Accountants, ethical issues and the corporate governance context

This paper aims to identify the types of ethical issues encountered by accountants, the influence of such experience on accountants' ethical perceptions and the effect of situational factors—the field of employment and the accountant̂s position in the organisation—on accountants' perceptions of ethics. Differences were found in perceptions about ethical issues among accountants in different fields of employment. The study also confirms the inverse relationship between hierarchical position and ethical perception among top, middle and junior staff, with higher-ranked accountants perceiving most ethical issues as less important than their subordinates.