Ethical awareness and ethical judgment among audit professions across countries: India, Sweden and Vietnam
(2010)Department of Business Administration
- Abstract
- The auditor is seen as the guardian of the market. However, several scandals have resulted in the
public’s suspicions of auditor ethics. Therefore, the need of investigation of ethical awareness
and ethical judgment among auditors should be taken into a deep consideration.
The aim of this thesis is to investigate the differences in ethical awareness and ethical judgment
of auditors across nations, including Sweden, India and Vietnam. In order to reach our research
purpose, a positivistic philosophy together with deductive and quantitative research method was
employed.
Seven hypotheses were derived from five different theories such as theory of profession, theory
of legitimacy, cultural theory, moral reasoning ability and... (More) - The auditor is seen as the guardian of the market. However, several scandals have resulted in the
public’s suspicions of auditor ethics. Therefore, the need of investigation of ethical awareness
and ethical judgment among auditors should be taken into a deep consideration.
The aim of this thesis is to investigate the differences in ethical awareness and ethical judgment
of auditors across nations, including Sweden, India and Vietnam. In order to reach our research
purpose, a positivistic philosophy together with deductive and quantitative research method was
employed.
Seven hypotheses were derived from five different theories such as theory of profession, theory
of legitimacy, cultural theory, moral reasoning ability and institutional theory. The focal idea of
these hypotheses is to test the existence of the homogeneity in ethical sensitivity of auditors. It
was theoretically assumed that the main influential factors include national culture system, firms
which auditors work for, gender, age, education and experience.
However, empirical findings indicate that auditors’ ethical awareness and ethical judgemnt are
maily influenced by their national cultures, as well as age and experiences. Meanwhile, education
and gender failed in being regarded as the important variables which can bring an impact.
Moreover, the results also show that the level of ethical sensitivity is homogeneous in all audit
firms regardless of their size, as the effects of legitimate and mimetic isomorphism from different
firms. That also reveals the image of the consistency and uniformity of the audit profession,
which strongly supports to the explanation power of professional theory.
To sum up, our results indicate that the most significant signals belonged to culture, firm size, age
and length of experience. Such these findings can be used as supportive evidents for the
explanation strength of the theories mentioned above. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/1626969
- author
- Vu Phuong, Trang and Nassery, Zarmina
- supervisor
- organization
- year
- 2010
- type
- H1 - Master's Degree (One Year)
- subject
- keywords
- Management of enterprises, and experience, gender, age, culture, audit profession, ethical judgment, ethics, ethical awareness, Företagsledning, management
- language
- Swedish
- id
- 1626969
- date added to LUP
- 2010-06-04 00:00:00
- date last changed
- 2012-04-02 18:05:22
@misc{1626969,
abstract = {{The auditor is seen as the guardian of the market. However, several scandals have resulted in the
public’s suspicions of auditor ethics. Therefore, the need of investigation of ethical awareness
and ethical judgment among auditors should be taken into a deep consideration.
The aim of this thesis is to investigate the differences in ethical awareness and ethical judgment
of auditors across nations, including Sweden, India and Vietnam. In order to reach our research
purpose, a positivistic philosophy together with deductive and quantitative research method was
employed.
Seven hypotheses were derived from five different theories such as theory of profession, theory
of legitimacy, cultural theory, moral reasoning ability and institutional theory. The focal idea of
these hypotheses is to test the existence of the homogeneity in ethical sensitivity of auditors. It
was theoretically assumed that the main influential factors include national culture system, firms
which auditors work for, gender, age, education and experience.
However, empirical findings indicate that auditors’ ethical awareness and ethical judgemnt are
maily influenced by their national cultures, as well as age and experiences. Meanwhile, education
and gender failed in being regarded as the important variables which can bring an impact.
Moreover, the results also show that the level of ethical sensitivity is homogeneous in all audit
firms regardless of their size, as the effects of legitimate and mimetic isomorphism from different
firms. That also reveals the image of the consistency and uniformity of the audit profession,
which strongly supports to the explanation power of professional theory.
To sum up, our results indicate that the most significant signals belonged to culture, firm size, age
and length of experience. Such these findings can be used as supportive evidents for the
explanation strength of the theories mentioned above.}},
author = {{Vu Phuong, Trang and Nassery, Zarmina}},
language = {{swe}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Ethical awareness and ethical judgment among audit professions across countries: India, Sweden and Vietnam}},
year = {{2010}},
}