The effect of selected personality and situational variables on the ethical judgments of management accountants in federal income tax compliance

This study reviewed the empirical literature in order to create a tentative model of ethical decision making in accounting. Five variables from the model were selected for testing ethical decision making on a sample of accounting students and management accounting practitioners: the amount of a tax law violation, the severity of a tax law violation, pressure from superiors to act unethically, Machiavellianism and Ethics Position. The experiment was designed as a 2 x 2 factorial analysis of covariance in which the amount and severity were the two factors and Machiavellianism and Ethics Position were the two covariates. Pressure from superiors was also included in the experimental case.;Results were consistent between the 128 accounting student respondents from five universities and the 168 management accounting practitioners from six chapters of the National Association of Accountants. Both groups tended to score low on Machiavellianism and, with respect to Ethics Position, tended to be subjectivists, followed by absolutists, subjectivists and exceptionists, in that order. Neither covariate showed a statistically significant relationship to ethical decision making. Both students and practitioners failed to react to the amount of the tax law violation, but they reacted to both the severity of the violation and pressure from superiors.