Commitment and professional ethics: a study of both amongst accouting professionals

Abstract

This paper presents a study in commitment issues related to professional ethics amongst professionals in Accounting. It aims to verifying whether the introjections of ethical values influence commitment level. In the empirical phase of the research, two measurement instruments were used, one related to organizational commitment, Medeiros (2003) that was adapted to the profession, with 28 (twenty-eight) indicators and the other one with 20 (twenty). This was done considering Lisboa et al (1997) that was inspired on the ethics code of managerial accounting of the Institute of Management Accountants. The documents relate four minimal ethical precepts: competence, secrecy, integrity and objectiveness; all of which from the authors point of view, represent the minimal basis required on an ethics code. They were analyzed from the factorial analysis and the "t" test and it was found out that the commitment issue is influenced by the level of ethical introjections and that there is a differentiation on commitment amongst technicians and accountants. Study results show that the professionals of higher education have their commitment level influenced directly by the introjections of the ethical duties of the profession in four different instances. As for the accounting technician, there are two instances. The study also indicates that objectiveness is the greatest predictor in commitment and this is better shown by normative and instrumental aspects. Therefore, it allows to inferring that relations based on exchange of needs is presented here as a key factor in the ethical performance of accountants.