The effectiveness of a complaint-based ethics enforcement system: Evidence from the accounting profession
Many professions, in order to enforce their ethics codes, rely on a complaint-based system, whereby persons who observe or discover ethics violations may file a complaint with an authoritative body. The authors assume that this type of system may encourage ethical behavior when practitioners believe...
| Authors: | ; |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
1990
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| In: |
Journal of business ethics
Year: 1990, Volume: 9, Issue: 2, Pages: 115-126 |
| Further subjects: | B
Ethic Code
B Ethical Behavior B Enforcement System B Accounting Profession B Economic Growth |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Many professions, in order to enforce their ethics codes, rely on a complaint-based system, whereby persons who observe or discover ethics violations may file a complaint with an authoritative body. The authors assume that this type of system may encourage ethical behavior when practitioners believe that a punishment is likely to result from a failure to adhere to the rules. This perceived likelihood of punishment has three components: detection risk, reporting risk, and sanction risk. A survey of potential violation witnesses related to the accounting profession revealed that the profession's complaint-based enforcement system may not provide practitioners with the necessary disincentive to refrain from code violations. |
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| ISSN: | 1573-0697 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
|
| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1007/BF00382661 |
