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Are There Gender Differences When Professional Accountants Evaluate Moral Intensity for Earnings Management?

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  • Tara Shawver
  • Lynn Clements

Abstract

Gender differences in ethical evaluations may vary across types of behaviors. This controlled experiment explores gender differences in ethical evaluations, moral judgment, moral intentions, and moral intensity evaluations by surveying a group of professional accountants to elicit their views on a common earnings management technique. We find that there are no significant differences between male and female professional accountants when they make an ethical evaluation involving earnings management by shipping product early to meet a quarterly bonus. Both male and female professional accountants made a similar moral judgment that this action should not be completed and indicated similar moral intentions to report this type of behavior. Further, we find that male and female professional accountants made similar moral intensity evaluations when product is shipped early to meet a quarterly bonus. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

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  • Tara Shawver & Lynn Clements, 2015. "Are There Gender Differences When Professional Accountants Evaluate Moral Intensity for Earnings Management?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 131(3), pages 557-566, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:131:y:2015:i:3:p:557-566
    DOI: 10.1007/s10551-014-2293-6
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    Cited by:

    1. Hengky Latan & Christian M. Ringle & Charbel Jose Chiappetta Jabbour, 2018. "Whistleblowing Intentions Among Public Accountants in Indonesia: Testing for the Moderation Effects," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 152(2), pages 573-588, October.
    2. Vladan Pavlovic & Goranka Knezevic & Radica Bojicic, 2023. "Do the Profitability, the Volume of Assets, and Equity of Public Enterprises Have Any Role in Local Authorities' Gender and Age Policy? – A Case Study of Belgrade," Economic Studies journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 2, pages 172-191.
    3. Vladan Pavlovic & Goranka Knezevic & Radica Bojicic, 2022. "The Impact of Gender and Age on Earnings Management Practices of Public Enterprises – A Case Study of Belgrade," Economic Studies journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 3, pages 130-148.
    4. Harris, Oneil & Karl, J. Bradley & Lawrence, Ericka, 2019. "CEO compensation and earnings management: Does gender really matters?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 1-14.
    5. Ariail, Donald L. & Khayati, Amine & Shawver, Tara, 2021. "Perceptions by employed accounting students of ethical leadership and political skill: Evidence for including political skill in ethics pedagogy," Journal of Accounting Education, Elsevier, vol. 55(C).

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