The Influence of Accounting Firms on Clients’ Immoral Behaviors in China

In this article, we introduce important others, accounting firms, in the ethical decision making system. The rational economic person assumption does not always provide the best choice for accounting firms in the influence mode selection on the clients’ immoral behaviors. It still leaves many argume...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Zheng, Qinqin (Author) ; Li, Zhiqiang (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer 2010
In: Journal of business ethics
Year: 2010, Volume: 91, Issue: 1, Pages: 137-149
Further subjects:B Business Ethics
B accounting firms
B ethical obligations
B important others
B immoral behaviors
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Description
Summary:In this article, we introduce important others, accounting firms, in the ethical decision making system. The rational economic person assumption does not always provide the best choice for accounting firms in the influence mode selection on the clients’ immoral behaviors. It still leaves many arguments. From the perspective of virtue ethics, we take a step forward for the literature and propose the ethical obligations and active influence of accounting firms on clients’ immoral behaviors. We then empirically investigate the influence of accounting firms on the immoral informational disclosure of China’s listed companies. Our research goes beyond some of the traditional perceptions on accounting firms such as irrelevant excuse, capability discrimination, forced auditor rotation, and maximum audit tenure. From the perspective of business ethics, we use theory of virtue ethics to further explain the results. Conclusions and implications are presented at the end of this article.
ISSN:1573-0697
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10551-010-0572-4