Robin R. Radtke

The Effects of Gender and Setting on Accountants' Ethically Sensitive Decisions

This paper investigates whether gender affects ethically sensitive decisions of a personal or business nature. Data from 51 practicing accountants from both public accounting and private industry suggest that while differences exist between female and male accountants in responses to specific situations, overall responses are quite similar. Statistically significant differences were found for only five of the sixteen ethically sensitive situations. Further, when personal and business situations of a similar nature were paired together, two of the eight differences between personal and business responses were significantly different between females and males. Taken as a whole, the results refute the suggestion that the ethical decision making of organizations may be enhanced as more women enter the business field.

Role Morality and Accountants’ Ethically Sensitive Decisions

If individuals exhibit less ethical behavior in the workplace than in their personal decisions, this may constitute evidence of role morality behavior. Role morality can be defined as “claim(ing) a moral permission to harm others in ways that, if not for the role, would be wrong” (Applbaum, 1999. Ethics for adversaries: The morality of roles in public and professional life (p. 3). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.) To investigate this issue, 55 practicing accountants completed and returned the experimental survey. Results show that in many situations, business decisions were less ethical than personal decisions, consistent with the theory of role morality. The implications and limitations of this study as they relate to practicing accountants are discussed.

The Intersection of "Bad Apples," "Bad Barrels," and the Enabling Use of Performance Measurement Systems.

ABSTRACT A performance measurement system (PMS) consists of data transformed into performance measures, which is used to control operations and employee behavior. As such, a PMS is embedded within the broader accounting information system (AIS). Existing literature suggests organizations benefit from using a PMS in a way that employees perceive enables them to better perform their job tasks. However, those benefits may not always be realized depending on individual and unit-level ethical characteristics that interact with the use of AIS. The purpose of this study is to examine the intersection of AIS and business ethics by focusing on how a specific type of AIS is used; namely, the PMS. We integrate the extent of perceived amoral manipulation and the ethical work climate with the extent to which the PMS is perceived to be enabling. We document instances when the enabling use of a PMS is not always beneficial, offer implications for organizations in terms of managing the level of counterproductive work beh...

The Complex World of Control: Integration of Ethics and Uses of Control

Originality/value Our research investigates the intersection between management control and ethics. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to delve into this critical area.