The influence of ethics education
The effect of ethics education on ethical behaviour
Name: Leanne (J.M.) Hogenhout Student number: 6076645
Date: June 23, 2014
Education: MSc Accountancy and Control, Accountancy track
Institution: University of Amsterdam, Faculty of Economics and Business First supervisor: dr. ir. B.A.C. Groen
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I.
Abstract
A lot of criticism has come to the accountancy profession, especially in the last two decades when several accounting scandals occurred. It is possible that the concerned auditors did not make the best decisions from a moral point of view. According to prior literature ethics education could play a role in influencing the behaviour of auditors. The research question of this study is therefore: how and to what extent could ethics education influence the ethical decision making of (future) auditors?
To answer this research question the cognitive development (CMD) theory of Kohlberg is applied in this study. The research question is further examined through a qualitative in-depth study. This is done by 12 (semi-structured) interviews with Dutch accountancy master students. Multiple contributions to prior literature emerge from this study. First, the study is qualitative, where most of the literature in regarding ethics education is quantitative. Second, this study links the three moral reasoning levels of Kohlberg, which are the pre-conventional level, the conventional level and post-conventional level, with some ethical dilemmas. Third the study is especially to Dutch students. Last the need for a more practical education method is found.
As described, the CMD theory is linked to ethical dilemmas, to see if people behave ethical when facing such a dilemma. In this way a more indirect way of testing the relation between ethics education and ethical behaviour is examined. After that a more direct method is used to get clear the meanings of the interviewees around the subject of ethics education and the consequences for ethical behaviour.
According to the results, interviewees will act according to the rules and thus in a moral manner. However, when facing very bad consequences for themselves if they act moral, they will sometimes move to unethical behaviour. The interviewees think their peers would behave less ethical and need more ethics education therefore in relation to themselves. But ethics education itself seems to play a modest role in the ethical reasoning of people. Halve of the interviewees thinks it has (a lot of) influence, especially to know how to deal with ethical dilemmas. The other 6 interviewees think education has less or even no influence, they think upbringing is more important for their behaviour. Another important control variable is the advice of colleagues when facing an ethical dilemma.
A limitation of this study is the theoretical nature of the examination and analysis of what the interviewees (students) would do when facing a dilemma. To get a more comprehensive view, further research could examine the reactions of auditors in practice when facing such a dilemma. Next the view of Gilligan could be used more explicitly in further research to examine the differences between men and women more in detail.
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II. Content
I. Abstract ... 2
II. Content ... 3
III. List of tables and figures ... 5
1. Introduction ... 6
1.1. Background ... 6
1.2. Research question ... 7
1.3. Motivation of the study ... 7
2. Literature review ... 10
2.1. Introduction to ethics and morality ... 10
2.1.1. Definitions ... 10
2.1.2. Theorizing ethics ... 11
2.1.3. Overall developments ... 12
2.1.4. Ethical code of conduct ... 12
2.2. Ethics in education ... 13
2.3. Theory regarding moral reasoning ... 14
2.3.1. Rests model of ethical decision making ... 14
2.3.2. Kohlberg’s moral development theory ... 14
2.3.3. Gilligan’s theory of ethics of care ... 18
2.3.4. The Kohlberg-Gilligan controversy ... 19
2.4. Summary and conclusion ... 21
3. Research methodology ... 22 3.1. Research model ... 22 3.2. Research method ... 23 3.3. Data collection ... 23 3.4. Data analysis ... 26 3.5. Conclusion ... 27 4. Findings ... 29
4.1. Levels of Kohlberg and ethical behaviour ... 30
4.1.1. Pre-conventional level ... 31
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4.1.3. Post-conventional level ... 35
4.1.4. Peer students... 37
4.2. Ethics education and ethical behaviour ... 39
4.2.1. Importance of ethics education ... 39
4.2.2. Influence of ethics education ... 41
4.2.3. Improvements of ethics education ... 43
4.3. Other factors related to ethical behaviour ... 44
4.3.1. Advice colleagues ... 45
4.3.2. Upbringing ... 46
4.3.3. Religion ... 47
4.3.4. Ethical code of conduct ... 48
4.3.5. Other factors ... 50
4.3.6. Theory versus practice ... 52
4.4. Kohlberg versus Gilligan ... 53
5. Discussion ... 56
5.1. The levels of Kohlberg and ethical behaviour ... 56
5.2. Ethics education and ethical behaviour ... 59
5.3. Other factors and ethical behaviour ... 61
5.4. Kohlberg versus Gilligan ... 62
6. Conclusion ... 63
7. References ... 65
Appendix A: interview ... 68
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III. List of tables and figures
Tables
Table 1 CMD theory Table 2 Ethics of care
Table 3 Ideal adult moral development Table 4 Comparison of Kohlberg and Gilligan Table 5 The four ethical dilemmas
Table 6 General information interviewees Table 7 Overview information interviewees Table 8 Propositions
Table 9 Analysing scheme
Table 10 Propositions combined with totals of reactions Table 11 Scheme answers behaviour peer students Table 12 Overview answers per Kohlberg category
Table 13 Comparing answers interviewees and thoughts about peers Table 14 Comparison answers men and women
Table 15 Comparison answers per Kohlberg category of men and women Table 16 Analysing scheme men
Table 17 Analysing scheme women
Figures
Figure 1 Theorizing ethics Figure 2 Research model
Figure 3 Total citations per proposition
Figure 4 Overview answers per Kohlberg category
Figure 5 Comparing answers interviewees and thoughts about peers Figure 6 Comparison answers men and women
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1. Introduction
1.1. Background
Through the involvement of auditors in various accounting scandals, a lot of critique came unto the accounting profession. For example there is the case of Enron. They succeeded in keeping losses out of their financial statements, without detecting these by their auditor Arthur Anderson. The reasons therefore lie in the workload, which consisted of little control, but a lot of consultancy work (Piersma, 2013). Anderson asked only the cost price for the audit and assurance, but for advisory they asked the full price.
Another aspect regarding the case of Enron follows from the article of Satava et al. (2006). In their paper they want their readers to rethink the foundation of accounting and auditing. They
considered that “high profile events indicate that the accountants and auditors involved have followed rule-based ethical perspective and have failed to protect investors and stakeholders – resulting in a wave of scandals and charges of unethical conduct” (p. 271). Next to this Satava et al. describe that a rule-based tradition lead to unethical behaviour. This seems interesting, and leads to the question if principle-based does not face unethical behaviour.
Beside this Enron/Andersen scandal, there have been a lot more scandals. These scandals ensured the creating of many laws on international level, to maintain or enhance the quality of audits (Arrunada, 2004; Defond & Lennox, 2011; ISAAB, 2013). This gives rise for some questions. For instance, to what extent is the auditor responsible for the audit and assurance? A central question in many studies and newspapers is whether the auditor himself is responsible for the error (Warren, 1979; Nelson, 2009). Is it possible to trace all errors back to the auditor? In this case, the auditor’s independence plays a role, whether he is independent enough from the company that he can give a good judgment of the
company’s financial results, free from bias (Bazerman & Moore, 2011). Besides that, it is important that the auditor is not going to perform some work, but it is needed he grounds his work on underlying theories, models, rules and regulations.
A lot of questions are following from these first three sections. There was a move towards more rules the last decades, but in the case of Enron these rules do not work, the rules became an obsession. So, there have to be something more than rules. In this case, it will be interesting to see the ethical
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morals and values of an auditor. Which place does ethical reasoning have in the behaviour of auditors? What is the distribution of at one side rules and at the other side ethical or moral judgment?
To examine this several studies are done in the past, to given an indication some of the results are given in this section. Low et al. (2006) examined if ethical education give a boost to students in their ethical decision making process. Their findings based on interviews to students say that student think education can only have a moderate influence on their behaviour (Low et al., 2008). First, this study says that students who perceived ethical behaviour regard themselves superior to their peer students. Secondly, the interviewed students think ethical behaviour will be important, but the majority of them saw ethics education as having a moderate influence on their ethical behaviour (Low et al., 2006). This conclusion seems to be contrasting to the study of Eynon et al. (1997) which says that when students followed ethical courses during their study a positive boost is given to their abilities of moral reasoning. Herron and Gilbertson (2004) agree with this, they found a positive relation between the level of the moral reasoning of accounting students and their judgment about ethical behaviour (Satava et al., 2006). This seems interesting because of the different outcomes. Why does the study of Low (2006) indicate only a moderate influence on the behaviour of students and the other studies indicate there is a more positive relation? This gives rise to the following research question, which is explained in the next section.
1.2. Research question
In the first section some background information is given in explaining the case of Enron. Linked to that, a further indication is given of some studies who examined the effect of ethics education on ethical behaviour. Related to this, it is interesting to examine this to Dutch students. What do they think of the (effectiveness) of ethics education. Therefore my research question is: how and to what extent could ethics education influence the ethical decision making of (future) auditors?
1.3. Motivation of the study
In this section the scientific and societal contributions are discussed. To examine the scientific contribution, it is needed to take a look at prior literature. The majority of literature on ethics in education focuses on the moral development of accounting students, for instance the studies of
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Armstrong (1987; 1993), Chan & Leung (2006), Clikeman and Henning (2000, Dellaportas (2006), Low et al. (2006), Ponemon (1993) and Thorne (2001). This small list of academic papers is not exhaustive; it does however provide an indication of studies that have been done over the last two decades. The manner these studies are undertaken is mostly by surveying students, according to the two overview studies of O’Fallon & Butterfield (2005) and Craft (2013).
Besides this testing of the moral development and ethical behaviour of accounting students, there is also some evidence for the effectiveness of ethics education. This is not handling with students, but with auditors in practice. This research is done according to the view of that there might be some factors in practice which could hinder the effect of ethics education in practice. A good example of testing this effectiveness is found in the article of Blanthorne et al. (2007). According to the results of this paper, there are several factors that limited the effectiveness of ethics education. One of the reasons called in their research is that auditors thought they did not get the good education to perform better in ethical situations. This seems interesting, because it implicates that if there is the right education, the effect of ethics education will be there.
This motivation section has now described the two sides. At the one hand the position of accounting students and at the other hand the auditors in practice. As introduced in the background section, there are different views about the influence of ethics in education. Also there is some
discussion around the effectiveness of ethics education. This research will both focus on ethics education and the effectiveness of it.
As described in the previous sections, in most studies towards ethics education, students are surveyed. The contribution of this study to the existing literature comprised of a more in-depth
qualitative study, done by semi-structured interviews. By doing this, it is possible to focus more in depth to the arguments of students. Secondly, in this study the CMD theory of Kohlberg (1976) and the ethics of care of Gilligan (1982) are used and linked to some ethical dilemmas, which are taken of the study of Low et al. (2006). The third contribution is that these semi-structured interviews will be to Dutch master students, there is no prior literature which have done this before.
The societal contribution lies in the fact of giving insights of the need for ethics education, especially in the Netherlands. It is important to know what students think of ethics education. If they for instance argue ethics education is not needed for any reason, it can be skipped of the program. But if they argue it is good now or ways to improve this education, this could give a boost to for instance the university to invite students for a special ethics course in the bachelor or master program. The same holds for effectiveness of ethics education, resulting in skipping, holding or improving ethics in
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education. Another societal contribution is given by the professional behaviour argument, given by the ethical code of conduct, as outlined in section 2.2.3. Because of the stakeholders and other public, it is needed to have an accounting profession that can be trusted. Therefore, ethics education could be a helpful tool, but it can also considered as superfluous. For these possible results, it is needed to justify ethics education.
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2. Literature review
This chapter gives a short overview of the literature review and hypotheses regarding ethics, morality and ethics in education. The first paragraph gives insight in the definitions, ideas and overall
developments regarding ethics and morality in general. It also highlights the importance of the ethical code of conduct. After that, the second paragraph gives some insights in the subject of ethics education, the independent variable central in this study. Next the third paragraph highlights the most important theories regarding moral reasoning and ethics education. The models of Rest, Kohlberg and Gilligan will be introduced. Last a short summary of the chapter, including expectations for the findings.
2.1. Introduction to ethics and morality
This section will provide a short overview for the rest of the literature review. First some definitions will pass, after that a more elaborate view on ethical reasoning regarding ethical absolutism, ethical
relativism and universal prescriptivism. This is followed by describing the overall developments and theories regarding moral reasoning. Fourth a short intermezzo regarding the ethical code of conduct.
2.1.1. Definitions
To examine the role of ethics in education some definitions are given of important concepts regarding ethics, education and the accounting profession. The objective of this subparagraph is therefore to define morality, ethics and business ethics to avoid confusion about their meaning. According to Crane and Matten (2004, p. 11), morality “is concerned with the norms, values, and beliefs embedded in social processes which define right and wrong for an individual or a community”. Following on this definition, ethics goes one step deeper and is defined as “the study of morality and the application of reason to elucidate specific rules and principles that determine right and wrong for any given situation” (Crane & Matten, 2004, p. 11). These two terms are often used interchangeably and explained in the following way, according to Crane & Matten. All individuals and communities have morality: a basic sense of right and wrong in relation to particular activities. The role of ethics in these is to systemize and rationalize morality into generalized normative rules that offer a solution to situations of moral uncertainty.
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Crane & Matten (2004, p. 8) give also the definition of business ethics, stated as “the study of business situations, activities, and decisions where issues of right and wrong are addressed”. These three definitions in the ethical world of auditors will be the starting point and basis of the paper.
2.1.2. Theorizing ethics
In section 2.1.1 the broad definitions of ethics and morality are given. However, in the definition of morality there is some space, because it defines morality for a specific individual or community. What could be very normal to do in one culture, it absolutely not done in another community, according to Lewis and Unerman (1999). In their article they consider three different views regarding ethical reasoning in general, these are ethical absolutism, ethical relativism and universal prescriptivism. It is pointed out as a line in Figure 1, on which is clear ethical absolutism at the very left side and ethical relativism at the right side.
Figure 1: Theorizing ethics (Lewis & Unerman, 1999)
Ethical absolutism argues moral values have to be absolute and objective and moral codes are universal. The opposite, ethical relativism implies no ethical rules apply universally and each individual may live by his or her individual moral code. There is no universal right or wrong, it is dependable on your individual and cultural beliefs. This two methods are the most extreme, therefore the article argue there has to be universal prescriptivism. It identifies behaviour that can never be right in any society, which are the universal values. But it describes also relative values, which encompasses behaviour that can be morally right by one society or individual and morally for another society or individual. However, this forms no guarantee that members of the same society will apply similar reasoning processes (Lewis & Unerman, 1999). And that is the point this research is focusing on, given the Dutch universal values, future (Dutch) auditors will probably have different relative values.
Ethical absolutism Ethical relativism Universal prescriptivism
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2.1.3. Overall developments
Central in the previous section is the question: “what is allowed and what is not allowed?” Everyone has to deal with this, from the very young child to the old greybeard in his or her own family, society and whole environment. In the past the moral reasoning and behaviour is viewed from multiple perspectives and by a lot of people. A famous and influential psychologist according these subjects is Sigmund Freud. The current most dominant theory according to the literature (Maxwell & Narvaez, 2013) is the moral reasoning theory of Kohlberg (1984). This theory is based on the theory of the cognitive development approach of Piaget (1932/1965). Piaget has done research to children until their twelfth year in the twenties of the previous century. He became famous for the development of theories regarding the development of the moral reasoning. A lot of studies have been done which support the findings of Piaget, but there are also studies who have critical comments to Piaget. One example of this is Lawrence Kohlberg who criticized Piaget because of the fact Piaget argues the moral development of people will stop when they are twelve years old (Koops & Van der Werff, 1988). So the model of Kohlberg could be seen as an answer on the model of Piaget. In section 2.3.2 a more in-depth view will be given of the model of Kohlberg.
2.1.4. Ethical code of conduct
To give auditors a guide how to behave an ethical code of conduct exists. This code provides a set of rules for auditors how to behave in their job profession (Webley and Werner, 2008). The six components of the code are (1) integrity, (2) objectivity, (3) professional competence, (4) due care, (5) confidentiality and the last one is (6) professional behaviour (NBA, 2012; IFAC, 2013). A short description of these components is given.
First, integrity holds the auditor has to be straightforward and honest in his job profession. Second objectivity prohibits any relationship between the auditor and his client that could influence his professional judgment. The third and fourth principles are combined in Dutch regulation. The third one comes more in the direction of this ethics education, it handles about competences. It requires the right competences (containing ethical reasoning) of an auditor, expected to be learned at university. The fourth principle implies that an auditor has to act careful in order with the technical and professional requirements. The fifth principle is confidentiality, which explains that the information acquired has to be handled carefully. It is forbidden to share this information to others, except if there are specific
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permissions or there is existence of a professional duty or obligation to do so. The last component of the ethical code is professional behaviour or professional judgment. Everything what the auditor does has to be in line with laws and regulations. Moreover this component asks auditors to prevent actions or behaviour which could probably damage the accounting profession.
2.2. Ethics in education
After introducing ethics, this subparagraph will give an introduction into ethics education. The goal of this short description is to define ethics education and to examine the different forms of ethics education. Secondly, as already introduced in the introduction, prior literature give different answers about the effect of ethics education. This section will provide some more reasons why ethics education could help auditors to behave better in their jobs and students to behave better in their future jobs.
Literature does not provide any clear definition of ‘ethics education’. Therefore, in this study ethics education is defined as education that intervenes in the ethical thinking process of people and improves this process. There are several forms of ethical education possible. The first is the most extensive one, and consist of separate courses in bachelor and master programmes. Another possibility is the integration of ethics in some courses, as part of one or more courses. The last possibility of ethics education is through trainings or workshops to give people reason to think about their ethical decision making.
One of the first books regarding the topic of ethics education is of Rest (1979). He concludes that morals can be educated in a good way. There is also a strong positive relationship between the length of higher education and moral reasoning. Jackling et al. (2007) agree with Rest, because they conclude in their paper that education in ethics will be the starting point to develop moral competency before students in accountancy start with their job. The next section will focus more on this moral behaviour, by introducing the model of Rest and the theories of Kohlberg and Gilligan.
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2.3. Theory regarding moral reasoning
There are some theories in the accounting literature that assist in understanding the concept of ethics in education. Three models are discussed, first the model of Rest, which consist of the four processes of decision making. Next to that the model of justice of Kohlberg comes up. After that a short look to Gilligan’s theory of ethics of care. The objective of this subparagraph is to give an indication of the relevant theories according to ethics education.
2.3.1. Rests model of ethical decision making
Thorne introduced a model that integrates James Rest’s Four-Component Model of ethical behaviour with the tenets of virtue ethics theory (Armstrong et al, 2003, p.2). According to Rest (1986), there are four processes in ethical decision making. These are moral sensitivity, moral judgment (synonym for moral reasoning), moral motivation and moral character. The elements in the model of Rest give reasons for outwardly observable behaviour.
These four concepts contain the following. Moral sensitivity holds in this case “interpreting the situation, role taking how various actions would affect the parties concerned, imagining cause–effect chains of events, and being aware that there is a moral problem when it exists” (Armstrong et al., 2003, p. 2). Moral judgment is examining “which action would be most justifiable in a moral sense”. Moral motivation is “the degree of commitment to taking the moral course of action, valuing moral values over other values, and taking personal responsibility for moral outcomes”. Lastly, moral character is
“persisting in a moral task, having courage, over-coming fatigue and temptation, and implementing subroutines that serve a moral goal”.
2.3.2. Kohlberg’s moral development theory
In the previous section the model of Rest was discussed. One of the components of this model, moral reasoning, is also part of the Cognitive Moral Development (CMD) Theory of Kohlberg (1979), which is already introduced before. This theory is also called theory of justice (Armstrong et al, 2003; Jackling et al., 2007; Reiter, 1996). The CMD theory is the most widely known work in the area of moral reasoning. According to Reiter (1996, p. 35), “Kohlberg classifies the ways people justify moral reasoning while solving hypothetical moral dilemmas into three hierarchical, integrated systems of thought called levels
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of moral development”. There are three levels of moral reasoning, before that the two elements are discussed. Second the levels will follow, third the limitations of the model and in the end of this paragraph a short summary.
2.3.2.1. Elements of the theory
Moral reasoning can be divided in two cognitive processes, namely prescriptive reasoning and
deliberative reasoning (Rest, 1994, Armstrong et al., 2003). The first one describes what ideally should be done to solve an ethical dilemma while the latter one is the formulation of the real action on an ethical dilemma. The difference of cognitive moral capability at the one hand and prescriptive and deliberative reasoning at the other hand, is that the first one isn’t affected to any context, while the latter two are affected (Nisan & Kohlberg, 1982). So the prescriptive and deliberative reasoning requires the use of specific situation measures (Thorne, 2000, In: Thorne, 2001). According to Jones (1991) and Trevino (1986) a context-specific study will contribute to understand the understanding of accounting students moral reasoning process (Thorne, 2001, p. 106).
In her study, Thorne (2001) find two interesting things. First of all accounting students use more principled considerations to resolve hypothetical dilemmas than to resolve accounting-specific
dilemmas. In other words, the learned things regarding moral reasoning apply in theory, but not for practice. Following on that, accounting students use more principled considerations in their prescriptive reasoning than in their deliberative reasoning. According to Thorne (2001, p. 114), there is now an opportunity for educators to give lessons in which they stimulate accounting students to use their principled considerations also in accounting- or context-specific moral dilemmas.
2.3.2.2. Levels of the theory
The basis of justifying moral reasoning lies in a social perspective, because the three levels consist of relationships between a person and his or her environment and society. Each of these three levels consists of two stages, so there are in total six stages of moral reasoning. Below there is a table which point all these stages. It is sequential, persons start at stage one and can eventually reach stage six (Rest, 1994, In: Thorne, 2001) and it is always in the same order. Thorne (2001, p. 105), describes it as follows: “individual’s moral sophistication is the degree to which they incorporate principled considerations in
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moral dilemmas”. These principled considerations could be reached if people reach the third level of moral reasoning.
Level Stage Description/Focus 1.
Pre-conventional
1 Behaviour to avoid punishment. Focus is on obedience.
2 Satisfaction of individual needs is primary motivation. Focus is on the best for the self.
2. Conventional 3 Action influences by a desire to conform to group norms. Focus is on cooperation with those in your environment.
4 Society’s laws or rules provide guidance how to behave. Focus is on cooperation with society in general.
3.
Post-conventional
5 Resolve differences impartially with due consideration of everyone’s interests. Focus is on societal consensus.
6 Actions based on moral principles. Focus is on universal fairness.
Table 1. CMD theory (Kohlberg, 1984, Reiter, 1996)
Using this scheme, a deeper and more elaborate explanation is given which is explained in the literature (Kohlberg, 1986; Reiter, 1996; Thorne, 2001). The first level of moral reasoning is pre-conventional. This level consists about considerations defined by external authority and rules are imposed from others. Specifically in stage one there is a system of reward and punishment and people want to avoid that punishment. Central word in stage one is heteronomous morality (Kohlberg, 1976). After stage one stage two comes up, central word in this case is individualism. As stated above in the scheme, satisfaction of individuals own needs is centralized. It also contains the reasoning ‘if you helps me, I want to help you’. According to the psychology literature, most children until their 14th are in this pre-conventional level of
moral reasoning (Schaffer, 1996).
The next level is the conventional one, in which individuals ‘take a member-of-society perspective’ (Reiter, 1996, p. 35). From now on they look to situations and decide what would be the best for the whole group. So in stage three each individual needs to conform to the group and behave in the manner the way the majority of the group members wants (Kohlberg, 1984). Stage three will be followed by stage four in which people didn’t conform to what their group wants, but they look what is possible within the laws and rules of the society they belongs to. These rules and so on will serve as
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guidance for solving conflicts (Reiter, 1996). It also creates an orderly society (Kohlberg, 1976). This conventional level of moral reasoning starts in the adolescence period and a lot of adults have this level of reasoning (Schaffer, 1996).
The last level in the CMD theory of Kohlberg is the post-conventional level. According to Schaffer (1996), a few people reach this level of moral reasoning. In stage five all different views of people are
taken into consideration to come to a conclusion. It is based on a person’s internal conscience or
responsibility and one’s interpretation of what is best for society (Thorne, 2001; Reiter, 1996). It goes beyond laws, because laws could impair societal welfare. So if this is the case, law can be changed. Lastly
stage six is driven by universal fairness and principles.
In this case, generally higher levels of moral reasoning indicate higher ethical standards (Jackling et al., 2007). In other words, this means that the post-conventional level holds the highest ethical behaviour.
2.3.2.3. Limitations
However, the Kohlberg theory has several restrictions or limitations. First this theory of justice focuses very much on following of and judgment to rules and regulations (Armstrong 1993; Armstrong et al., 2003). An example is given by Satava et al, (2006) in which members of Enron where totally driven by following the rules and regulations without thinking if the things they do are the good ones in eyes of their stakeholders. Instead of this rules minded view, there should be more critical ethical thinking, according to Jackling et al. (2007, p. 940; Reiter, 1996).
The second limitation of the theory of Kohlberg is the connection or the logical consistency between moral reasoning (theoretical) and moral action (practical), as augmented by Reiter (1996, p. 45). This is also linked to the prescriptive (more theoretical) and deliberative (more practical) reasoning. To examine this, it is interesting to describe the study of Thorne (2001). According to him, cognitive moral capability explains “the degree to which an individual is potential capable of using principled considerations in the resolution of moral dilemmas” (Thorne, 2001, p. 106). Following from this, the Kohlberg model describes only something about the theoretical reasoning, but not anything about the practical reasoning. It does not explain how people acts really in their work when they face an ethical dilemma (Rest, 1994, in: Thorne, 2001).
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To summarize the theory of Kohlberg, a short conclusion is given. At first the CMD theory of Kohlberg is described, consisting roughly of three levels of moral reasoning, pre-conventional, conventional and post-conventional. The post-conventional level is the most sophisticated level of moral reasoning. But there are also some restrictions of the model, first there could be a focus more on rules and regulations instead of the really critical thinking process. And secondly there is gap between theoretical reasoning and practical actions. In the next paragraph more critical comments are posted by Gilligan.
2.3.3. Gilligan’s theory of ethics of care
Last section described the theory of Kohlberg (1984) and also some limitations of the model. Another critical point is found by Gilligan (1982). She was a student of Kohlberg and says in contrast to the model of Kohlberg, consisting of rules and regulations, there is another perspective centred round
relationships, responsibility and needs. This is more a women friendly perspective model and is called the theory of ethics of care. It is based on her observation that women have a different perspective of moral reasoning and that is unexplained by the model of Kohlberg (Reiter, 1996, p. 36). However, this does not implicate men are not included in the model; both men and women are involved in both models and develop through the both models. The theory of ethics of care is therefore not a
replacement, only a second model or perspective to understand the moral reasoning of people (Gilligan, 1982, p. 2).
The model of Gilligan consist of some steps too, three levels of moral development are
formulated. This is explained of the model taken from the article of Reiter (1996, p. 37). This model is to some extent comparable with the model of Kohlberg, but is as described before more focused on relationships, responsibility and needs. The model is visible in Table 2, which is on the next page. According to this model, the first focus individuals take care only for the self and ensuring survival. It is followed by a transition stage, in which this person sees that this selfish focus is bad and unacceptable. Then, the second focus is more social and self-sacrificing. A person is more responsible and take care for dependent others. But this gives rise for a second transition stage, because now there is some inequality between the needs of others and the self. Therefore the third stage is a dynamic interrelationship between the self and others. And, as in the case by Kohlberg, the third stage is the optimal level of moral reasoning.
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Focus Stage Description
First focus 1 Caring for self and ensuring survival
Transition stage - Self-focus as unacceptably selfish
Second focus 2 Responsibility and material care for dependent others – Self-sacrifice
Transition stage - Questions illogic of inequality between needs of others and self
Third focus 3 Dynamic interrelationship between self and others
Table 2. Ethics of care (Gilligan, 1982; Reiter, 1996)
Some criticasters came up with questions regarding this described ethics of care theory of Gilligan. Followers from the theory of Kohlberg do not agree for instance. To examine this, in the next paragraph the both theories of Kohlberg and Gilligan are discussed in interaction which each other.
2.3.4. The Kohlberg-Gilligan controversy
As followed from the paragraphs before, there are some differences between the theories of Kohlberg and Gilligan. This paragraph will focus on a short discussion of these differences. The next table shows the difference between the ethics of justice and ethics of care shortly.
Kohlberg (ethics of justice) Gilligan (ethics of care)
Individuals as separate Individuals as interdependent
Relationships as hierarchical or contractual Relationships of attention and response
Independence as strength Care as strength
Importance of autonomy and self-sufficiency Importance of interdependence and interpersonal connections
Rights of others important Needs of others important
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Main difference between these two theories comprises of that Kohlberg’s theory “understand
individuals as separate and relationships as either hierarchical or contractual whereas the ethics of care and connection perceives the self and others as interdependent with relationships created and sustained by attention and response” (Gilligan, 1988, in: Reiter, 1996). The other differences described in the Table above are automatically following from this citation.
A more sophisticated comparison which is more focused to the underlying theories, is given in Table 4. According to Tronto (1993, p. 79, there are three fundamental characteristics that distinguish the ethics of care of Gilligan from the ethics of justice from Kohlberg:
“First, the ethic of care revolves around different moral concepts than Kohlberg’s ethic of justice, that is, responsibility and relationships rather than rights and rules. Second, this morality is tied to concrete circumstances rather than being formal and abstract. Third, this morality is best expressed not as a set of principles but as an ‘activity of care’. In Gilligan’s different voice, morality is not grounded in universal, abstract principles, but in the daily experiences and moral problems of real people in their everyday lives”. A summary of the differences is visible in Table 4, based on prior literature.
Kohlberg (ethics of justice) Gilligan (ethics of care)
Achieved through process of separation and individuation of self from others
Achieved through process of one’s self connected to others
Moral dilemmas universal Moral dilemmas contextual
Dilemmas solved through application of abstract or formal thinking
Dilemmas solved through inductive thinking
Development through stages is sequential and hierarchical
Development through stages is invariantly sequential and hierarchical
Principle of moral responsibility is universal Principle of moral responsibility is reflected in the voices of women
Distinguished by an emphasis on separateness, issues of rules and legalities, and consideration of the individual as primary
Distinguished by an emphasis on attachments , issues of self-sacrifice and selfishness , and consideration of relationships as primary Table 4. Comparison of Kohlberg and Gilligan (Brabeck, 1993; Reiter, 1996)
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2.4. Summary and conclusion
This second chapter gives an overview of literature regarding ethics education and moral decision making. Based on the discussed prior literature, the expected level of moral reasoning of the
interviewees is expected to be developed until the second level of Kohlberg, as described by Schaffer (1996). Second the interviewees act themselves superior to their peers, in other words they think they would behave better in the ethical decision making process, according to the study of Low (2006). When examining directly the influence of ethics education to ethical behaviour, prior studies gave different answers. For instance Jackling et al. (2007) and Rest (1979) indicate ethics education (have a lot of) influence on ethical behaviour. However, Low et al. (2006) argue ethics education has only a moderately influence, which is also the expectation of this study. This research is therefore examining other factors who could influence ethical behaviour, namely upbringing, religion, ethical codes and other factors called by the interviewees. Last, in accordance to the ethics of care view of Gilligan (1982), women are
expected to behave more in according to their personal feelings and moral beliefs, while men prefer to base their actions on rules and regulations.
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3. Research methodology
After introducing the topic ethics education and ethical decision making (or behaviour) in a short introduction and literature review, this chapter describes the research methodology. The goal of this qualitative in-depth study is trying to find a relation between ethics education and ethical decision making. Therefore paragraph 3.1 describes the research model. Second paragraph 3.2 gives the
motivation for the qualitative research. Third paragraph 3.3 describes how the data is collected, followed by paragraph 3.4 which outlines the manner of analysing.
3.1. Research model
To make the underlying relations and variables more understandable, the following model is set up.
Figure 2. Research model
As stated above, the independent variable in this research is ethics education, defined in the literature review as any intervention that has an influence on ethical decision making and behaviour. To get the dependent Y variable, which is ethical behaviour, the theory of Kohlberg is used. People are tested if they base their answer of several ethical dilemmas on pre-conventional, conventional or post-conventional arguments. To some extent the theory of Gilligan is taken into account, to examine if women have significantly different answers, based more on relationships, responsibility and needs. Lastly some other factors will be examined and their claimed impact on ethical behaviour besides the effect of ethics education. These factors are upbringing, religion, ethical codes and possible other variables named by the interviewees.
ethics education (X)
theory kohlberg (link 1)
•pre-conventional •conventional •post-conventional
ethical behaviour (Y)
•parents/carers •religion •ethical codes •other variables
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3.2. Research method
As introduced in the motivation part of the introduction, this is a qualitative study to examine the effect of ethics education towards ethics education. In-depth interviews could provide additional information to the existing literature, which is most based on quantitative studies. In this, students and other people are surveyed and tested and the results are processed and analysed in a data analysing program. According for O’Fallon and Butterfield (2005, p. 405) there is a need for more in-depth research: “Major weaknesses include a lack of theoretical grounding, problems in the operationalization and
measurement of ethical/unethical behaviour, and a lack of consideration of interaction effects”. Therefore, the focus is more qualitative rather than all the existing quantitative literature. Qualitative research is more focusing on quality and quantitative research on quantity. Therefore by doing a qualitative research the focus is to get a more deeply and elaborate answer to the ‘how’ of a research question, instead of a more broad understanding by analysing quantitative data.
3.3. Data collection
To examine the effect of ethics education on the ethical behaviour of Dutch (future) auditors, 12 Dutch master accountancy students of the University of Amsterdam are interviewed. They are asked personally if they want to participate in the study. All interviews were in Dutch. The interviews were
semi-structured and based on the interview questions included in appendix B.
The interview itself consisted of several parts. First some general questions are asked to the interviewees. Secondly, four dilemmas are given to the students and they have to give their opinion about those dilemmas. These opinions of them are connected with the theory of Kohlberg (1976), as described in chapter 2, in the sense if they give a pre-conventional, conventional or post-conventional answer. The results of this are explained in paragraph 4.2. For each dilemma, the students have also to indicate what their fellow students would answer to this question. The dilemmas are based on the study of Low et al. (2006). To get a better view of the results chapter, Table 5 below examine the four
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Question
01 If in a university assignment (counts for 50%), with which you were having difficulty. A friend will offer to you the answer model. You are the only one at that moment who has the ability to use the model, will you accept it or not?
03 If you were offered an accounting job on the Bahamas for US$ 200,000 tax-free and all expenses paid for 1 year and your partner wanted to go, would you accept? What are you going to do?
05 A client has bought a lot of cars and instructs you to treat the purchase in their accounts as business purchase so that they can claim tax benefits and depreciation allowances. Would you disagree and be prepared to lose that client’s business?
07 An audit you are working on reveals the existence of an off-balance sheet subsidiary, which is greatly in debt and could jeopardize the viability of the parent company. It is quietly hinted to you that if you ignore the subsidiary you will be promoted, while if you make a fuss about it, it could be the end of your job and any future reference you required would brand you a “troublemaker”. Would you ignore the subsidiary’s existence?
Table 5. The four ethical dilemmas
After answering the dilemmas, all students have to order for themselves the six stages of Kohlberg, posted on six different pieces of paper. They were asked what they will do when really an ethical dilemma comes up in their work and if they would act in practice the same as they just now describe. After that, some questions are asked toward (the importance) of ethics education and the influence on their ethical reasoning. According to the model just described in paragraph 3.1, lastly the some other variables completed the interview.
Eleven interviews were conducted face to face with the interviewees at different locations, choosing the best location for the interviewee. Due to planning problems one interview is done by phone. The interviews are anonymously taped at a recorder and iPhone, so each interview is taped twice to be sure everything is recorded. To get an idea of the interviews which are taken, all relevant aspects are in the Table below. There is a difference between men and women registered, each man has the code ‘M’ of male and each woman has the code ‘F’ of female.
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Interviewee Working experience /internship (months) Time (min) Age Gender F1 0 24 23 Female F2 9 37 23 Female F3 0 30 22 Female M1 3 26 23 Male M2 36 22 23 Male M3 6 28 22 Male F4 12 34 23 Female F5 0 60 22 Female M4 6 31 25 Male F6 0 21 23 Female M5 0 32 21 Male M6 3 21 22 Male
Table 6. General information interviewees
According to this table, some averages are set up, given in the Table 7:
Interviewee Working experience /internship (months)
Time (min)
Age Gender
12 (total) 7 people has experience, 6 months experience in average
31 (average) 23 (average) 6M, 6F
Table 7. Overview information interviewees
As seen in the Tables 6 and 7, a total of 7 students has working experience, which an average of 6 months. This is really high, caused of the outlier of one person who has 3 years of experience. The average time of the interviews is 31 minutes and the respondents are on average 23. From both men and women six are incorporated in the research.
Some other remarks to complete this paragraph. Only 1 of the 12 students has some experience with an ethical dilemma. Second, every interviewee has had some ethical aspects in their accountancy study, at least the Sustainability, Accountability and Ethics course, which is part of the master
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which have to be analysed and take in consideration. Therefore, these three general questions regarding the mentioned topics are no further analysed. These are the questions 12, 13 and 25 from the interview in appendix A.
3.4. Data analysis
The interviews are analysed as follows. First they were transferred from the recorder and iPhone to a laptop. Second they were transcribed manually to Microsoft Word, third all this information got from the interviewees is imported in Microsoft Excel and coded and analysed. Citations are translated if used in the results chapter.
To analyse the data, several propositions are set up in line with the model in paragraph 3.1 to find a relation between these variables and ethical behaviour. According to the results, a lot of citations are related to the advice of other colleagues. Therefore also a separate proposition is made to examine explicitly this effect to moral behaviour. The propositions are outlined in Table 8.
Proposition Code Description
Proposition 1 P01 relation between pre-conventional level and ethical behaviour Proposition 2 P02 relation between conventional level and ethical behaviour Proposition 3 P03 relation between post-conventional level and ethical behaviour Proposition 4 P04 relation other students and ethical behaviour
Proposition 5 P05 relation between education and ethical behaviour Proposition 6 P06 relation advice other colleagues and ethical behaviour Proposition 7 P07 relation between upbringing and ethical decision making Proposition 8 P08 relation between religion and ethical behaviour
Proposition 9 P09 relation ethical codes and ethical behaviour Proposition 10 P10 other factors related to ethical behaviour Proposition 11 P11 relation between theory and practice
Table 8. Propositions
When analysing the results, each citation gets a special code. The first part is the code of the proposition, which is visible in the second column of Table 8. The second part of the code are the two numbers of the question of the interview. These are coded therefore from 01 to 25. The last part consists of the unique
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code of each interviewee, as stated in Table 6. For instance, if a student answers on question 1 something that has to deal with proposition 1 (P01) and F1 is the code of the interviewee, you get P0101F1 as a code. If this student in this answer on question 1 said also something about proposition 7, a second code is formed for this citation, namely P0701F1. Each citation could therefore receive one or more codes. In doing this manner of coding, it is possible in Excel to do searches on specific codes to enhance the speed and ease of analysing.
Another way of analysing is by generating a pivot table, which is visible at the next page. Each row consist of the total of the answers per proposition and each column describes the total of the answers per question. This manner of analysing shows directly how much comments are given per proposition and per question. An example is given for the first proposition. In total 17 citations linked to proposition 1, and 9 of them followed from question 1, 2 of them are coming from question 3 and lastly 6 from question 5. As stated above, it is possible an interviewee gives an answer which has relations to different propositions. That is why the totals of the columns not always equal at 12 (the number of the interviewees). This pivot table is generated automatically through a special tool from Microsoft Excel and therefore it is reliable. It is a very helpful tool, because if you want for instance see the 17 reactions which are related to proposition 1, a simply click on this number at the end of the first row and you get all the citations regarding this subject in a new tab.
3.5. Conclusion
This qualitative study is conducted by 12 in-depth interviews focusing on ethics education and the consequences for ethical reasoning or ethical behaviour. The interviewees are all fulltime students of the master Accountancy & Control, and some of them have some working experience. The interviews are semi-structured. After each interview, the answers are transcribed in Microsoft Word. After that, the data is imported in Microsoft Excel, where it is coded and analysed. Based on this analysis the findings are reported in the next chapter.
01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 Total P01 9 2 6 17 P02 7 12 1 5 25 P03 3 4 3 5 7 4 2 28 P04 12 12 12 12 48 P05 1 5 12 12 12 12 12 66 P06 6 8 12 1 27 P07 1 1 4 10 12 28 P08 12 12 24 P09 12 12 P10 4 3 1 6 3 1 6 9 1 12 46 P11 1 12 1 1 15 Total 12 12 14 12 25 13 23 13 12 27 12 19 15 23 12 12 19 13 12 12 12 12 336
Table 9. Analysing scheme
Figure 3. Total citations per proposition 17 25 28 48 66 27 28 24 12 46 15 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 P01 P02 P03 P04 P05 P06 P07 P08 P09 P10 P11
4.
Findings
In this chapter the findings of the interviews are discussed. In accordance to the previous chapter, several relationships are examined and determined to analyse the data. A summary of Table 7 and Table 8 is showed in Table 10. The upcoming paragraphs will analyse the results of the propositions. Paragraph 4.1 outlines the first four propositions, followed by paragraph 4.2 which examines proposition 5. Third paragraph 4.3 discusses the other six propositions. Last 4.4 will ends this chapter with a short analyse of the differences between men and women.
Proposition Code Description Total
reactions
Proposition 1 P01 relation between pre-conventional level and ethical behaviour 17 Proposition 2 P02 relation between conventional level and ethical behaviour 25 Proposition 3 P03 relation between post-conventional level and ethical behaviour 28 Proposition 4 P04 relation between other students and ethical behaviour 48 Proposition 5 P05 relation between education and ethical behaviour 66 Proposition 6 P06 relation between advice other colleagues and ethical behaviour 27 Proposition 7 P07 relation between upbringing and ethical decision making 28 Proposition 8 P08 relation between religion and ethical behaviour 24 Proposition 9 P09 relation between ethical codes and ethical behaviour 12 Proposition 10 P10 relation between other factors related to ethical behaviour 46 Proposition 11 P11 relation between theory and practice 15
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4.1. Levels of Kohlberg and ethical behaviour
This paragraph gives an overview of the reactions of the interviewees to the ethical dilemmas. The underlying motivations of interviewees are discussed when facing a dilemma. To start this paragraph, a simplified part of the analysing scheme of Table 9 is given in Table 11. Because some people give a reaction which relates to more propositions, the total of the citations is 52 and not 48 (12 interviewees * 4 dilemmas). This does not significantly change the results.
P01 P02 P03 total Dilemma I 9 0 3 12 Dilemma II 2 7 4 13 Dilemma III 0 12 3 15 Dilemma IV 6 1 5 12 Total 17 20 15 52
Table 11. Overview answers per Kohlberg category
A graphical overview of this table is given in Figure 4. The first impression indicates most interviewees gave a pre-conventional answer when facing dilemma I and they give a more conventional answer to the second and third dilemma. The next four subparagraphs will focus to the three levels of Kohlberg.
Figure 4. Overview answers per Kohlberg category 0 2 4 6 8 10 12
Dilemma 1 Dilemma 2 Dilemma 3 Dilemma 4
Overview reactions per dilemma
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4.1.1. Pre-conventional level
To find a relation between the pre-conventional level and ethical behaviour of students, the answers are indicated as pre-conventional if they are taking the best option for themselves, without considering rules or moral principles. The four dilemmas will pass and pre-conventional reactions are showed, the
conventional and post-conventional are highlighted in the next paragraphs.
According to Table 11, most of the students (9 out of 12, 75%) accept the answer model in the first dilemma. Nobody would directly take a copy from it, but they will use it as an example. According to some of the students:
“I would take it to understand it better myself. However, I will first make the assignment myself. After doing this, I would compare my answers with the answers I got. So, I am not going to copy the answer model, but use it and adjust eventually my own answers.” (P0101F2, P0101F3)
Most interviewees used this understandability reason to accept the model is because of the difficulty of the assignment. Other reasons are time saving and fear to fail for the assignment:
“Yes, I would take the answer model; usually this saves a lot of time (…). But I am not going to copy the model, but I will adjust it a little bit. The fact it is a difficult assignment is playing not a big role, a higher grade is therefore more important. After handing in the assignment I will focus to understand it”. (P0101F4)
In this dilemma people seems to take the best option for themselves, they didn’t take care about rules and regulations and let their own moral principles go away. Dilemma II about going to the Bahama’s, two of the 12 interviewees will go, because of the fact they are doing themselves nothing wrong:
“I think this would be a very good working experience and personally I would not do the wrong things. The aspect of eventually paid expenses by tax evasion does not make sense to me.” (P0103M2)
There were no pre-conventional answers to dilemma III. According to the fourth dilemma, 5 of the 12 students would ignore the subsidiary’s existence. Most of them gave the responsibility of acting in this way to his or her supervisor:
“At first glance I would also ignore, because I am not chief, that is the partner. I would listen and be guided by the manager or partner. If this ignorance is asked from me and in the end the partner is
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responsible, I would agree and also ignore to keep my job. I am not going to be a whistleblower. (P0107F1)
Another person says also that becoming a whistleblower is no option, but he underlines also the difficulty of this dilemma:
“In this case, you have a problem in both situations. When I am pushed in a company to ignore it, I would ignore it myself, but the good thing is of course to make this way of accounting public. I would ignore it, because otherwise I will lose my job. Compared to the previous situation (dilemma III, LH), this
consequences have a bigger impact to me personally. In this situation you directly lose your income and in addition to this, whistleblowers are not that very good protected, therefore dismissal is also not an option.” (P0107M5)
To summarize, this paragraph gave an overview of the reactions of people with relation to the first level of Kohlberg. Central finding in this is that people choose in these the best for themselves, without considering any laws, regulations and moral principles. For instance, best motivation according to the last dilemma is fear for punishment, namely dismissal.
4.1.2. Conventional level
In this paragraph an analysis is made of the relation between the conventional level of Kohlberg and ethical behaviour, based on proposition 2. In analysing this data, citations are selected to underpin the motivations of the interviewees if they are talking about confirmations to groups or if they feel guided by the rules and regulations. The dilemmas will pass again.
Nobody gave a conventional answer to dilemma I. However, 7 out of 12 students would not agree with going to the Bahamas if tax evasion is possible. Most of the interviewees want to get more information first, and after that they decided not to do this because of the rules and regulations: “At first I would like to know some more details about the job, what it contains and what exactly is expected from me, because normally you did not get such a salary of $200,000 a year and such an expense compensation. I would be very suspicious to that, if that is not consistent with reality. Therefore, I would like to have more information and when I notice something ethically wrong happened, and comes to fraud, I would certainly not contribute to it (…). I think in this situation I would like to work within the space of the rules and regulations, because the consequences are for other people. Because as an auditor
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you audit the annual reports, used by the shareholders, which holds very valuable information for them, I follow the rules to provide them as good information as possible.” (P0203F5)
This citation also describe the importance of the quality of the financial statements for shareholders. According to the previous section, some people indicated to go the Bahamas if they are not going to do the wrong things themselves. Therefore this is also explicitly asked to ‘the conventional ones’. Results indicated that the most of the conventional ones also would not go, because then you still get money which is not free from illegal acts.
Another interesting finding according to this dilemma one person also called rules and regulations as the most dominant aspect, but that student linked also propositions 3 and 5 to this, respectively the relation between post-conventional level and ethics education to ethical behaviour: “You have also brought things from yourself, and you know what is right and what is wrong from your own environment. Also you get some aspects in education at university. The first aspect is difficult, because of right and wrong is not the same for everyone, what we over here call as wrong somewhere else it is more or less normally permitted (…). Therefore rules and regulations are more important and universal. It could make more sense if I say unto you ‘that is forbidden, because of the rules’ instead of ‘that is forbidden because of my own thoughts’. Therefore, I prefer laws as guidance in these situations.” (P0203F4)
In order to the third dilemma, which is about capitalizing the cars or not, all of the students would not listen to the customer and capitalize the cars, with the risk of losing the customer. All of them called as (partly) reason in doing this to act within the rules and regulations:
“This is against the rules, therefore I would correct this. (…). The result of losing the customer is not a message for me.” (P0205M1)
The consequence of losing their client was not that important, because of several reasons. Some of the students said: if the client is trying to violate the rules in not capitalizing investments, you have to think carefully about other possible fraud actions at this moment, for instance for a much higher
amount. And also, if you accept this wish of the client, the next step will have a lot more impact on the financial statements and you are becoming a more and more fraudulent auditor. Another student linked this to the fall of Enron and Arthur Anderson and said based on the past it is better to lose the client, instead of ignore the capitalization of the investment.
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Second halve of the students linked in answering dilemma III proposition 2 also with proposition 6, which states the relation between the advice of other colleagues and (ethical) behaviour:
“Basically, you need to correct this because this is not in line with the rules and regulations, but you will always consult with the person above you, your manager or supervisor.” (P0205M6)
Last, following the rules is also linked to things as reputation; this is categorized under proposition 10. This is said by three of the students in relation to following the rules:
“As an auditor you should just follow the rules and therefore the client has to capitalize it. It is not nice the customer goes away, but when stakeholders find out the customer has evaded taxes, you bear also the consequences as accounting firm by losing reputation and other clients.” (P0205M5)
In analysing the answers according the last dilemma, one of the answers has conventional aspects. That person would first looking for other possibilities to find a solution for the problem. But if those solutions are not possible, he answers the following:
“If I worked in a company and I am intimidated and threatened in this way, I am wondering if I want to work at that company, because if you do not ignore the law, you will be fired. But, if you ignore the law at this moment, you could be fired later on. Furthermore, it is unethical towards the stakeholders of the subsidiary to undermine their decision usefulness. Besides that, you work from and for society, which is also something you have to take in account. I think if you could explain such a situation in applying for a job at another company, accompanied with a big article in the newspaper, you do not have any problems and you will get that job.” (P0207M3)
To make a short conclusion to this paragraph, according to Table 11 there are 20 citations linked to proposition 2. People argue conventional to follow the rules, in general they did not mention
confirmation to group norms. They will act according to the rules and regulations, to serve shareholders and stakeholders best. The interviewees linked also proposition 2 with other propositions, which are discussed in the upcoming paragraphs.
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4.1.3. Post-conventional level
This paragraph will focus on the third level of Kohlberg, which is the post-conventional level. In this level, people want to resolve differences impartially with due consideration of everyone’s interests to get societal consensus. Or, a step deeper, the optimal goal is universal fairness in which peoples actions are based on moral principles.
According to the first dilemma, 3 of the 12 students gave a post-conventional answer; they are not going to accept the answer model because of their own moral code:
“That is a good question. I think this is at some way similar to the statistic fraud they have recently discovered at the university. I do not like such things; I prefer to try to find the answers myself. Of course I could ask that person how he dealt with this assignment, but I never would copy the answer model. You have to learn it by yourself, probably for the exam too, therefore it is better to do the assignment yourselves. Purely from my own moral values and standards, I would not accept the answer model.” (P0301F5)
Also the word ‘satisfaction’ plays a role in not accepting this model:
“Of course I would not accept the model. However, I could imagine some would do it, because of the difficulty and if it is your last course of your curriculum. But I will refuse the model, because using it does not give me satisfaction, I will complete it myself. I do not care about the fact accepting the model is ethically wrong.” (P0301M4)
According to the second dilemma, the last paragraph described the most students based their answer on rules and regulations. There are also 4 (partially) post-conventional answers. People were arguing going to the Bahama is against their personal norms and values:
“I would not go if there is something strange behind, it should all be fair. I think this is from my own feelings, because otherwise I will be unhappy if I do things which are forbidden. If you compare this question with the previous (dilemma I, LH), which is not really a crime if you do something that is not allowed. That is only forbidden if you directly copy the model, instead of using at as a source to improve your answer model.” (P0303F2)
This interviewee justifies in these the acceptance of the model in the first dilemma, and argues therefore why this is a different situation to the Bahamas dilemma. This will be further examined in chapter 5.
