Business Commons^™

A Study Of Ethics For Accounting Students At East Tennessee State University, Jordan Warhurst

Undergraduate Honors Theses

What is being done to stop the increase of accounting scandals and frauds? This study focuses on ethics teaching for accounting students at the undergraduate level. This study asks the question, "have students increased in their use of professional judgement as defined by the AICPA code of Professional Conduct?"

Examining The Influence Of Organizational Culture On Employees' Ethical Behavior In Public Sector Organizations, Richard H. Afedzie

Human Resource Development Theses and Dissertations

Much of the literature on organizational ethics attribute unethical behavior in the workplace as originating from greed, inadequate ethics training, lax ethics laws, and lenient disciplinary actions when ethical lapses do occur. While this perception advances a cogent argument, it does not examine the entire concept of unethical behavior, because it does not consider the organizational culture which clearly guides employees' ethical behavior and decision making in the organization. In this study, a basic interpretative qualitative research design was employed utilizing semi-structured interviews to investigate how organizational cultural systems, member interactions, leadership role modeling and training interventions influence employees' ethical …

The Design And Evaluation Of An Anonymous, Two-Way, Ethics Management Reporting System, Jacob A. Young

Doctoral Dissertations

Despite a recognized need for whistleblowing systems in academic research, little to no attention has been given to the necessary requirements for and specific design of effective whistleblowing systems. In order to increase the rate of reporting, it is critical for reporting systems to be designed with the intent to reduce employee fears and inhibitions by reducing the potential for retaliation. Therefore, the goal of this three-essay dissertation was to enhance a firm's ability to solicit and investigate concerns by proposing and evaluating a system aimed at fostering anonymous, two-way communication between employees and investigators of wrongdoing.

In essay one, …

The Influence Of Leadership Style And Personal Costs On Fraud Whistleblowing Intent, Tonya D.W. Smalls

Doctor of Business Administration Dissertations

Using an experimental approach, this study examines employees’ intention to report occupational fraud through various channels based on the leadership style (transformational or transactional) of the manager and the expected personal costs (either high or low) of reporting. The study also focuses on the influence of value congruence between the manager and the employee, as well as trust factors that motivate employees to report occupational fraud. In examining these issues, I consider two types of occupational fraud schemes (misappropriation of assets and financial statement fraud). Unexpectedly, the results indicate leadership style and/or personal costs do not have a significant influence …

Ethics Of Thailand's Tourism Industry, Ganjanaporn Lertpipat Luther

Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate how ethical sales behavior related to the likelihood of tourists to return to Thailand. The Ethical Tourism Industry survey used was adapted from previous studies found in the literature. The sample of 300 participants was drawn from international tourists who travelled in the North, Central, and South regions of Thailand. Tests of correlation used Pearson, logistic regression, and linear regression to analyze the research questions in this study. An analysis found that most tourists who were revisiting Thailand were male, and 49% of tourists came from Europe and Africa for leisure purposes. …

The Management Of A Turnaround After An Ethical Breach In A Public Institution Of Higher Education, Ashley Stark

Doctor of Business Administration (DBA)

The field of management has built a wealth of literature on turnaround management as well as the effect unethical actions have upon organizations. However, there has been less study on the application of these topics to turnarounds specifically in small, regional, public institutions of higher education. It is important that an institution of higher education that has been affected by an ethical failure execute a turnaround to restore trust and faith in the organization, internally and externally. A small, regional, public institution of higher education in the upper Midwest recently encountered a series of organizational difficulties that negatively influenced its …

Virtue Ethics: Examining Influences On The Ethical Commitment Of Information System Workers In Trusted Positions, John Max Gray

CCE Theses and Dissertations

Despite an abundance of research on the problem of insider threats, only limited success has been achieved in preventing trusted insiders from committing security violations. Virtue ethics may be an approach that can be utilized to address this issue. Human factors such as moral considerations impact Information System (IS) design, use, and security; consequently they affect the security posture and culture of an organization. Virtue ethics based concepts have the potential to influence and align the moral values and behavior of information systems workers with those of an organization in order to provide increased protection of IS assets. An individual’s …

Employee Conduct When Administering Government Contracts In The Defense Logistics Agency, Sandra Genevieve Haynes-Michaels

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The Office of the Inspector General in the Department of Justice reported cases of government contracting employees accepting bribes totaling over $540 million within a 6-year period. The purpose of this case study was to explore the perceptions of government contracting managers regarding the knowledge needed to mitigate employees' unethical behaviors when administering government contracts. Previous studies on government contracting employees' unethical behaviors focused on employees' behaviors, but lacked data concerning managers' roles in mitigating employees' unethical behaviors. The study's conceptual framework was stakeholder theory. The data were gathered through semistructured interviews conducted with 21 government contracting managers in the …

Taxation On Morals, Alex J. Fulop

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This paper discusses five (5) tax topics and their relationship to the government attempting to influence taxpayer behavior. These topics include the charitable contribution deduction, excise taxes, §179 deductions, the first-time homebuyer credit, and soil, water, and endangered species conservation expense deductions. The above aspects of tax law are the government’s way of encouraging some behaviors and discouraging others. I believe that doing so is well within the government’s rights to do. However, I also think that encouraging moral actions is different from requiring them, and they certainly should not be required.

Tax Compliance: Ethical Orientation, Risk Perception And The Role Of The Tax Preparer, Ashley Beckett Soliz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In a voluntary tax system, taxpayers have an opportunity to avoid or evade paying taxes. The reasons for and the causes of noncompliance are expansive. One way to increase revenue to the government without increasing taxes is to focus on deterring tax evasion and tax underreporting. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects on tax compliance of the taxpayer’s ethical orientation and perceived financial risk, as well as the role of the tax preparer in the compliance decision. This research adds to the current tax compliance literature by investigating (in an experimental setting) the role of the …

The Experiences Of Successful Small Business Owners In Ghana, Michael Tetteh Alimo

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

There is a high failure rate of small and medium enterprises that results in high unemployment rate and poverty in Ghana. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the experiences of small business owners in Ghana. The conceptual framework was based on the theory of disruptive innovation. Disruptive innovation describes a method that enables business owners to create a new market. Data were collected through interviews from 20 participants who owned small businesses and succeeded beyond 5 years in Accra, Ghana. Member checking was used to strengthen the credibility and trustworthiness of the interpretation of the participants' responses. …

The Requirement To Be Fit And Proper: What Does It Mean To Australian Psychologists?, Francesca A. Bell

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The phrase fit and proper is used in the Health Practitioners Regulation National Law Act (Qld), 2009, which came into effect nationally in 2010 and governs psychologists. As with previous legislation that used the phrase, the legislator does not define fit and proper, leaving it up to each profession to determine its exact meaning and inform the courts accordingly. A review of the literature established that to date no Australian psychologist has attempted to define the construct. This means that Australian lawyers do not get any guidance from psychologists regarding how they should interpret the phrase fit and proper in …