IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eme/aaajpp/v26y2013i2p312-343.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

An investigation of ethical climate in a Singaporean accounting firm

Author

Listed:
  • William E. Shafer
  • Margaret C.C. Poon
  • Dean Tjosvold

Abstract

Purpose - The primary objective of this study is to examine the moderating influence of professional commitment (PC) on the associations among ethical climate, organizational‐professional conflict (OPC) and organizational commitment (OC) among public accountants. It aims to replicate recent findings on the relationships among ethical climate, OPC and OC. It also aims to extend prior research by investigating the association between ethical climate and both functional specialization and organizational rank in an accounting firm. Design/methodology/approach - The authors surveyed all professional employees in the Singapore office of an international accounting firm. Findings - Significant associations were found between ethical climate, OPC and OC. Participants' degree of affective commitment to their profession moderated the relationship between the public interest (benevolent/cosmopolitan) climate and perceived conflict and OC. Specifically, professionally committed employees reported less conflict and greater commitment when they felt the firm placed more emphasis on the public interest. These relationships were not present for employees with lower levels of professional commitment. It was also found that taxation specialists perceived the least emphasis in the firm on serving the public interest. Originality/value - No prior study has documented the moderating influence of affective professional commitment on the association between ethical climate and accountants' OPC or OC. This finding has important implications, suggesting that accounting firms' ability to retain professionally committed employees will depend in part on the degree to which the firm upholds professional ideals such as serving the public interest. The fact that tax specialists perceived less emphasis on serving the public interest than other functional areas implies that tax practices may be overemphasizing client advocacy at the expense of public service.

Suggested Citation

  • William E. Shafer & Margaret C.C. Poon & Dean Tjosvold, 2013. "An investigation of ethical climate in a Singaporean accounting firm," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 26(2), pages 312-343, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:eme:aaajpp:v:26:y:2013:i:2:p:312-343
    DOI: 10.1108/09513571311303747
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/09513571311303747/full/html?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/09513571311303747/full/pdf?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1108/09513571311303747?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Alice Garcia-Falières & Olivier Herrbach, 2015. "Organizational and Professional Identification in Audit Firms: An Affective Approach," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 132(4), pages 753-763, December.
    2. Ralph Adler & Gregory Liyanarachchi, 2020. "Towards measuring professionalism in accounting," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 60(3), pages 1907-1941, September.
    3. William Shafer, 2015. "Ethical Climate, Social Responsibility, and Earnings Management," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 126(1), pages 43-60, January.
    4. Raghda Abulsaoud Ahmed Younis & Aida Said Moawad Elsaid, 2021. "Enhancing the In-Role Behaviour and Organizational Citizenship Behaviours in the Workplace: A Multidimensional View for the Role of Ethical Climate," International Journal of Business and Management, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 14(12), pages 1-1, July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eme:aaajpp:v:26:y:2013:i:2:p:312-343. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Emerald Support (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.