females (i.e. 56 and 44 per cent, respectively), the average age being
23 years and 3 months and 76 per cent of respondents being under 25 years of
age. More respondents were enrolled in the chartered accounting programme
than the CPA programme (65 vs. 27 per cent) and 70 per cent of respondents
having completed 20 per cent or less of their programme. Almost 60 per cent of
respondents were employed in a middle-tier firm, and 31 per cent from a
Big Four firm and 9 per cent from a small firm with less than 10 accountants.
Just over 38 per cent of respondents had less than 1 year working experience as
an accountant, 31 per cent had between 1 and 2 years, and another 31 per cent
for more than 2 years experience. Approximately 80 per cent of respondents
had been working for their current firm for less than 2 years. Most respondents
(i.e. over 66 per cent) graduated from university in 2006.
In terms of mentoring relationships, most respondents (68 per cent) had
either one or two formal mentors in their firm, 67 per cent had one or more
informal internal mentors and 26 per cent had one or more informal mentors’
external to the firm.5 Twenty-seven per cent of respondents did not have a formal
mentor, and all respondents who did not have a formal or informal mentor were
5
Responses from ECAs with formal and informal mentors were included in the analysis
(i.e. responses from ECAs with no mentor were excluded from further analysis). An anal-
ysis of the responses between each group (those with formal mentors only and those with
informal mentors only) was conducted. No significant differences in responses across all
survey questions were identified. This is consistent with the findings of Siegel et al. (1999),
who found no significant effect concerning differences in the influence of mentoring rela-
tionships between firms with a formal and those with an informal mentoring structure.
The Authors
Table 2
Mentoring relationships profile of early career accountant (ECA) sample
Formal internal Informal internal Informal external

Type of mentor Number (%) Number (%) Number (%)
Number of ECAs that meet with formal mentors

Weekly 32 39 12
Monthly 16 7 9
Quarterly 10 3 2
Twice a year 8 0 3
Once a year 0 0 2
Formal set meetings with mentors
Never 12 (14.0) 36 (41.9) 18 (20.9)
Sometimes 35 (40.7) 13 (15.1) 3 (3.5)
Often 17 (19.8) 4 (4.7) 2 (2.3)
No answer 22 (25.6) 33 (38.4) 63 (73.3)
Total 100 (100) 100 (100) 100 (100)
Informal ad hoc meetings with mentors
Never 12 (14.0) 8 (9.3) 4 (4.7)
Sometimes 26 (30.2) 20 (23.3) 6 (7.0)
Often 26 (30.2) 27 (31.4) 12 (12.0)
No answer 22 (25.6) 31 (36.0) 64 (74.4)
Total 100 (100) 100 (100) 100 (100)
employed at middle-tier and small accounting firms. Six respondents did not
have a formal or informal mentor, and the main reasons cited for the lack of
a mentor were ‘not sure’, ‘not really required’, ‘I am knowledgeable enough to
do my job without any problems’, and ‘no mentoring programme at firm’.6
An overview of the sample profile in relation to meeting frequencies and
formality of meetings between the mentors and mentees is provided in Table 2.
In general, most respondents meet with their formal and informal mentors every
week, with 40.7 per cent of respondents ‘sometimes’ having set meetings
with formal mentors, 12 per cent never having set meetings with their formal
mentors and 30.2 per cent ‘often’ having informal ad hoc meetings with their
formal mentors.
The descriptive statistics of the four dependent variables (i.e. ECA responses
to the ethical scenario) is presented in Table 3. For the perceived seriousness of
the given scenario (SERISS), most respondents viewed the matter to be fairly
serious with 100 per cent of responses above the midpoint of the seven point
scale (mean ¼ 5.86). With respect to respondents’ response to the behaviour of
6
Therefore, 7 per cent of respondents noted they did not have a mentor. This compares
favourably with 22.6 per cent of respondents who reported to not have any kind of men-
tor in the study of Viator and Scandura (1991) and 9.5 per cent who reported not having
a mentor in the study of Viator (1999).
The Authors
634
The Authors
Table 3
Descriptive statistics and correlation matrix of variables of the study
Mean Minimum Maximum SD SERISS APR ACCPRO EBI CARDEV SOCSUPP PEERS ETHOR EXTETH SIZE
SERISS 5.85 4 7 0.94 1.00

APR 1.96 1 5 0.95 0.63*** 1.00
ACCPRO 3.38 1 7 1.72 0.28** –0.13 1.00
EBI 4.17 1 7 1.73 0.47*** 0.46*** 0.20 1.00

CARDEV 5.06 1.7 6.9 1.18 –0.8 0.13 0.07 –0.27** 1.00
SOCSUPP 4.49 1 6.7 1.42 –0.17 –0.36*** –0.18 –0.25** 0.78*** 1.00
PEERS 5.87 3 7 0.89 0.12 0.08 0.01 0.15 0.52*** 0.42*** 1.00
ETHOR 2.53 1.7 5.7 0.77 0.25** 0.07 –0.06 0.23** 0.14 0.11 0.02 1.00
EXTETH 4.37 1 7 1.64 0.33*** 0.04 0.07 0.45** –0.01 0.11 –0.06 0.24** 1.00
SIZE 0.34 0 (53)a 1 (27)a 0.48 0.17 0.08 –0.27** 0.20 –0.11 –0.06 –0.05 0.04 0.25** 1.00
GENDER 0.46 0 (45)b 1 (35)b 0.55 0.36*** 0.36*** 0.17 0.22 –0.19 –0.33*** –0.22 0.14 0.24** 0.07
*** and ** indicate that correlation is significant at the 0.01 and 0.05 levels (two-tailed), respectively. aData coded as 0 ¼ non-Big Four firm and 1 ¼ Big
Four firm (frequency). bData coded as 0 ¼ male and 1 ¼ female (frequency). SERISS is seriousness of the issue; APR is audit partner’s response; ACCPRO
is call an accounting professional body for advice; EBI is ethical behavioural intentions; CARDEV is career developing mentoring style; SOCSUPP is social
support mentoring style; PEERS is ethical behaviour of peers; ETHOR is ethical orientation of early career accountant; EXTETH is extent of university
ethics education.
L. McManus, N. Subramaniam/Accounting and Finance 49 (2009) 619–643
the senior colleague (audit partner’s response in the given case scenario (APR)),
most of them considered the audit partner’s behaviour to be unethical (i.e.
mean ¼ 1.94, where 1 ¼ highly unethical and 7 ¼ highly ethical).
The average responses for the questions ‘would you call an accounting pro-
fessional body for advice (ACCPRO)’ and ‘would you make that same decision
(EBI)’ were generally around the midpoint of the seven point scale (means ¼ 3.27
and 4.12, respectively, where 1 ¼ highly improbable, 7 ¼ highly probable). Finally,
for the question on ‘would you take another course of action’, the mean score
was 4.23 with 18 respondents stating that an alternate course of action for them
would be ‘to discuss with another partner’, six respondents stating ‘discuss with
colleagues’ and another six respondents stating ‘to resign from the firm. Two
respondents stated contacting the Australian Securities Commission and one to
use the firm’s hotline.
5. Results
Table 3 also provides descriptive statistics of the other variables of the study
and a matrix of the Spearman’s rank correlation coefficients for the dependent,
independent and control variables. Although a number of the correlations between
the independent variables were significant (p < 0.01), multicollinearity does not
represent a significant threat to the regression analyses conducted, as the VIF
values presented in Table 4 are below the generally accepted critical threshold
value of 10 (Hair et al., 2006).
Prior to performing the regression analyses, the data were screened for the
existence of any influential observations through the examination of residuals,
calculation of leverage points, Mahalanobis distance and Cook’s distance. No
influential observations were identified. Each set of hypotheses was tested by
separately fitting each of the four respective dependent variables (Yi-iv) to the
following equation that includes the two control variables (gender and firm
size):
Yði-ivÞ ¼ b1 þ b2 CARDEV þ b3 SOCSUPP þ b4 PEERS

þ b5 ETHOR þ b6 EXTETH þ b7 SIZE þ b8 GENDER þ e
where:
Y(i-iv) ¼ ECAs’ (i) evaluation of seriousness of the ethical issue (SERISS);
(ii) evaluation of the ethical behaviour of a senior colleague
(APR); (iii) likelihood of calling the accounting professional
body for advice (ACCPRO); and (iv) intention to behave ethi-
cally (EBI)
CARDEV ¼ career development mentoring style
SOCSUPP ¼ social support mentoring style
PEERS ¼ perceptions of ethical behaviour of peers
ETHOR ¼ ethical orientation of ECA
The Authors
Table 4
Regression analysis resultsa
Expected SERISS APR ACCPRO EBI

sign Hypothesis (a) (b) (c) (d) VIF
Constant 4.84*** 2.78*** 2.57** 2.89***

(5.53) (3.01) (1.40) (1.76)
CARDEV + 1 –0.04 0.26* 0.12 –0.17 3.27
(–0.23) (1.32) (0.57) (–0.89)
SOCSUPP + 1 –0.25b** –0.63b** –0.35b** –0.17 3.20
(–1.31) (–3.21) (–1.71) (–0.91)
PEERS + 2 0.29*** 0.21** 0.10 0.05 1.43
(2.38) (1.65) (0.76) (0.38)
ETHOR + 3 0.22** 0.04 –0.02 0.18** 1.17
(1.93) (0.36) (–0.15) (1.61)
EXTETH + 4 0.20** 0.08 0.21* 0.35*** 1.44
(1.67) (0.65) (1.58) (2.84)
Control variables
SIZE 0.09 0.09 –0.35*** 0.05 1.07
(0.86) (0.86) (–3.03) (0.47)
GENDER 0.25** 0.15 0.05 0.05 1.44
(2.07) (1.20) (0.40) (0.39)
Adjusted R2 0.25 0.19 0.11 0.22
F 4.32 3.37 2.15 3.887
p-value 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.00
*p < 0.10; **p < 0.05; ***p < 0.01 (n ¼ 71). aEach cell presents the standardised regression coeffi-
cient followed by the t-value in parentheses. All t-tests are one-tailed tests of significance in hypothes-
ised direction for independent variables: CARDEV, SOCSUPP, PEERS, ETHOR and EXTETH.
t-tests are two-tailed tests of significance for control variables: SIZE and GENDER. bRegression
coefficient is significantly negative (i.e. p < 0.05) in the opposite direction as that hypothesised. SE-
RISS is seriousness of the issue; APR is perceptions of audit partner’s response; ACCPRO is call an
accounting professional body for advice; EBI is ethical behavioural intentions; CARDEV is career
developing mentoring style; SOCSUPP is social support mentoring style; PEERS is ethical behav-
iour of peers; ETHOR is ethical orientation of early career accountant; EXTETH is extent of univer-
sity ethics education; SIZE is firm size (coded: 0 ¼ non-Big Four firm and 1 ¼ Big Four firm);
GENDER is gender (coded: 0 ¼ male and 1 ¼ female).
EXTETH ¼ extent of ECAs’ ethics education

SIZE ¼ firm size
GENDER ¼ gender
Results of the regression analyses are presented in Table 4. The four regression
equations were statistically significant (p < 0.05 for all equations), with adjusted
R2’s ranging from 11 to 25 per cent.
Hypotheses 1(a–d) predicted a positive relationship between ECAs’ perceptions
of mentoring support (i.e. career development mentoring style or social support
mentoring style) and their evaluation of the seriousness of an unethical situation,
The Authors
the ethical behaviour of their senior colleagues and their ethical

behavioural intentions in terms of the likelihood they would call an accounting
professional body for advice and the likelihood they would make a more ethical
decision. There was weak support shown for Hypothesis 1(b) with career devel-
opment mentoring style exhibiting a moderately significant and positive relation-
ship with the ethical behaviour of their senior colleague in the hypothesised
direction (p < 0.10). No support was shown for Hypotheses 1(a), 1(c) or 1(d).
Interestingly, social support mentoring style was significantly negatively
related to the evaluation of the seriousness of the unethical situation (p < 0.05),
the ethical behaviour of their senior colleague (p < 0.01) and the likelihood they
would call an accounting professional body for advice (p > 0.05). This suggests
that the greater the social support mentoring style perceived by a new accounting
recruit, the less serious they evaluate an unethical situation, the less unethical
they view the behaviour of their senior colleague and the less likely they are to
call an accounting professional body for ethical advice.
Hypotheses 2(a–d) postulated a significant positive relationship between
ECAs’ perceptions of the ethical conduct of their peers and their evaluation
of the seriousness of an unethical situation and the ethical behaviour of their
senior colleagues as well as their behavioural intentions in terms of the likeli-
hood they would call an accounting professional body for advice and the
likelihood they would make a more ethical decision. Strong support was shown
for Hypotheses 2(a) and 2(b), with the perceptions of the ethical conduct of
peers significantly positively related to the evaluation of the seriousness of the
unethical scenario (p < 0.01) and the respondents’ evaluation of the ethical
behaviour of their senior colleagues (p < 0.05). No support was shown for
Hypothesis 2(c) or 2(d).
The third set of hypotheses put forth a significant positive relationship between
ECAs’ ethical orientation and their evaluation of the seriousness of an unethical
situation, the ethical behaviour of their senior colleagues and their behavioural
intentions in terms of the likelihood they would call an accounting professional
body for advice and the likelihood they would make a more ethical decision.
Individual ethical orientation was significantly positively related to the per-
ceptions of the serious of an unethical situation (p < 0.05) and a participant’s
behavioural intention in terms of choosing a more ethical decision (p < 0.05).
Therefore, support was shown for Hypotheses 3(a) and 3(d).
Support was also shown for Hypotheses 4(a), 4(c) and 4(d) with the extent of
ethics education at university significantly positively related to the evaluation of
the seriousness of an unethical situation (p < 0.05), and the ECAs’ behavioural
intentions in terms of the likelihood contacting an accounting professional body
for advice (p < 0.10) and that a more ethical decision be chosen (p < 0.01).
In relation to the control variables, first, firm size was found to be negatively
related to the likelihood of a new accounting recruit calling an accounting
professional body for advice (p < 0.01), indicating that respondents from small
and middle tier firms are more likely to call an accounting professional body for
The Authors
advice than those from Big Four firms. Second, gender was found to be
positively related to respondents’ perceptions of the seriousness of an unethical sit-
uation (p < 0.05). That is, female respondents perceive an unethical scenario as
being more serious than males.
6. Discussion of results
This study provides empirical evidence on the ethical evaluations and

behavioural intentions of ECAs in Australian public accounting firms. The
results of this study indicate that peers have a strong effect on the ethical
evaluations of accountants who are still early in their career, particularly in
terms of their perceptions of the seriousness of a hypothetical ethical conflict and
also the extent to which they judge an unethical act by their superiors to be
unethical. As accountants starting their career perceive a higher standard of
peer ethical conduct in a firm, it is more likely that they will view an ethical
conflict to be serious and the inappropriate actions of their superiors to be
unethical. This findings support prior studies on the influence of peers on an
individual’s judgements (Jones and Kavanagh, 1996). However, the impact of
peers on the ECAs’ behavioural intentions has not been significant. In addition,
the findings of this study also identify ethics education at university to be a
significant factor affecting perceptions of the seriousness of an unethical issue
as well as the behavioural intentions of accountants early in their career in
terms of calling the accounting professional body for advice, and choosing a
more ethical action. Clearly, these results indicate that university curricula
might need to pay more attention to the quality and extent of ethics content in
the accounting programmes. Furthermore, these results also suggest that the
professional bodies have an important role in affecting the behaviour of
ECAs through providing better ethical conduct guidance. This highlights an
increasing need for greater involvement and commitment by professional bodies
to ensure adequate support is available for those embarking in an accounting
career at both the university level and in-house such as through their website,
and more importantly access to advisors/counsellors outside the firm. Further-
more, the results have implications for the design of professional accounting
training programmes in terms of increasing their ethical content.
An individual’s ethical orientation attribute is also another factor that appears
to affect ECAs’ perceptions of the seriousness of an ethical conflict, and to a
lesser extent, the choice of ethical behaviour. The greater the individual pro-
pensity or personal values towards ethical behaviour, the higher the probability
that in a work situation they will likewise perceive and act ethically. These results
support prior studies by Al-Kazemi and Zajac (1999) and Quiin (1997), who
found evidence of a high level of personal ethical sensitivity with an increased
likelihood of ethical attitudes towards ethically sensitive business issues.
Interestingly, the results relating to the impact of mentoring style on ECAs
were mixed. While a career-development mentoring style appears to support
The Authors
such accountants’ ethical evaluation of a senior colleague, no such impact

was found on their ethical behaviour orientations. Surprisingly, the social sup-
port mentoring style seems to have a negative impact on ECA’s ethical evalua-
tions and behaviour. It is possible that when accountants early in their career
interact more socially with their mentors, they might develop a more emotionally
based relationship and, hence, would have difficulty viewing a mentor behaving
unethically, and also would consider it unnecessary to consult an external body
such as an accounting professional body. Nevertheless, further study on the
social bond developed by the mentor–mentee dyad, particularly from a psycho-
social effect, is clearly warranted. In particular, given that prior studies (Scandura
and Viator, 1994; Herbohn, 2004) indicate that national culture might affect the
mentoring relationship, extending the current study to other cultural settings
would be useful for comparative purposes. Another explanation for the results
of the present study may relate to the sample respondents’ limited extent of
interactions with their mentors. Given that most of the sample respondents
(about 70 per cent) had been employed at the firm for only about a year, and
almost 15 per cent report as having not met their formal mentor at all, it is also
possible that the effect of mentorship has been minimal.
7. Conclusions and limitations of study
This study provides evidence on an interesting array of factors affecting the

ethical orientations and intended behaviours of ECAs, and, in particular, high-
lights the importance of mentoring, peer support and tertiary ethics education
as well as personal ethical orientation as vital factors influencing their ethical
development and stance at the workplace. However, these results need to be
interpreted with caution. First, the questionnaire distribution to ECAs was
reliant on the principal of the practice. As such, the sample might be biased
towards respondents whom the principal might already have a strong positive
view and a good mentoring relationship. Second, the use of a single hypothetical
scenario limits the validity of the findings. While the ethical conflict revolved
around the misclassification of R&D expenditure, this might not be seen as serious
in comparison to other types of ethical misdemeanours, such as falsification of
documents or lying to a client. Third, the response rate was fairly low, about
14 per cent, and as such the generalisability of the data is restricted. Fourth, we
also recognise that the use of a hypothetical ethical situation might entail positive
response bias due to social desirability reasons where arguably respondents
tend to over-report or over-state activities that are deemed to be socially desirable
(Zerbe and Paulhus, 1987). For example, respondents of this study might have
rated the seriousness of the ethical scenario as being more severe or reported
the probability of their undertaking an ethical decision higher than their actual
perceptions or their willingness to act in an ethical manner. Nevertheless, since
we had used the wording of the scenario in the third person (i.e. not in direct
reference to the respondent), the effects of social desirability bias is likely to be
The Authors
minimal (Lord and Melvin, 1997). Finally, the usual caveats of a survey research
are acknowledged.
Nevertheless, gaining a better understanding of the ethical attitudes of
accountants early in their career is vital for a vibrant and forward-looking
profession. ECAs are in a delicate and critical juncture in their accounting
careers and as such, future work in this area by studying the impact of additional
sources of influence both in and out of the workplace (e.g. organisation-specific
training programmes), and the quality of ethics education at the professional
and tertiary levels is clearly timely and critical.
References
Adkins, N., and R. R. Radtke, 2004, Students’ and faculty members’ perceptions of the
importance of business ethics and accounting ethics education: is there an expectations
gap? Journal of Business Ethics 51, 279–300.
Ahadiat, N., and J. J. Mackie, 1993, Ethics education in accounting: an investigation of the
importance of ethics as a factor in the recruiting decisions of public accounting firms,
Journal of Accounting Education 11, 243–257.
Al-Kazemi, A. A., and G. Zajac, 1999, Ethics sensitivity and awareness within organizations
in Kuwait: an empirical exploration of espoused theory and theory-in-use, Journal of
Business Ethics 20, 353–361.
Anderson-Gough, F., C. Grey, and K. Robson, 1998, ‘Work hard, play hard’: an analysis of
organizational cliché in two accountancy practices, Organization 5, 565–592.
Aranya, N., and K. R. Ferris, 1984, A reexamination of accountants’ organizational-
professional conflict, Accounting Review 59, 1–15.
Armstrong, M. B., J. E. Ketz, and D. Owsen, 2003, Ethics education in accounting: moving
toward ethical motivation and ethical behavior, Journal of Accounting Education 21,
1–16.
Barker, P., K. Monks, and F. Buckley, 1999, The role of mentoring in the career progression
of chartered accountants, British Accounting Review 31, 297–312.
Bommer, M., C. Gratto, J. Gravander, and M. Tuttle, 1987, A behavioral model of ethical
and unethical decision making, Journal of Business Ethics 6, 265–280.
Brennan, N., and J. Kelly, 2007, A study of whistleblowing among trainee auditors, British
Accounting Review 39, 61–87.
Buchan, H. F., 2005, Ethical decision making in the public accounting profession: an
extension of Ajzen’s theory of planned behavior, Journal of Business Ethics 61, 165–181.
Cohen, J. G., L. Pant, and D. J. Sharp, 1998, The effect of gender and academic discipline
diversity on the ethical evaluations, ethical intentions and ethical orientation of potential
public accounting recruits, Accounting Horizons 12, 250–270.
Dreike, E. M., and C. Moeckel, 1995, Perceptions of senior auditors: ethical issues and factors
affecting actions, Research on Accounting Ethics 1, 331–348.
Fogarty, T., and S. Ravenscroft, 2000, Making accounting knowledge: peering at power,
Critical Perspectives on Accounting 11, 409–431.
Gaa, J. C., and L. Thorne, 2004, An introduction to the special issue on professionalism
and ethics in accounting education, Issues in Accounting Education 19, 1–6.
Glover, S. H., M. A. Bumpus, J. E. Logan, and J. R. Ciesla, 1997, Re-examining the influence
of individual values on ethical decision making, Journal of Business Ethics 16, 1319–1329.
Guntz, H. P., S. P. Gunz, and J. C. McCutcheon, 2002, Organizational influences
on approaches to ethical decisions by professionals: the case of public accountants, Cana-
dian Journal of Administrative Sciences 19, 76–91.
The Authors
Hair, J. F., R. E. Anderson, R. L. Tatham, and W. C. Black, 2006, Multivariate Data

Analysis: With Readings, 6th edn (Pearson Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ).
Haswell, S., and P. Jubb, 1995, Unethical tendencies, Charter 102–103.
Herbohn, K., 2004, Informal mentoring relationships and the career processes of public
accountants, British Accounting Review 36, 369–393.
Hollinger, R. C., and J. P. Clark, 1983, Theft by Employees (Lexington Books, Lexington,
MA).
Horning, D. N. M., 1970, Blue collar theft: conceptions of property, attitudes toward pilfer-
ing, and work group norms in a modern industrial plant, in: E. O. Smigel and H. L. Ross,
eds, Crime Against Bureaucracy (Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York), 61–83.
Jackling, B., B. J. Cooper, P. Leung, and S. Dellaportas, 2007, Professional accounting
bodies’ perceptions of ethical issues, causes of ethical failure and ethics education,
Managerial Auditing Journal 2, 928–940.
Jones, G. E., and M. J. Kavanagh, 1996, An experimental examination of the effects
of individual and situational factors on unethical behavioural intentions in the workplace,
Journal of Business Ethics 15, 511–523.
Kaplan, S. E., A. K. Keinath, and J. C. Walo, 2001, An examination of perceived barriers
to mentoring in public accounting, Behavioral Research in Accounting 13, 195–220.
Karcher, J. N., 1996, Auditors’ ability to discern the presence of ethical problems, Journal
of Business Ethics 15, 1033–1050.
Keith, N. K., C. E. Pettijohn, and M. S. Burnett, 2003, An empirical evaluation of the effect
of peer and managerial ethical behaviors and the ethical predispositions of prospective
advertising employees, Journal of Business Ethics 48, 251–265.
Kram, K., 1983, Phases of the mentor relationship, Academy, of, Management, Journal 26,
608–625.
Kram, K. E., and L. A. Isabella, 1985, Mentoring alternatives: the role of peer relationships
in career development, Academy of Management Journal 28, 110–132.
Lord, A. T., and K. B. Melvin, 1997, The attitudes of accounting students, faculty and
employers towards cheating, Research on Accounting Ethics 3, 1–20.
Malone, F. L., 2006, The ethical attitudes of accounting students, Journal of American
Academy of Business 8, 142–146.
McNeel, S., 1994, College teaching and student moral development, in: J. Rest and
D. Narvaez, eds, Moral Development in the Professions (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates,
Hillsdale, NJ), 8–21.
Miceli, M. P., and J. P. Near, 1988, Individual and situational correlates of whistle-blowing,
Personnel Psychology 41, 267–281.
Mintz, S. M., 1996, The role of virtue in accounting education, Accounting Education 1,
67–91.
Noe, R., 1988, An investigation of the determinants of successful assigned mentoring
relationships, Personnel Psychology 41, 457–479.
O’Leary, C., and D. Cotter, 2000, The ethics of final year accountancy students: an inter-
national comparison, Managerial Auditing Journal 15, 108–115.
Patel, C., 2003, Some cross-cultural evidence on whistle-blowing as an internal control
mechanism, Journal of International Accounting Research 2, 69–96.
Patten, D. M., 1995, Supervisory actions and job satisfaction: an analysis of differences
between large and small public accounting firms, Accounting Horizons 9, 17–28.
Ponemon, L. A., 1999, The influence of ethical reasoning on auditors’ perceptions of
management’s competence and integrity, Advances in Accounting 11, 1–29.
Quiin, J. J., 1997, Personal ethics and business ethics: the ethical attitudes of owner/manag-
ers of small business, Journal of Business Ethics 16, 119–127.
Ruch, W. A., and J. W. Newstrom, 1975, How unethical are we? Supervisory Management
20, 16–21.
The Authors
Scandura, T. A., and R. E. Viator, 1994, Mentoring in public accounting firms: an analysis
of mentor-protégé relationships, mentorship functions and protégé turnover intentions,
Accounting, Organizations and Society 19, 717–734.
Schein, E. H., 1984, Coming to a new awareness of organizational culture, Sloan Management
Review25,3–16.
Schott,R.L.,1991,Administrativeandcognitivebehavior,AdministrationandSociety23,54–73.
Siegel, P. H., J. B. Mosca, and K. B. Karim, 1999, The role of mentoring of professional
accountants: a global perspective, Managerial Finance 25, 30–44.
Siegel, P. H., J. Rigsby, S. Agrawal, and J. Learins, 1995, Auditor professional performance
and the mentor relationship within the public accounting firm, Accounting, Auditing and
Accountability Journal 8, 3–22.
Stallworth, H. L., 2003, Mentoring, organizational commitment and intentions to leave
public accounting, Managerial Auditing Journal 18, 405–418.
Sutherland, E. H., 1949, White Collar Crime (Holt, Rhinehart and Winston, New York).
Sutherland, E. H., 1983, White Collar Crime: The Uncut Version (Yale University Press,
New Haven, CT).
Sweeney, B., and B. Boyle, 2005, Supervisory actions, job satisfaction and turnover
intentions of Irish trainee accountants, Irish Accounting Review 12, 47–73.
Thoma, S., 1986, Estimating gender differences in the comprehension and preference of
moral issues, Developmental Review 165–180.
Thorley, N., K. Stevens, and P. Clarke, 1998, Factors that affect ethical reasoning abilities
of us and Irish small-firm accountancy practitioners, Research on Accounting Ethics 4,
145–165.
Viator, R. E., and T. A. Scandura, 1991, A study of mentor-protégé relationships in large
public accounting firms, Accounting Horizons 5, 20–30.
Viator, R. E., 1999, An analysis of formal mentoring programs and perceived barriers to
obtaining a mentor at large public accounting firms, Accounting Horizons 13, 37–53.
Viator, R. E., 2000, The association of formal and informal public accounting mentoring
with role stress and related outcomes, Accounting, Organizations and Society 26, 73–93.
Westerman, J. W., R. I. Beekun, Y. Stedham, and J. Yamamua, 2007, Peers versus national
culture: an analysis of antecedents to ethical decision-making, Journal of Business Ethics
75, 239–252.
Wimbush, J. C., and J. M. Shepard, 1994, Toward an understanding of ethical climate: its
relationship to ethical behavior and supervisory influence, Journal of Business Ethics 13,
637–647.
Wu, C. F., 2003, A study of the adjustment of ethical recognition and ethical decision-
making of managers-to-be across the Taiwan Strait before and after receiving a business
ethics education, Journal of Business Ethics 45, 291–307.
Zeigenfuss, D. E., 1999, Differences in personal ethical philosophy among accounting
students and between accounting students and practitioners, Southern Business Review
25, 1–9.
Zerbe, W. J., and D. L. Paulhus, 1987, Socially desirable responding in organizational
behavior: a reconception, Academy of Management Journal 12, 250–264.
Appendix I
Early career accountant mentoring and ethics survey
Section 1: Ethical Scenario

ZX Partners is the audit firm of Collins Ltd, a partly-owned subsidiary
listed on the Australian Stock Exchange, of FirstDrug (FD). FD is a very large
The Authors
US-based pharmaceutical company that has seven other subsidiaries globally.

Collins Ltd has several manufacturing and packaging sites in Sydney and
Melbourne. Jill has been appointed as the Audit Senior for Collins Ltd in this
year’s audit engagement. During the course of the audit work Jill becomes
concerned about the company’s treatment of R&D expenditure. In particular Jill
has found that the company is incorrectly classifying some research expenditure
as development expenditure and capitalising it on the balance sheet. This
accounting treatment has a material and favourable impact on the financial
statements of Collins Ltd. Jill passes on her concerns to the Audit Partner who
subsequently invites her to his office for a chat. While noting Jill’s concerns, he
proposes that the amounts involved can also be construed not to be material
from the overall group’s (i.e. FD’s) perspective and furthermore this is how the
client wants the R&D expenditure to be treated. He also points out the scale and
importance of Collins Ltd’s operations in Australia and impresses upon her that
this client is very important to the firm. Noting that Jill still has a year to do
under the terms of her training contract, he voices his concern for her career
prospects, and suggests that Jill ‘let sleeping dogs lie’. Jill decides to take no
further action.
a. How would you rate the seriousness of the issue?
b. If you were responsible for making the decision, what is the probability
that you would make the same decision as Jill?
c. How would you rate the Audit Partner’s response?
d. If you were responsible for making the decision, what is the probability
that you would:
• Call one of the accounting professional bodies for advice?
• Undertake another course of action/s?
• If yes, what course of action/s would that be?
The Authors
View publication stats

Ethical Evaluations and Behavioural Intentions of

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

You might also like

Ethical Evaluations and Behavioural Intentions of

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Ethical Evaluations and Behavioural Intentions of

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

Ethical Evaluations and Behavioural Intentions of Early Career Accountants:

Article in Accounting and Finance · September 2009

Lisa McManus Nava Subramaniam

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

An exploratory examination of customer accounting: antecedents and applications View project

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

Ethical evaluations and behavioural intentions of early

Lisa McManusa, Nava Subramaniamb

Key words: Early career accountants; Ethical evaluations; Behavioural intentions;

JEL classiﬁcation: I20, M40, M41

2. Motivations for the study

represent an invaluable resource pool of accountants for future generations.

Figure 1 Overall conceptual framework.

The remainder of this paper is organised as follows. In the next section, an

Figure 1 provides an overview of the conceptual framework for this study.

3.1. Mentoring support

According to organisational socialisation research, an employee’s adjustment

ambiguous organisational context, and will attempt to make sense of that

H1: The perceived mentoring support received by an early career accountant is

Ethical evaluations are perceptions of:

3.2. Peer inﬂuence: perceptions of peers’ ethical conduct

H2: The perception of the standard of ethical conduct of peers of an early

Ethical evaluations are perceptions of:

3.3. Individual attribute: ethical orientation

Ethical orientation refers to an individual attribute that reﬂects one’s personal

H3: The level of an early career accountant’s personal ethical orientation is

3.4. Individual attribute: extent of ethics education

Accounting faculties at universities have started to not only integrate ethics in

4.1. Sampling procedures

4.2. Survey questionnaire design

The survey questionnaire collected information on issues relating to mentoring

1. My mentor takes a personal interest in my 0.80 0.25

A number of ethics themes were examined in the following section of the

4.3. Control variables

results in relation to the impact of ﬁrm size on ethical behavioural intentions.

4.4. Characteristics of sample and descriptive statistics

The characteristics of the sample include having a comparable proportion of

Formal internal Informal internal Informal external

Number of ECAs that meet with formal mentors

SERISS 5.85 4 7 0.94 1.00

Journal compilation 2009 AFAANZ

Yði-ivÞ ¼ b1 þ b2 CARDEV þ b3 SOCSUPP þ b4 PEERS

Expected SERISS APR ACCPRO EBI

Constant 4.84*** 2.78*** 2.57** 2.89***

EXTETH ¼ extent of ECAs’ ethics education

the ethical behaviour of their senior colleagues and their ethical

This study provides empirical evidence on the ethical evaluations and

such accountants’ ethical evaluation of a senior colleague, no such impact

7. Conclusions and limitations of study

This study provides evidence on an interesting array of factors aﬀecting the

Hair, J. F., R. E. Anderson, R. L. Tatham, and W. C. Black, 2006, Multivariate Data

Early career accountant mentoring and ethics survey

Section 1: Ethical Scenario

US-based pharmaceutical company that has seven other subsidiaries globally.

View publication stats

You might also like

Constant 4.84* 2.78* 2.57 2.89*