Development of the ethical self of accounting versus non-accounting students – an institutional analysis

Research Question: How do accounting versus non-accounting Romanian students perceive the factors influencing the construction of the ethical self? Motivation: The answer is important in the context of accountants’ ethics being increasingly under scruity following corporate scandals. Probably because in Romania we do not have the same context, prior research on accounting ethics is scarce, so little is known about how various educational aspects impact skills and behavior. Idea: In this study we offer insights about the academic ethics education in Romania and discuss its complexity, usefulness and effectiveness. To this purpose, we involve the Romanian end-users of the academic accounting ethics education (the students) to ask for their perception regarding the role education plays in developing the ethical self. Data: We survey 413 students from five Romanian universities. Tools: We conduct descriptive statistics, cross-sectional analysis and regression analysis on the data from the survey and we mobilize an institutional-based theoretical framework (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983) to discuss the factors associated with the construction of the ethical self. Findings: Our results indicate that while all isomorphic pressures are present in the creation of the ethical self, the most important factors appear to be the coercive (from classes on ethics) and mimetic ones (resulting from the need to follow immediate proxies such as classmates, professors, and the profession), and to a lesser extent the normative ones. Contribution: Understanding students’ perception of their ethics education will help both academia and professional associations adapt their style of teaching ethics so that it becomes more effective and applicable to the users.