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Prior research has demonstrated that accountants differ from the general population on many personality traits. Understanding accountants' personality traits is important when these characteristics may impact professional behavior or ability to work with members of the business community. Our study investigates the relationship between Machiavellianism, ethical orientation (idealism, relativism), anti-intellectualism, and social desirability response bias in Canadian accountants. We find that Canadian accountants score much higher on the Machiavellianism scale than U.S. accountants. Additionally, our results show a significant relationship between Machiavellianism and relativism, idealism, anti-intellectualism, and social desirability response bias. Our results indicate that professional Canadian accountants may not share the same personality characteristics as U.S. accountants. We extend previous research investigating Canadian accountants, by explicitly recognizing the impact of social desirability response bias, and by including anti-intellectualism.

Internet fraud is an issue that increasingly concerns regulators, consumers, firms, and business ethics researchers. In this article, we examine one common form of internet fraud, the practice of shill bidding (when a seller in an auction enters a bid on his or her own item). The significant incidence of shill bidding on eBay (in spite of the fact that it is illegal just as it is in live auctions) exemplifies the current ineffectiveness of regulatory means as well as the lack of effective societal mechanisms to prevent online fraud. Further, the proliferation of shill bidding along with other types of internet fraud may have broader implications. If unethical behavior such as shill bidding becomes too widespread on the internet, regulators and other societal forces may deem it necessary to institute controls that will impact the entire online marketplace as well as the future development and regulation of business activities on the internet. Our results indicate that shill bidding is perpetrated on eBay significantly more often than 0.1% rate of fraud estimated by the firm. This suggests that regulators, users, and others stakeholders may become concerned enough to act. The impact of those responses on the internet of the future may affect a broad array of users beyond the unethical sellers on eBay.

This article examines popular representations of accountants' ethics by studying their depiction in cinema. As a medium that both reflects and shapes public opinion, films provide a useful resource for exploring the portrayal of the profession's ethics. We employ a values theoretical framework to analyze 110 movie accountants on their basic ethical character, ethical behavior, and values. We use factor analysis to reduce 22 personal characteristics to five factors encompassing two terminal and three instrumental value sets, which we relate to ethical behavior. Findings indicate that in popular cinema, the ethical behavior of accountants is positively associated with intrinsic terminal values, but negatively related to competency (instrumental) values.

This paper describes a pedagogical experiment that used feature films in a senior accounting class to stimulate development of student competencies and raise ethical issues. Rather than being content driven, this active learning technique focuses on skills development, while engaging the students' emotions in the learning process. Encompassing three types of knowledge (conceptual, procedural and meta-cognitive), the exercises explore concepts of internal control, corporate governance and business ethics. They provide opportunities for accounting students to practice the higher level cognitive skills in Bloom's (1956) taxonomy and aim to foster students' emotional commitment to ethical decision-making. Students reacted positively to these activities, finding them most helpful in clarifying the impact of ethical issues. We observed significant differences between the beliefs of groups who participated in these exercises and those who did not, suggesting that this activity can be an effective tool for engaging students and influencing their perceptions about accounting issues. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

Emotional intelligence may allow accountants to perform better in leadership, team building, client relations, and decision-making. Unfortunately, very little is known about the antecedents to emotional intelligence; however, there have been attempts to improve the emotional intelligence of university students through classroom exercises. It has also been suggested that work experience is instrumental in improving emotional intelligence. In this study, we examined the emotional intelligence of a total of 430 first- and fourth-year accounting and liberal arts students at three universities with accounting programs that include different liberal arts requirements. We also analyzed the relationship between four components of work experience and emotional intelligence. Our findings raise concerns for accounting program development and provide guidance for those seeking to facilitate relevant work experiences for students.

Accounting ethics instruction, like accounting ethics research, has been strongly influenced by the work of Kohlberg and his stages of ethical development. The Defining Issues Test (DIT), which is based on Kohlberg's theory, has been extensively used to assess level of ethical development of both accounting students and accounting practitioners. Theory suggests that the relationship between p-score on the Defining Issues Test (DIT) and behavior should be linear, i.e., ethical behavior should increase monotonically with level of ethical development. However, Ponemon's (1993a) paper reported a quadratic relationship, meaning that subjects with low scores and those with high scores are more likely to behave unethically. This study replicates Ponemon's (1993a) study. Unobtrusive observation of actual behavior in a laboratory experiment is used to record behavior, which is then related to p-score on the DIT. The results confirm Ponemon's (1993a) finding of a quadratic relationship. However, in this study, the results appear to be driven by the behavior of male subjects; female subjects show a monotonically decreasing level of ethical behavior as p-score on the DIT increases.

This article extends the literature regarding goal‐directed behavior as modeled by the theory of trying by incorporating the concept of the hierarchy of goals. Individuals develop “programs” intended to implement their principles and life goals. Within these programs, goals are arranged in a hierarchical order depending on how close they are to the overall goal of the program. Lower‐level goals are intended to set the stage for the achievement of higher‐level goals. Although most tests of the theory of trying have been implemented with the use of fairly low‐level goals (losing weight or learning a new piece of software), in this article, the model is applied in the context of a higher‐level goal: achieving a college education. There are important differences in the results compared to those in prior tests of the theory of trying. Most importantly, attitude toward failure is highly significant and attitude toward process is not. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The journal of Amos K. Hersey, a 19th century meat merchant from Pembroke, Maine is examined in this paper. The accounting system used by Hersey is analyzed and compared with contemporary prescriptions for account keeping. The paper seeks to contribute to the emerging literature on the history of accounting among ordinary people. It shows how the accounts kept by Hersey reflect and illuminate several features of a local economy and society.

Abstract Purpose – Recruiting sufficient participants who adequately represent the population of interest is an ongoing issue for accounting experimental researchers. This study investigates the impact of recruitment method on the number of participants, effort on the experimental task, and sample bias with respect to three individual difference variables (locus of control, social desirability response bias, and prosocial behavior). We employ five different recruitment methods: three forms of monetary compensation and two levels of an appeal for help with a research project. Methodology – We recruit students in five sections of the same course taught by the same instructor (not one of the researchers), manipulating recruitment method across sections. Immediately following recruitment, participants completed a simple experimental task and scales for the individual difference variables. Findings – We find that the method of recruiting resulted in different response rates, with appeal from a fellow student yielding the highest response rate, and appeal from a professor yielding the lowest response rate. Effort was greatest for the appeal from the professor and least for the draw. While the five subsamples that resulted from the five recruiting methods were not different with respect to the individual difference variables, the relationship of those variables to effort did vary. Research Implications – Our findings suggest that researchers must carefully consider recruitment method not only in terms of how many participants can be attracted, but also in terms of the potential impact of the manner in which recruitment was conducted on the attitudes and behaviors of the participants during the experiment.

The journal of Amos K. Hersey, a 19th century meat merchant from Pembroke, Maine, is examined. The accounting system used by Hersey is analyzed and compared with contemporary prescriptions for account keeping. It is shown how the accounts kept by Hersey reflect and illuminate several features of a local economy and society.