TY - JOUR
T1 - Ethical awareness of Chinese business managers and accountants and their views on the use of off-book accounts
AU - LIN, Zhijun
AU - Zhang, Jinruo
N1 - Copyright:
Copyright 2011 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2011/6
Y1 - 2011/6
N2 - This paper reports the survey results of ethical awareness of Chinese business managers and accountants on business ethical issues and their assessment of the nature of off-book accounts (OBAs) usage from the perspective of ethical viewpoints. We find that Chinese respondents can, overall, make appropriate ethical judgments on explicitly unethical business behaviors but they may still adopt a relatively tolerant view towards some business behaviors that are less explicit in deviation from the general business ethics. Regarding the ethical assessment of the use of OBAs in practice, Chinese respondents can generally recognize the illegitimacy and irrationality of the OBAs and they hold reservations on the so-called positive effects of OBAs. In addition, the paper has further analyzed the impacts of a series of influential factors (e.g., gender, age, education, job occupation, work experience, firm size/listing status, and business ownership) on the ethical judgments of general business ethical issues and the ethical assessment of the nature of OBAs made by the respondents respectively.
AB - This paper reports the survey results of ethical awareness of Chinese business managers and accountants on business ethical issues and their assessment of the nature of off-book accounts (OBAs) usage from the perspective of ethical viewpoints. We find that Chinese respondents can, overall, make appropriate ethical judgments on explicitly unethical business behaviors but they may still adopt a relatively tolerant view towards some business behaviors that are less explicit in deviation from the general business ethics. Regarding the ethical assessment of the use of OBAs in practice, Chinese respondents can generally recognize the illegitimacy and irrationality of the OBAs and they hold reservations on the so-called positive effects of OBAs. In addition, the paper has further analyzed the impacts of a series of influential factors (e.g., gender, age, education, job occupation, work experience, firm size/listing status, and business ownership) on the ethical judgments of general business ethical issues and the ethical assessment of the nature of OBAs made by the respondents respectively.
KW - Business ethics
KW - Ethical judgment
KW - Moral choice
KW - Off-book accounts
KW - People's Republic of China
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=79958782890&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.adiac.2011.04.004
DO - 10.1016/j.adiac.2011.04.004
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:79958782890
SN - 0882-6110
VL - 27
SP - 143
EP - 155
JO - Advances in Accounting
JF - Advances in Accounting
IS - 1
ER -