Value Preferences as Antecedents of Political Orientation and Moral Reasoning of Certified Public Accountants ^☆

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Abstract

Prior studies investigating the relationship between moral reasoning (as measured by the defining issues test, DIT) and political orientation have rendered mixed results. We seek to find an explanation for these mixed results. Using responses from a sample of 284 practicing certified public accountants (CPAs), we find evidence that value preferences underlie both moral reasoning and political orientation. Specifically, we find a statistically significant inverse relationship between moral reasoning and conservatism in univariate tests. However, this relationship is no longer significant when eight individual value preferences and gender are taken into account. These results suggest that variations in moral reasoning scores of CPAs are accounted for by their value preferences, which also underlie their relative conservatism.

Citation

Ariail, D.L., Emler, N. and Abdolmohammadi, M.J. (2013), "Value Preferences as Antecedents of Political Orientation and Moral Reasoning of Certified Public Accountants ^☆

Data Availability: Contact the authors

", Advances in Accounting Behavioral Research (Advances in Accounting Behavioural Research, Vol. 16), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 183-203. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1475-1488(2013)0000016012