Dawn W. Massey

You Want me to Teach What

After receiving input from recruiters and members of our department’s Advisory Council during the 2002-03 academic year, our department—part of an Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB)-accredited, private, Master’s-granting university located in the USA—began developing a Master of Science in Accounting (MSA) program. One of the seven required three-credit courses the faculty agreed we needed to include in the year long, full-time program was a graduate accounting ethics course. It all sounded good . . . that is, until we were asked to teach that graduate accounting ethics course—in the autumn of 2006.

A Qualitative Examination of Auditors’ Differing Ethical Characterizations Across the Phases of the Audit ☆ ☆ Data availability: Because of the need to preserve respondents’ anonymity, data requests will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

Abstract Over the last decade, many published papers lament auditors’ shift from professionalism to commercialism and call for increasing auditors’ commitment to the public interest (see, e.g., Bailey, 2008; Fogarty & Rigsby, 2010; Lampe & Garcia, 2013; Wyatt, 2004; Zeff, 2003a, 2003b). At the same time, suggesting effective methodologies for improving auditors’ commitment to the public interest is particularly challenging because issues arising in the audit context are complex, and often involve tradeoffs between multiple stakeholders (e.g., Gaa, 1992; Massey & Thorne, 2006). An understanding of auditors ethical characterizations across separate phases of the audit process is needed so that methodologies can be devised to improve auditors’ commitment to the public interest. Thus, in this paper we interviewed 24 auditors and asked them to describe critical ethical incidents that they have encountered throughout the various phases of the audit process. Our results not only document the tension underlying the shift between professionalism and commercialism in auditing suggested by others, but also show that ethical conflicts are found in each phase of the audit and there are cross-phase differences in the auditors’ ethical characterizations. Limitations of the findings are also discussed as are suggestions for future research.

One Size Does not Fit all – Different Strategies for Teaching Accounting Ethics

Abstract Teaching ethical decision making can be distinguished from teaching decision making in other settings by its juxtaposition of students’ affect with their intellect (Gaudine & Thorne, 2001); as Griseri (2002, p. 374) aptly points out, “effective business ethics teaching should involve a combination of…two aspects of ethical situations – their emotional and intellectual elements.” To engage students’ affect, research suggests the use of multiple teaching modalities (e.g., films, case studies, journals, and role-play) (McPhail, 2001). To develop students’ ethical intellect, research recommends using appropriate, individual-specific cognitive stimulation (Massey & Thorne, 2006). Yet, in designing courses, faculty typically preselect course teaching methods independently of the particular students who enroll in the course, often teaching their courses using methods that are consistent with their own personal learning styles (Thompson, 1997) even though those methods may not be effective for (m)any students in their classes. Nonetheless, investigating each student’s preferred learning style and tailoring the course accordingly is impractical (cf., Montgomery & Groat, 1988). Thus, as highlighted in the ethics literature (McPhail, 2001) and suggested in the education literature (Nilson, 2010a), faculty should utilize a variety of approaches to effectively teach ethics to their accounting students. To facilitate these efforts, this paper presents and evaluates various strategies accounting faculty can use to teach accounting ethics in ways that correspond to students’ varying learning preferences. As such, the strategies this paper provides can be used to create an accounting ethics course that affectively impacts and cognitively stimulates a diverse student body that, in turn, can lead to improved ethical reasoning skills.