The effect of job satisfaction, intention to leave, and career anchors on ethical perception of accounting professionals within the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA)

Significant resources are spent each year on recruiting and training accountants, replacing workers, and fraud. Unethical work practices cause inefficiencies with associated costs. To the extent that measures are available to predict a good fit between the applicant and the proposed position in the firm, satisfaction can be enhanced, potentially minimizing unethical behavior and fraud. Subsequent monitoring provides an opportunity for intervention if levels of satisfaction change.; Studies have been used to categorize and correlate the employee's internalization of the desirable working environment. These categories are referred to as career anchors, and have been found to be a reliable measure of employee predisposition. To date career anchors have been researched in limited circumstances with narrowly defined populations, but include graduate students, education administrators, information systems personnel, certified professional accountants (CPAs), and government employees. This study proposes to extend earlier research on career anchors targeting CPAs to the larger accounting population represented by membership in the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) including the moderating effect of job satisfaction and intention to leave on the tendency toward ethical behavior.; Results indicated that the lifestyle career anchor, which is identified with flexibility for personal and family choices, was chosen as a primary career orientation by over 50 percent of the respondents. The second largest group, twenty percent of the total respondents, chose the managerial career anchor. These findings are consistent with earlier studies and extend prior research. A second hypothesis proposed the prevalence of certain career anchors across and among different demographic patterns. Certain relationships related to salary and gender were supported by the IMA responses to the survey. Finally, ethical perception was analyzed for relationships to career anchors and measures of satisfaction, including the intent to leave. No significant relationships were found between these variables. The IMA respondents were older, lacked racial diversity, and were mostly men. They felt that religion was a part of their daily lives and were overwhelmingly ethical in their perceptions of situational data.