Accounting ethics education in Hong Kong and Macau

This book chapter provides a general overview of accounting ethics education in two special administrative regions of China, namely, Hong Kong and Macau. This chapter is mainly based on secondary data, and it makes three main observations. First, Hong Kong and Macau universities tend to offer compulsory standalone ethics courses in their bachelor’s programmes and integrate ethics into compulsory courses within their master’s programmes. Second, all of the accounting programmes in the mainstream universities of Hong Kong are accredited by the Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants (HKICPA) qualification programme (QP), the Association of Charted Certified Accountants (ACCA), Certified Practising Accountant (CPA) Australia and the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA). Third, there are some potential gaps between accounting ethics education in universities and continuous ethical training for accounting professional development after graduation. This chapter provides some practical implications for accounting educators, professional accounting associations, and independent statutory bodies of CPA firms in these regions to consider integrating accounting ethics into curriculum design and industry practice.