The effects of length of service and ethical ideologies on moral development and behavioral intentions

Ricardo Malagueño, Sudarshan Pillalamarri, Amaury José Rezende and Marcelo Botelho da Costa Moraes ()

Journal of Applied Accounting Research, 2019, vol. 21, issue 4, 589-613

Abstract: Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of length of service and ethical ideologies on cognitive moral development (CMD) and ethical behavioral intentions among public sector tax auditors in Brazil. Design/methodology/approach - The research data were collected via survey questionnaires from a sample of 625 auditors who work for the Brazilian tax authority. Participants voluntarily complete an online instrument which included three scenarios with context-specific moral dilemmas, questions about the specific scenarios and an ethics position questionnaire. Multinomial logistic and ordinary least squares regressions were used to analyze the data. Findings - The findings reveal that public sector tax auditors with shorter length of service are more likely to be at higher stages of moral development; relativistic ideology among public sector auditors is positively associated with more lenient ethical behavioral intention; idealistic ideology among public sector auditors is positively associated with stricter ethical behavioral intention; public sector auditors classified as absolutists are stricter in their ethical behavioral intentions; and public sector auditors classified as absolutists with length of service between 5 and 15 years are more likely to be at higher stages of moral development when compared to public sector tax auditors with longer length of service. Originality/value - To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the study is one of the first studies that attempt to understand the effects of length of service and ethical ideology on CMD and ethical behavioral intention among public sector auditors. Additionally, it examines these issues in the context of Latin America.

Keywords: Brazil; Ethics; Auditors; Public sector; Cognitive moral development; Ethical ideologies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:jaarpp:jaar-04-2019-0061

DOI: 10.1108/JAAR-04-2019-0061

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Applied Accounting Research is currently edited by Associate Professor Orthodoxia Kyriacou

More articles in Journal of Applied Accounting Research from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().