Fostering values: four stages towards developing professional ethics for future accountants

¹ Othman Yeop Abdullah Graduate School of Business, Sintok, University Utara Malaysia, Sintok, Malaysia
² Tunku Intan Shafinaz School of Accountancy (TISSA), College of Business, University Utara Malaysia, Sintok, Malaysia
³ Cass Business School, City University London, United Kingdom

Abstract

The many accounting scandals occurred in the last three decades have change the perspective of accountant globally. As such, the higher institutions have to play their role in nurturing professional ethics in order to change the misconception towards the profession. Our observation of the literature indicates that incorporating professional ethics in higher institutions is a way forward towards developing future accountants with values. Henceforth, we conducted a generic inquiry study to explore how higher institutions could inculcate accounting graduates with professional ethics. Our findings show a conceptual framework which depicted four stages towards incorporating professional ethics at tertiary level education there are: 1) value development, 2) ethics maturation, 3) professionalism development and 4) ownership through effective implementation and enforcement. Consequently, the findings contribute to expanding the current knowledge in our conceptualisation of the professional ethics concept. In addition, the findings support the development of ethics education for accounting graduates in higher institutions in Malaysia. We consider that this study provides evidence to educators and policy makers that teaching methods and pedagogical policies should ensure professional ethics education in business schools in Malaysia is treated as a pervasive element of curricula rather than an optional choice.