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This research note investigates the relationship between the constructs of professional skepticism and client advocacy as they relate to accountants’ roles as auditors and tax professionals. Although Pinsker, Pennington, and Schafer (2009) implicitly treat advocacy and professional skepticism as opposing constructs, the purpose of this research note is to explicitly examine whether an accounting professional can be both a professional skeptic and a client advocate. Two hundred and six experienced accounting professionals with a mixture of accounting and tax backgrounds responded to a client advocacy scale (Pinsker et al., 2009) and a professional skepticism scale (Hurtt, 2010). Results indicate that while tax professionals have higher levels of client advocacy than auditors, both groups have similar levels of professional skepticism. Moreover, no correlation emerges between participants’ responses to the advocacy and the full professional skepticism scale or five of its six sub-scales. These results provide evidence that client advocacy is a separate and distinct construct from professional skepticism. These findings have implications for behavioral accounting researchers by demonstrating that these two constructs are not related; thus, it is important to separately measure client advocacy and professional skepticism when they are relevant to a research question.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate “walking alongside” in the three-dimensional space of narrative inquiry, as explored through the field texts of two teacher educators, one mentoring the other through layered stories of “place.”

Approach – The authors use several interpretive tools to explore the question, “What sustains us as teacher educators?” The dialogue deepens as the authors make their professional knowledge landscapes more visible, bringing sacred stories, stories of gender, stories of hierarchy, stories of power, and stories of race forward, exploring how these stories are held in tension with one another. The authors ponder the questions: what happens when the small stories’ educators living in “place” become so far removed from authorized meta-narratives also underway in “place”? And, how can we remain wakeful to the numerous story constellations of others that revolve around us?

Findings – The analytical spaces described by the researchers helped them to realize and share with others that researchers may more fully respect the vulnerability our research participants feel that comes along with their own restorying. Vulnerability brought forward a common bond found in the experiences of “place” in the field texts. Narrative inquirers who write field texts, then restory their own narratives of place, add to the empirical dimensions of narrative inquiry and its attentiveness to lived experience.

Research implications – This demonstration, through its examples of the three-dimensional space of narrative inquiry, shows how interpretation emanates from the various cracks, corners, and even the air within this important analytical space. Narrative researchers may continue to unpack this space in their work. Narrative inquirers are also reminded that place is storied and that human beings are narratively anchored in place, an important consideration for relational research ethics.

Value – Readers can interact with the tools used by narrative inquirers, in this case, “tracing” and “burrowing and broadening.” Narrative inquirers may also recognize vulnerability as an effect of interpreting within the three-dimensional inquiry space, and understand the necessity of vulnerability as a part of thinking narratively.

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.

Multiple stakeholders in the financial reporting process have articulated concerns over the rules-based orientation that U.S. accounting standards have adopted. Many argue that a more principles-based approach to standards setting, typified by international accounting standards, would improve the quality of financial reporting and strengthen the auditor's position when dealing with client pressure, thereby enabling a focus on transparency and fairness of financial reports. In early 2009, the U.S. appeared poised to transition U.S. accounting standards to international accounting standards. The transition decision was made after the recommendations of the SEC Advisory Committee on Improvements to Financial Reporting (i.e., SEC Pozen Committee) publicly expressed strong support in its final report (SEC, 2008a). The SEC in turn issued its “Roadmap for the Potential Use of Financial Statements Prepared in Accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards by U.S. Issuers on November 14, 2008” (SEC, 2008b) outlining the transition procedures. However, with Shapiro taking over as chairperson of the SEC, this move now appears less likely pending a stronger review of how principles-based international standards may impact the strength of financial regulatory oversight – a potential delay met with disdain by the pro principles-based European regulatory community (Doran, 2009). While transition to international standards continues to progress, little research examining whether principles-based standards affect auditor decision-making has been conducted. The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of principles- vs. rules-based standards on auditors' willingness to allow preparers leeway in reporting practices and to consider how auditors' decision behavior is influenced by potential client pressure and/or opposing pressure from the SEC. Based on a sample of 114 experienced auditors, the results show that auditors are more willing to allow clients to manage earnings under rules-based standards; and, these results are persistent even under external pressure. Results also indicate that more experienced auditors are less willing to allow clients who exert high pressure to report earnings aggressively, while SEC pressure has more affect on less experienced auditors. These results provide important insights to the FASB, SEC, and IASB as they weigh arguments underlying the principles- vs. rules-based debate.