A The influence of ethical blindness on results management cases
Keywords:
Ethical Blindness. Result Management. Intention to Denounce.
Abstract
The aims of this study it to verify the influence of ethical blindness in accounting professionals, in the judgment of decisions involving accounting choices, as well as their intentions to report those cases. A survey was conducted with questionnaires sent by e-mail to accounting professionals, in a sample of 116 participants. The non parametric Mann-Whitney test and the Kruskal-Wallis test was applied in the data treatment to verify the influence of the profiles on the results. The findings indicates that the accounting practices of results management was considered not acceptable by the majority of the respondents, as well as the behavior of the accounting professional, which presented statistical significance. As for ethical judgment, the findings point out that results management practices are seen as unacceptable and unethical, with statistically significant differences, except in the perception of professionals working in the government area, who were more likely to recognize such practices as legally acceptable and ethical, showing the influence of ethical blindness on professional decisions from biases and blind spots originating in the organizational context. In this perspective, the relevance of the dissemination of ethic’s dimension of accounting in educational institutions and regulatory entities of the accounting profession is emphasized, as an increase in the levels of ethical education among professionals regarding the social function of accounting, which consists of offering useful and reliable information to its stakeholders, increases the probability of identifying unethical acts driven by biases of ethical blindness.
Downloads
Download data is not yet available.
References
ACFE - Association of Certified Fraud Examiners; Report to the nations 2018 - Global study on occupational fraud and abuse. Disponível em: https://www.acfe.com/report-to-the-nations/2018/ Acesso em: 10 de Novembro. 2018.
AHMAD, S. A. Internal auditors and internal whistleblowing intentions: a study of organizational, individual, situational and demographic factors. Tese (School of Accounting, Finance and Economics). Edith Cowan University, Austrália. 2011.
BARFORT, S.; HARMON, N. A.; HJORTH, F.; OLSEN, A. L. Sustaining Honesty in Public Service: The Role of Selection. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, v. 11, n, 4, p. 96-123. 2019
BECKER, G. S. Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach', Journal of Political Economy. International Library of Critical Writings in Economics, 111, 141-189. 1999.
CFC – Conselho Federal de Contabilidade. NBC PG 01 - Código de Ética Profissional do Contador. Diponível em: http://www1.cfc.org.br/sisweb/SRE/docs/NBCPG01.pdf . Acesso em: 12 Novembro, 2019. 2019.
CHIU, R. K. Ethical judgement, locus of control, and whistleblowing intention: a case study of mainland Chinese MBA students. Managerial Auditing Journal, v. 17, n. 9, p. 581-587. 2002.
DALMORO, M.; VIEIRA, K. M.. Dilemas na construção de escalas tipo Likert: O número de itens e a disposição influenciam nos resultados? Revista Gestão Organizacional , 6 (Edição Especial). 2014.
DWORKIN, T. M.; BAUCUS, M. S. Internal vs. external whistleblowers: A comparison of whistleblowering processes. Journal of Business Ethics, 17(12), 1281-1298. 1998).
ELIAS, R. J. Determinants of earnings management ethics among accountants. Journal of Business Ethics, 40(1), 33–45. 2002.
FAVORETTO, A. B.; CORRÊA, F. P.; SILVA, F. L. da; GRECCO, M. C.P. O gerenciamento de resultados contábeis e o controle de provisões. Redeca, v.4, n.2. p. 113-125, Jul- Dez. 2017.
FORSYTH, D. R. Judging the morality of business practices: The influence of personal moral philosophies. Journal of Business Ethics, v. 11, n. 5-6, p. 461-470. 1992.
FUJI, A. H.; SLOMSKI, V. Subjetivismo responsável: necessidade ou ousadia no estudo da contabilidade. Revista Contabilidade & Finanças, 14(33), 33-44. 2003.
GAO, J.; GREENBERG, R.; WONG-ON-WING, B. Whistleblowing intentions of lower-level employees: The effect of reporting channel, bystanders, and wrongdoer power status. Journal of Business Ethics, v. 126, n. 1, p. 85-99. 2015.
GIGERENZER, G. Moral intuition fast and frugal heuristics? In W. (Sinnott-Armstrong (Ed.), The cognitive science of morality: Intuition and diversity, p. 1-26. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 2008.
GUTHRIE, C. P.; TAYLOR, E. Z. Protect or Pay? Promoting Internal Whistleblowing. Promoting Internal Whistleblowing (January 26, 2015). 2015.
HAIDT, J. The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist approach to moral judgement. Psychological Review, 108, 814–834. 2001.
HEALY, P. M.; WAHLEN, J. M. A review of the earnings management literature and its implications for standard setting. Accounting horizons, v. 13, n. 4, p. 365-383. 1999.
HWANG, D.; STALEY, B.; CHEN, Y. T. ; LAN, J. S. Confucian culture and whistle-blowing by professional accountants: An exploratory study. Managerial Auditing Journal, 23(5), 504-526. 2008.
IUDÍCIBUS, S.; MARTINS, E.; CARVALHO, L. N. Contabilidade: aspectos relevantes da epopéia de sua evolução. Revista Contabilidade & Finanças. v.16, n. 38, p. 7-19. 2005.
JALILVAND, M. R.; VOSTA, S. N.; YASINI, A. Motivational Antecedents of Whistle-Blowing in Iranian Public Service Organizations. Iranian Journal of Management Studies, v. 10, n. 2, p. 385-408. 2017.
KAPLAN, S. E.; PANY, K.; SAMUELS, J. A.; ZHANG, J. An examination of the effects of procedural safeguards on intentions to anonymously report fraud. Auditing: A Journal of Practice and Theory, 28(2), 273-288. 2009.
KOTHARI, S. P.; LESTER, R. The role of accounting in the financial crisis: Lessons for the future. Accounting Horizons, 26(2), 335–351. 2012.
LATANE, B.; DARLEY, J. M. Group inhibition of bystander intervention in emergencies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 10(3), 215-221. 1968.
LUSTOSA, P. R.B.; DANTAS, J. A.; FERNANDES, B. V. R; SILVA, J. D.G. A Moral do Contador Brasileiro: uma Avaliação por meio da Escala Ética Multidimensional. Contabilidade Vista & Revista. 23. 15-45. 2012.
MALEK, J. To tell or not to tell? The ethical dilemma of the would-be whistle blower. Accountability in Research, 17, 115-129. 2010.
MARTINEZ, A. L. Gerenciamento dos resultados contábeis: estudo empírico das companhias abertas brasileiras. Tese de doutoramento em Ciências Contábeis. FEA-USP: São Paulo. 2001.
MARTINS, G. DE A.; THEÓPHILO, C. R. Metodologia da Investigação Científica para Ciências Sociais Aplicadas. 2.ed. São Paulo: Atlas. 2009.
MATSUMOTO, A. S.; PARREIRA, E. M. Uma pesquisa sobre o Gerenciamento de Resultados Contábeis: causas e conseqüências. Contabilidade, Gestão e Governança, v. 10, n. 1, p. 141-157. 2007.
MENK, K. B. The impact of materiality, personal traits, and ethical position on whistle-blowing intentions. Virginia Commonwealth University, Tese (Doutorado em Filosofia em Negócios), Richmond. 2011.
MERCHANT, K. A. Rewarding Results: Motivating Profit Center Managers (Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA). 1989.
NEAR, J. P.; MICELI, M. P. Whistle-blowing: Myth and reality. Journal of Management, 22(3), 507-26. 1996.
NEAR, J. P.; REHG, M. T.; VAN SCOTTER, R. R.; MICELI, M. P. Does type of wrongdoing affect the whistle-blowing process?. Business Ethics Quarterly, 14(2), 219-42. 2004.
OKTEM, M. K.; SHAHBAZI, G.; Attitudes toward different forms of whistleblowing in Turkey and Iran. Middle-East Journal of Scientific Research, 12(7), 945-951. 2012.
PALAZZO, G.; KRINGS, F.; HOFFRAGE, U. Ethical blindness. Journal of Business Ethics, v. 109, n. 3, p. 323-338. 2012.
PARK, H.; BLENKINSOPP, J. Whistleblowing as planned behavior–A survey of South Korean police officers. Journal of business ethics, 85(4), 545-556. 2009.
PAULO, E. Manipulação das informações contábeis: uma análise teórica e empírica sobre os modelos operacionais de detecção de gerenciamento de resultados. Tese de doutorado. São Paulo: Faculdade de Economia, Administração e Contabilidade da Universidade de São Paulo. 2007.
RAUPP, F. M.; BEUREN, I. M. Metodologia da Pesquisa Aplicável às Ciências. Como elaborar trabalhos monográficos em contabilidade: teoria e prática. São Paulo: Atlas, 76-97. 2006.
REYNOLDS, S. J. A neurocognitive model of the ethical decision-making process: Implications for study and practice. Journal of Applied Psychology, v. 91, 737–748. 2006.
REIDENBACH, R. E.; ROBIN, D. P. Toward the development of a multidimensional scale for improving evaluations of business ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, v. 9, n. 8, p. 639- 653. 1990.
SANTANA JR, E. A.; CARVALHO JR, C. V. O. Comportamento ético contábil e gerenciamento de resultados: validação da multidimensional ethics scale (mes). Revista de Gestão, Finanças e Contabilidade, v. 6, n. 1, p. 92-111. 2016.
Sarbanes-Oxley Act: Evidence from Internal Audit Outsourcing (SOX); Accounting Review, 82(4), 803-835. AICPA, American institute of CPA. 2002.
SEZER, O.; GINO, F.; BAZERMAN, M. Ethical Blind Spots: explaining unintentional unethical behavior. Harvard University. Current Opinion in Psychology, n. 6, p. 77- 81. 2015.
SILVA, G. R.; SOUSA, R. G. A influência do canal de denúncia anônima na detecção de fraudes contábeis em organizações. Revista de Contabilidade e Organizações, 11(30), 46-56. 2017.
SMIELIAUSKAS, W.; BEWLEY, K.; GRONEWOLD, U.; MENZEFRICKE, U. Misleading Forecasts in Accounting Estimates: A Form of Ethical Blindness in Accounting Standards?. Journal of Business Ethics, 152(2), 437-457. 2018.
SONENSHEIN, S. The role of construction, intuition, and justification in responding to ethical issues at work: The sensemaking-intuition model. Academy of Management Review, 32, 1022–1040. 2007.
TENBRUNSEL, A. E.; SMITH-CROWE, K. Ethical decision making: Where we’ve been and where we’re going. Academy of Management Annals, 2, 545–607. 2008.
VASCONCELOS, A. F. D. Influência do julgamento ético, lócus de controle, clima ético organizacional e materialidade do delito sobre as intenções de Whistleblowing dos auditores internos no Brasil. 153f, Tese de Doutorado do Programa Multiinstitucional e Inter-Regional de Pós-Graduação em Ciências Contábeis (UFPB/ UNB/ UFRN), João Pessoa/PB. 2015.
ZHANG, J. CHIU, R. K.; WEI, L. Decision-making process of internal whistleblowing behavior in China: Empirical evidence and Implication, Journal of Business Ethics, 88 (Supplement 1), 25-41. 2009.
AHMAD, S. A. Internal auditors and internal whistleblowing intentions: a study of organizational, individual, situational and demographic factors. Tese (School of Accounting, Finance and Economics). Edith Cowan University, Austrália. 2011.
BARFORT, S.; HARMON, N. A.; HJORTH, F.; OLSEN, A. L. Sustaining Honesty in Public Service: The Role of Selection. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, v. 11, n, 4, p. 96-123. 2019
BECKER, G. S. Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach', Journal of Political Economy. International Library of Critical Writings in Economics, 111, 141-189. 1999.
CFC – Conselho Federal de Contabilidade. NBC PG 01 - Código de Ética Profissional do Contador. Diponível em: http://www1.cfc.org.br/sisweb/SRE/docs/NBCPG01.pdf . Acesso em: 12 Novembro, 2019. 2019.
CHIU, R. K. Ethical judgement, locus of control, and whistleblowing intention: a case study of mainland Chinese MBA students. Managerial Auditing Journal, v. 17, n. 9, p. 581-587. 2002.
DALMORO, M.; VIEIRA, K. M.. Dilemas na construção de escalas tipo Likert: O número de itens e a disposição influenciam nos resultados? Revista Gestão Organizacional , 6 (Edição Especial). 2014.
DWORKIN, T. M.; BAUCUS, M. S. Internal vs. external whistleblowers: A comparison of whistleblowering processes. Journal of Business Ethics, 17(12), 1281-1298. 1998).
ELIAS, R. J. Determinants of earnings management ethics among accountants. Journal of Business Ethics, 40(1), 33–45. 2002.
FAVORETTO, A. B.; CORRÊA, F. P.; SILVA, F. L. da; GRECCO, M. C.P. O gerenciamento de resultados contábeis e o controle de provisões. Redeca, v.4, n.2. p. 113-125, Jul- Dez. 2017.
FORSYTH, D. R. Judging the morality of business practices: The influence of personal moral philosophies. Journal of Business Ethics, v. 11, n. 5-6, p. 461-470. 1992.
FUJI, A. H.; SLOMSKI, V. Subjetivismo responsável: necessidade ou ousadia no estudo da contabilidade. Revista Contabilidade & Finanças, 14(33), 33-44. 2003.
GAO, J.; GREENBERG, R.; WONG-ON-WING, B. Whistleblowing intentions of lower-level employees: The effect of reporting channel, bystanders, and wrongdoer power status. Journal of Business Ethics, v. 126, n. 1, p. 85-99. 2015.
GIGERENZER, G. Moral intuition fast and frugal heuristics? In W. (Sinnott-Armstrong (Ed.), The cognitive science of morality: Intuition and diversity, p. 1-26. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 2008.
GUTHRIE, C. P.; TAYLOR, E. Z. Protect or Pay? Promoting Internal Whistleblowing. Promoting Internal Whistleblowing (January 26, 2015). 2015.
HAIDT, J. The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist approach to moral judgement. Psychological Review, 108, 814–834. 2001.
HEALY, P. M.; WAHLEN, J. M. A review of the earnings management literature and its implications for standard setting. Accounting horizons, v. 13, n. 4, p. 365-383. 1999.
HWANG, D.; STALEY, B.; CHEN, Y. T. ; LAN, J. S. Confucian culture and whistle-blowing by professional accountants: An exploratory study. Managerial Auditing Journal, 23(5), 504-526. 2008.
IUDÍCIBUS, S.; MARTINS, E.; CARVALHO, L. N. Contabilidade: aspectos relevantes da epopéia de sua evolução. Revista Contabilidade & Finanças. v.16, n. 38, p. 7-19. 2005.
JALILVAND, M. R.; VOSTA, S. N.; YASINI, A. Motivational Antecedents of Whistle-Blowing in Iranian Public Service Organizations. Iranian Journal of Management Studies, v. 10, n. 2, p. 385-408. 2017.
KAPLAN, S. E.; PANY, K.; SAMUELS, J. A.; ZHANG, J. An examination of the effects of procedural safeguards on intentions to anonymously report fraud. Auditing: A Journal of Practice and Theory, 28(2), 273-288. 2009.
KOTHARI, S. P.; LESTER, R. The role of accounting in the financial crisis: Lessons for the future. Accounting Horizons, 26(2), 335–351. 2012.
LATANE, B.; DARLEY, J. M. Group inhibition of bystander intervention in emergencies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 10(3), 215-221. 1968.
LUSTOSA, P. R.B.; DANTAS, J. A.; FERNANDES, B. V. R; SILVA, J. D.G. A Moral do Contador Brasileiro: uma Avaliação por meio da Escala Ética Multidimensional. Contabilidade Vista & Revista. 23. 15-45. 2012.
MALEK, J. To tell or not to tell? The ethical dilemma of the would-be whistle blower. Accountability in Research, 17, 115-129. 2010.
MARTINEZ, A. L. Gerenciamento dos resultados contábeis: estudo empírico das companhias abertas brasileiras. Tese de doutoramento em Ciências Contábeis. FEA-USP: São Paulo. 2001.
MARTINS, G. DE A.; THEÓPHILO, C. R. Metodologia da Investigação Científica para Ciências Sociais Aplicadas. 2.ed. São Paulo: Atlas. 2009.
MATSUMOTO, A. S.; PARREIRA, E. M. Uma pesquisa sobre o Gerenciamento de Resultados Contábeis: causas e conseqüências. Contabilidade, Gestão e Governança, v. 10, n. 1, p. 141-157. 2007.
MENK, K. B. The impact of materiality, personal traits, and ethical position on whistle-blowing intentions. Virginia Commonwealth University, Tese (Doutorado em Filosofia em Negócios), Richmond. 2011.
MERCHANT, K. A. Rewarding Results: Motivating Profit Center Managers (Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA). 1989.
NEAR, J. P.; MICELI, M. P. Whistle-blowing: Myth and reality. Journal of Management, 22(3), 507-26. 1996.
NEAR, J. P.; REHG, M. T.; VAN SCOTTER, R. R.; MICELI, M. P. Does type of wrongdoing affect the whistle-blowing process?. Business Ethics Quarterly, 14(2), 219-42. 2004.
OKTEM, M. K.; SHAHBAZI, G.; Attitudes toward different forms of whistleblowing in Turkey and Iran. Middle-East Journal of Scientific Research, 12(7), 945-951. 2012.
PALAZZO, G.; KRINGS, F.; HOFFRAGE, U. Ethical blindness. Journal of Business Ethics, v. 109, n. 3, p. 323-338. 2012.
PARK, H.; BLENKINSOPP, J. Whistleblowing as planned behavior–A survey of South Korean police officers. Journal of business ethics, 85(4), 545-556. 2009.
PAULO, E. Manipulação das informações contábeis: uma análise teórica e empírica sobre os modelos operacionais de detecção de gerenciamento de resultados. Tese de doutorado. São Paulo: Faculdade de Economia, Administração e Contabilidade da Universidade de São Paulo. 2007.
RAUPP, F. M.; BEUREN, I. M. Metodologia da Pesquisa Aplicável às Ciências. Como elaborar trabalhos monográficos em contabilidade: teoria e prática. São Paulo: Atlas, 76-97. 2006.
REYNOLDS, S. J. A neurocognitive model of the ethical decision-making process: Implications for study and practice. Journal of Applied Psychology, v. 91, 737–748. 2006.
REIDENBACH, R. E.; ROBIN, D. P. Toward the development of a multidimensional scale for improving evaluations of business ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, v. 9, n. 8, p. 639- 653. 1990.
SANTANA JR, E. A.; CARVALHO JR, C. V. O. Comportamento ético contábil e gerenciamento de resultados: validação da multidimensional ethics scale (mes). Revista de Gestão, Finanças e Contabilidade, v. 6, n. 1, p. 92-111. 2016.
Sarbanes-Oxley Act: Evidence from Internal Audit Outsourcing (SOX); Accounting Review, 82(4), 803-835. AICPA, American institute of CPA. 2002.
SEZER, O.; GINO, F.; BAZERMAN, M. Ethical Blind Spots: explaining unintentional unethical behavior. Harvard University. Current Opinion in Psychology, n. 6, p. 77- 81. 2015.
SILVA, G. R.; SOUSA, R. G. A influência do canal de denúncia anônima na detecção de fraudes contábeis em organizações. Revista de Contabilidade e Organizações, 11(30), 46-56. 2017.
SMIELIAUSKAS, W.; BEWLEY, K.; GRONEWOLD, U.; MENZEFRICKE, U. Misleading Forecasts in Accounting Estimates: A Form of Ethical Blindness in Accounting Standards?. Journal of Business Ethics, 152(2), 437-457. 2018.
SONENSHEIN, S. The role of construction, intuition, and justification in responding to ethical issues at work: The sensemaking-intuition model. Academy of Management Review, 32, 1022–1040. 2007.
TENBRUNSEL, A. E.; SMITH-CROWE, K. Ethical decision making: Where we’ve been and where we’re going. Academy of Management Annals, 2, 545–607. 2008.
VASCONCELOS, A. F. D. Influência do julgamento ético, lócus de controle, clima ético organizacional e materialidade do delito sobre as intenções de Whistleblowing dos auditores internos no Brasil. 153f, Tese de Doutorado do Programa Multiinstitucional e Inter-Regional de Pós-Graduação em Ciências Contábeis (UFPB/ UNB/ UFRN), João Pessoa/PB. 2015.
ZHANG, J. CHIU, R. K.; WEI, L. Decision-making process of internal whistleblowing behavior in China: Empirical evidence and Implication, Journal of Business Ethics, 88 (Supplement 1), 25-41. 2009.
Published
2022-05-02
How to Cite
Rodrigues da Silva, G., Gomes Rodrigues de Araújo, J., Spinelli Maximo Lins, T., & Guerra de Sousa, R. (2022). A The influence of ethical blindness on results management cases. Enfoque: Reflexão Contábil, 41(2), 43-61. Retrieved from https://periodicos.uem.br/ojs/index.php/Enfoque/article/view/56191
Section
Original Articles
DECLARATION OF ORIGINALITY AND COPYRIGHTS
I Declare that current article is original and has not been submitted for publication, in part or in whole, to any other national or international journal.
The copyrights belong exclusively to the authors. Published content is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 (CC BY 3.0) guidelines, which allows sharing (copy and distribution of the material in any medium or format) and adaptation (remix, transform, and build upon the material) for any purpose, even commercially, under the terms of attribution.
Read this link for further information on how to use CC BY 3.0 properly.
