Ethical Educational Interventions: Perceptions of Accounting Students and Graduates and the Legitimation of 'Ethical' Actions

The issue of ethical educational interventions in the accounting classroom is not new. As far back as 1967, the Horizon for a Profession: The common body of knowledge for certified public accountants study indicated that if [t]here were no ethical foundation to the profession then there would in fact be no profession (p. 14). The 1984 Bedford Report identified the need for higher education to develop the entering accountant's ability to think, to communicate, and to understand the nature and role of ethics. The Treadway Commission (1987) and the Accounting Education Change Commission (1990) both cited the need for young professionals to be able to make ethical and value-based judgements. The 2004 Ethics Education Task Force Report to the AACSB stated that business schools must encourage students to develop a deep understanding of the myriad challenges surrounding corporate responsibility and corporate governance and provide them with tools for recognizing and responding to ethical issues, both personally and organisationally. The 2006 Information Paper: Approaches to the development and maintenance of professional values, ethics and attitudes in accounting education programs commissioned by the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) found that, while there was overall growing interest in professional and business programs responding to the call for greater ethics coverage in the curricula (p. 13), the conclusion was that overall ethics coverage in accounting programs appears minimal (p. 13). These international research studies demonstrate that there have been ongoing requests for ethical educational interventions at the tertiary level of education. However, in New Zealand little research has been done on this issue. This research on the issue of ethical educational interventions in the New Zealand accounting tertiary level curriculum therefore will contribute significantly to knowledge in this area. Furthermore, this study makes another significant contribution to studies on ethical educational interventions because it attempted to find out the perceptions and beliefs held by important but seemingly forgotten stakeholders: accounting students and graduates on the importance of having ethical educational interventions in the accounting curriculum. This approach was taken because it was important to find out directly from the individuals in whom accounting educators are trying to develop important competencies and skills through their university studies, whether or not they perceived that such interventions would have any influence in their ethical decision-making behaviour. Therefore a comparative and longitudinal study using questionnaire survey instruments and semi-structured interviews was conducted with accounting students and graduates. A mixed methods methodology approach was taken to analyse the quantitative and qualitative data subsequently collected from the respondents. What makes this study particularly important is that accounting students and graduates are directly being asked what…