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In an experimental setting, we investigate the impact of religious social identity on whistle-blowing. We hypothesize and find that individuals are less likely to perceive others in their religious group as being behaving unethically. However, we find that once individuals perceive wrongdoing, they are incrementally more likely to whistle-blow when the perpetrator is a member of their religious group.

This research provides accounting-ethics authors and administrators with a benchmark for accounting-ethics research. While Bernardi and Bean (2010) considered publications in business-ethics and accounting’s top-40 journals this study considers research in eight accounting-ethics and public-interest journals, as well as, 34 business-ethics journals. We analyzed the contents of our 42 journals for the 25-year period between 1991 through 2015. This research documents the continued growth (Bernardi & Bean, 2007) of accounting-ethics research in both accounting-ethics and business-ethics journals. We provide data on the top-10 ethics authors in each doctoral year group, the top-50 ethics authors over the most recent 10, 20, and 25 years, and a distribution among ethics scholars for these periods. For the 25-year timeframe, our data indicate that only 665 (274) of the 5,125 accounting PhDs/DBAs (13.0% and 5.4% respectively) in Canada and the United States had authored or co-authored one (more than one) ethics article.

The perceived prestige of the doctoral degree granting institution traditionally has had a major effect on job opportunities available to a new accounting Ph.D. However, given recent shortages of accounting academics, the role of program prestige may have changed. It is possible that individual factors also may now play a role in the initial placement decision. This study examines the effects of both doctoral program prestige and individual factors on the initial placement decision.

While our results indicate that doctoral program prestige still largely dictates the initial placement decision, several other factors are found to be important. New graduates initially placed at higher level institutions report faculty involvement during the application process as well as significant research support by the hiring institution. New faculty placing lower than expected report the mix of teaching and research as well as the quality of life as being significant factors in their employment decision.

This research is a 6-year extension of Bernardi's (2005) initial ranking of the top ethics authors in accounting; it also represents a broadening of the scope of the original data into accounting's top-40 journals. While Bernardi only considered publications in business-ethics journals in his initial ranking, we developed a methodology to identify ethics articles in accounting's top-40 journals. The purpose of this research is to provide a more complete list of accounting's ethics authors for use by authors, administrators, and other stakeholders. In this study, 26 business-ethics and accounting's top-40 journals were analyzed for a 23-year period between 1986 through 2008. Our data indicate that 16.8 percent of the 4,680 colleagues with either a PhD or DBA who teach accounting at North American institutions had authored/coauthored one ethics article and only 6.3 percent had authored/coauthored more than one ethics article in the 66 journals we examined. Consequently, 83.2 percent of the PhDs and DBAs in accounting had not authored/coauthored even one ethics article.

This chapter presents an approach for teaching divergent and evolving auditing standards in an introductory auditing course. The existence of divergent and continually evolving auditing standards can be challenging for students and for auditing educators. In addition to two separate sets of standards in the United States for the audits of public companies (issuers) and nonpublic companies (nonissuers), auditors also need to be aware of the growing prominence of international standards. In addition to providing background information on standard-setting bodies and divergent auditing standards, and suggestions for simplifying the process of guiding students to an understanding of these standards, this chapter provides figures that can be used for demonstration in class, along with a series of brief internet-based research exercises. The exercises and examples provided may help auditing educators to facilitate students’ understanding and mastery of the fundamental elements of the domestic and international auditing standard-setting forces and activities that impact, directly or indirectly, auditing practice in the United States and abroad.

This paper aims to investigate the impacts of audit engagement team’s ethical leadership, trainee auditors’ reporting intent and other selected factors on their likelihood of reporting client’s irregularities.

The present investigation is based on 150 effective questionnaire responses provided by a group of trainee auditors working for certified public accounting (CPA) firms. The questionnaire items relating to trainee auditors’ likelihood of reporting client’s irregularities are based on Crawford and Weirich’s (2011) classification of common forms of fraudulent financial reporting. The authors’ measurement of the audit engagement team leaders’ ethicality is based on the ethical leadership scale developed in Newstrom and Ruch (1975) and Kantor and Weisberg (2002). Regression models are used to testify the authors’ hypotheses on the correlations of the trainee auditors’ likelihood of reporting client’s irregularities with audit engagement team’s ethical leadership, trainee auditor’ reporting intents and other selected factors.

The major conclusion of this study is that there is a significantly positive correlation between trainee auditors’ likelihood of reporting client’s irregularities and their perception of audit engagement team leader’s ethicality. This paper also points out that trainee auditors’ higher evaluation of stable firm–client relationship reduces their likelihood of reporting client’s irregularities, whereas their concerns with future career development increase the likelihood of reporting. In addition, this paper documents the fact that male trainee auditors more easily perceive the ethicality of their team leader than females, and that trainee auditors with less academic achievements (lower GPA) tend to perceive more easily the ethicality of their team leader than those with better academic achievements (higher GPA).

Two business ethics variables constructed and used in this study, i.e. trainee auditors’ likelihood of reporting client’s irregularities and engagement team leader’s ethicality, can be applied in future research on whistleblowing in the audit profession.

Practical implications can also be drawn from the findings to enhance the ethical management at both engagement and firm levels.

This paper contributes to the audit research literature by providing evidence on the significant positive impacts of team leader’s ethicality on the entry-level audit professional’s likelihood of reporting client’s irregularities.