The function that accountants fulfil in the economic system is dependent on their ability to maintain the perception of high ethical standards. Building on the idea that birth cohorts, otherwise known as generations, are a useful proxy for the socio-cultural environment of different time periods, we focus on the so-called ‘GenMe’, that is, students and young workers born in the 1980s and 1990s. In particular, combining the accounting and business ethics literature, the purpose of our paper is to contribute to an increased awareness of the GenMe perceptions of accountants, with special attention given to ethical aspects. We believe that the perceptions of this age group are particularly crucial for the future of the accounting profession as it is these young people who will either become professional accountants or the accountants' future clients. Using an extensive database of 1,794 questionnaires, results show that the impression of the accountant as a corrupt professional is not dominant among GenMe and seem to suggest the existence of a multifaceted perception of accountants' ethics. Specifically, the factors that contribute to influencing GenMe perceptions of accountants' ethics are level of education, having attended an accounting course at high school level, gender, and belonging to the accounting profession. Finally, our study indicates that there is room for improving public perceptions of accountants' ethics through university courses in ethics, continuing education programs, and focused communication strategies by accounting firms and professional bodies.

In recent years, the public interest proclamations of accounting professionals have been increasingly criticized and questioned (Willmott, 1986), and accountants and accounting institutions are subject to mounting public scrutiny (Rogers et al., 2005; Gill, 2009). In fact, while the standards and pronouncements of accounting bodies ‘are couched in terms of the public interest, they appear to be inextricably bound up in the profession's private interest’ (Parker, 1994, p. 507). Nowadays, accountants compete aggressively for business and are held accountable for their contribution to the financial performance of the firms in which they operate (Canning and O'Dwyer, 2001). The emphasis for them seems to be on being commercial and on performing a service for the customer rather than being public-spirited (Sikka et al., 1989; Citron, 2003; Humphrey, 2008; Sikka, 2008). Recent accounting scandals and the financial crisis have highlighted the importance of public confidence in the accounting profession (Carmona, 2009; Carnegie and Napier, 2009), focusing attention on ethical issues in the accountancy profession throughout the whole community.

The status and credibility attributed to the accounting profession are linked not only to accountants' technical expertise but also to their ability to project a public image of themselves as ‘ethical experts’ (Martinov-Bennie and Pflugrath, 2009). In other words, the function that accountants fulfil in the economic system is dependent on the profession's ability to maintain the perception of high ethical standards and ensure for themselves a respectable image within the community at large. Therefore, to fulfil their function, it is necessary not only that accountants act ethically but also that the public perceives them to do so (Ponemon, 1992; Felton et al., 2008).

In this paper, we explore the ‘public’ perception of accountants' ethics. This study was prompted initially by the fact that recent economic circumstances and events have demonstrated that questionable behaviour on the part of accountants can impact everyone, even those who do not have any direct involvement with these professionals. In addition, it is reasonable to assume that if public confidence in the accountancy profession is low, this may deter entrants who seek a profession that is well thought of, or, worse, may encourage individuals with lower ethical standards to choose a career in accountancy, thus leading to a profession that indeed fulfils public perceptions. The purpose of our paper is therefore to enhance our understanding of the public perceptions of accountants' ethics and of the factors—such as gender, educational background, and proximity to the profession—that might contribute to shaping such perceptions.

Previous studies have warned about undertaking cross-sectional analyses on the perception of specific professions, as these may also be impacted by generational differences in values (e.g., Schaie, 1965; Stewart and Healy, 1989: for a review see Parry and Urwin, 2010). Any differences derived from empirical analyses may be due not only to specific factors such as educational background, but also to generation, and it would be impossible to separate the two (Twenge, 2010).

Generational cohorts comprise people born around the same time and thus sharing specific social or historical events during critical developmental periods. Each generation is affected by broad forces (e.g., the media, critical economic events, popular culture) that create common value systems distinguishing individuals of a certain birth cohort from individuals born at different times. In this paper we use an extensive database that contains the opinions of the so-called Generation Me (GenMe), that is, students and young workers born in the 1980s and 1990s. GenMe is the youngest generation in today's workforce (or almost ready to join the workforce). Our focus on GenMe is not only motivated by methodological issues, but also by the fact that one of the biggest challenges for organizations in the years to come will be the retirement of millions of older workers and their substitution by young people of the GenMe birth cohort. The characteristics of this new generation of workers will require accounting organizations to adjust their focus and perspective in order to most effectively attract and retain employees from this cohort who have work values and expectations that are quite different from those of previous generations (Lindquist, 2008; Yeaton, 2008; Hewlett et al., 2009; Twenge et al., 2010). In focusing on GenMe, we are also responding to the call for accounting scholars to investigate today's youth habitat and perceptions (McRobbie, 2005; Jeacle, 2012).

In order to achieve our research purpose, we draw upon two streams of literature that have rarely been combined so far. First, we take inspiration from contributions published in the main accounting journals that focus on understanding the public image of accountants. In this literature, ethical issues are only marginally included in the analysis of the general representation of accountants by various social groups and media, so that little emphasis is given to the ethical aspect of such representations. Second, we draw on the existing literature on ethical perceptions, which has devoted its attention mainly to business people in general. Several studies on accountants exist but their focus is on the ethical attitudes and moral reasoning of these professionals, rather than on their public standing in terms of ethics. Moreover, in the academic literature, there have recently been calls for studies that supplement existing UK-based findings with evidence from other countries (e.g., Dimnik and Felton, 2006). Our study constitutes a response to this call in that it uses data collected in Italy, whereas most of the extant literature on the accounting profession, its image in the public mind, and ethical dilemmas has been developed with reference to the Anglo-American countries, and little is known outside these geographical borders. Italy (being a continental European country 1) is a very different research setting in comparison to the Anglo-American ones: despite accounting's early accomplishments, Italy does not enjoy a strong independent profession. Moreover, its self-regulatory power is questionable, because the Italian system for overseeing professional responsibility is characterized by a low number of disciplinary measures from the professional bodies. In this kind of setting, there is a risk that the integrity and ethical stance of the profession may be perceived as only symbolic, because its compliance with rules and values is not strictly monitored, and sanctions are rarely imposed (Raar, 2009).

Literature Review and Research Questions

The first stream of research we employ in this paper comprises several contributions published in the main accounting journals and is concerned with the public image of accountants (the ‘general nature of the accountant’, Felton et al., 2008, p. 221). Ethical issues are explored as included within the broader question of the identity of accountants, 2 so that little emphasis is given to the ethical implications of such representations.

The second stream of research deals with the public perceptions of ethics and ethical orientations but mainly of business people and business practices in general. The business ethics contributions that concentrate on accountants, as will be clarified in the following, have explored accountants' own ethical behaviours and orientation but far less their reputation in this respect.

In sum, these two streams of literature suggest that the image and perceptions of accountants are not homogeneous and that they could vary depending on different individual characteristics (such as gender and educational background), on the closeness to the profession of those surveyed for an opinion, and on the sources of information on accountants. Both streams have failed to provide a specific analysis of public perceptions of accountants' ethics, as well as the factors that might influence such perceptions, notwithstanding the importance of this issue for the status and future of the profession (Gaa and Thorne, 2004; Uysal, 2009). We focus our paper on filling this common gap, by addressing two main research questions. First, we want to explicitly explore what the GenMe perception of accountants' ethics is. Second, we want to understand the factors that contribute to influencing the GenMe perceptions of accountants' ethics.

The first research question is exploratory in nature, while the second one can be further detailed into hypotheses that will be illustrated in the following subsections. 3

The Image of Accountants

The contributions of the first stream of research, published mainly in accounting journals, examine representations of accountants in various media (e.g., television shows, movies, the press, advertisements, but also in literature, in popular music, and jokes). The most relevant studies for the purposes of our paper are those by Friedman and Lyne (2001), Dimnik and Felton (2006), Jeacle (2008), Baldvinsdottir et al. (2009), Smith and Jacobs (2011), and Miley and Read (2012).

Friedman and Lyne (2001) investigate the portrayal of accountants in newspapers and magazines over 25 years. They emphasize the existence of a stereotype, which depicts accountants as very conservative and obsessed with precision, as well as having an unappealing and dull personality. The authors point to the potentially damaging consequences of such a stereotype, which is commonly summarized as the ‘bean-counter’. Dimnik and Felton (2006), drawing on Beard (1994), analyze the portrayal of accountants in 20^th-century cinema. They identify five stereotypes: the dreamer, the plodder, the eccentric, the hero, and the villain. This last stereotype in particular is characterized as insincere, dishonest, and obsessed with the bottom line. Jeacle (2008) examines the recruitment literature of the Big Four accounting firms and of the international professional accountancy bodies and discovers that the recruitment discourse is used to construct an image of the ‘colourful accountant’, a happy, young trendsetter with a busy and exciting social life. Jeacle notes that this communication strategy is risky, as it endangers the essence of the accounting qualification: that is, its professionalism and integrity. Her study also shows that the stereotypical view of accountants has worsened in recent years, moving from ‘boring’ to ‘unprofessional’. Finally, Baldvinsdottir et al. (2009) investigate the image of accountants in the discourse used in accounting software advertisements that appeared from the mid-1970s to 2007 in CIMA (Chartered Institute of Management Accountants) journals. The authors document a profound change in the image of accountants: in the 1970s and the 1980s, the accountant is depicted as a responsible and rational person, whereas in the 1990s this professional is presented as an action-oriented businessman. The most recent advertisements also convey an entertaining image of accountants. Baldvinsdottir et al. (2009) relate the observed image of the accountant to hyper-modernity, a hedonistic culture where the ‘individual does not tend to control himself, but instead lets himself go’ (Baldvinsdottir et al., 2009, p. 878), raising the question of whether it is possible to trust an accountant who pursues this objective.

More recently, Smith and Jacobs (2011) examine how accounting and accountants are characterized in popular music, finding that the accountant is often portrayed as dull, boring, and unimaginative, according to the traditional accounting stereotype. In addition, the authors show that the image of accountants shifts over time, from the classic but benign beancounter stereotype to a negative portrayal of accountants as scandal-makers. As popular music deeply influences culture (both reflecting and shaping it), this shift reflects how accountants are viewed within society and impacts on recruitment and retention in the profession. Miley and Read (2012) confirm prior research (Jeacle, 2008), showing that accountants are still stereotyped in popular culture as dull and boring. They argue that this representation refers to ‘the sort of dull and boring person everyone wants as an accountant, though possibly not as a dinner guest’ (Miley and Read, 2012, p. 710).

Therefore, the role and influence of the media in shaping the image of accountants is well documented by previous contributors, suggesting that the opinion of accountants is less positive when constructed from media sources (e.g., Smith and Jacobs, 2011). In fact, to the extent that stereotypes of accountants conveyed in the media are predominantly negative and affect observers' perceptions of the characteristics of accountants, we can expect that people who have constructed their opinions based on media sources will have a less positive perception of accountants. Thus, on the basis of this, we formulate our first hypothesis:

H1.GenMe perceptions of accountants' ethics are worse when they are constructed from media sources.

The image of accountants has also been investigated through perception studies, that is, surveys that have examined the representation of accountants by students and professionals (Taylor and Dixon, 1979; Hunt et al., 2004; Byrne and Willis, 2005; McDowall and Jackling, 2010; McDowall et al., 2012). Perception studies are not very recent and are mainly focused on university/college students' opinions (e.g., Imada et al., 1980; Chacko, 1991; Cory, 1992; Holt, 1994; Fisher and Murphy, 1995; Enis, 1998; Marriott and Marriott, 2003; Coleman et al., 2004; Sugahara and Boland, 2006). The most important conclusion that can be derived from these contributions is that representations of accountants depend on which students' groups are surveyed for an opinion. For example, previous studies support the idea of a possible relation between the level of education and ethical perceptions. Chen et al. (2008) found that students' perceptions about accounting change over time during their education. In this paper, we assume that the level of education is a determinant in moral reasoning: in particular, we draw on contributions showing that the higher the level of education, the stricter individuals become on judging ethical versus unethical behaviour. For example, Browning and Zabriskie (1983) show that people with less education consider taking gifts and favours to be less unethical than those with more education. Also, Rest and Thoma (1985) find a positive relationship between upward movement in moral judgement and level of education, mostly related to increasing comprehension of higher stage concepts. Thus, assuming that, at higher levels of education, students have more likely been exposed to more multifaceted discussions, including also reflecting on possible ethical dilemmas in professional life, and have developed a more sophisticated understanding of ethical issues, we formulate our second hypothesis:

H2.GenMe perceptions of accountants' ethics are worse when respondents have a higher level of education.

Other contributions suggest that the type of educational background matters and illustrate a link between type of educational background and opinions on accountants. Studies on high school students' perceptions overall (e.g., Jeffrey, 2002; Hartwell et al., 2005; McDowall et al., 2012) show that accounting students hold a positive (or less negative, e.g., Byrne and Willis, 2005) view of accounting and accountants, while non-accounting students have a more negative perception. Therefore, we can assume that:

H3.GenMe perceptions of accountants' ethics are better when respondents have an accounting background at high school level.

Moreover, McDowall and Jackling (2010) suggest that the course being followed at college has an impact on students' perceptions and that attitudes towards accounting differ significantly depending on whether students attended a bachelor of commerce and learned accounting. Specifically, Byrne and Willis (2005) show that bachelor students studying accounting tend to have a more multifaceted impression of the complexity of accounting practices where there is room for subjectivity and they see the work of accountants as less precise and compliance-driven. The awareness of the flexibility in the interpretation of the rules can be associated to potential unethical behaviour. Based on this, we argue that management and business administration bachelor students (in Italy, accounting courses are offered at college level within this type of program) have a more negative perception of accountants' ethics. On this basis, we can then formulate one additional hypothesis:

H4.GenMe perceptions of accountants' ethics are worse when respondents attended a bachelor in management and business administration.

Ethics and Accountants

The second stream of research we refer to considers works published in business ethics journals. The contributions on accountants, though often yielding mixed results, share a common interest, as they aim to understand the effect of variables such as gender, age, and education, on their ethical attitudes and orientations. In this stream of literature, accountants are viewed as professionals who face highly ethical dilemmas (Marques and Azevedo-Pereira, 2009; Lan et al., 2009), especially after the corporate scandals and accounting irregularities that have occurred in recent years (Martinov-Bennie and Pflugrath, 2009). Such dilemmas involve pressure to compromise moral principles to acquire or maintain clients, as well as actions that are motivated by the individual's interest or by the firm's short-term financial interest.

Contributors to the literature on business ethics have rarely investigated public perceptions of the ethics of accountants in particular. The existing studies on public perception have instead focused on business practices, business people, and decision making in general. For example, Cole and Smith (1996) explore the perception of ethics in business considering students and business people. The authors found a significant difference in perceptions among the members of the two groups based on gender. The gender issue in individuals' perceptions of ethics is also explored in Franke et al. (1997) and Deshpande et al. (2000) with consistent results: women are stricter than men in labelling business practices as unethical. One possible explanation of these findings can be drawn from the literature in the fields of psychology and behavioural economics (e.g., Byrnes et al., 1999; Schmitt et al., 2008) documenting gender-based differences in cognitive information processing, diligence, and risk tolerance, where females are more risk-averse and more severe in their judgements than men. So, we can express our next hypothesis in the following way:

H5.GenMe perceptions of accountants' ethics are worse for female respondents.

Other studies show that groups characterized by a different proximity to the accounting profession exhibit diverse perceptions about accounting and accountants. For example, Elias (2002) studies the ethical perception of selected earnings management practices among various groups, showing that significant differences exist between accounting practitioners and other groups, such as faculty and students. Another contribution, closer to ours, by Brown et al. (2007), investigates how auditors and the public perceive auditors' professional behaviour. Their results are consistent with Farwell and Wohlwend-Lloyd (1998) who maintain that individuals perceive themselves in a more favourable way than others do and show that the best opinions are those by auditors who view themselves in a more positive way than other publics. This is because the responses of members of outgroups tend to be more negative (or less positive) than those of members of ingroups, not so much because members of outgroups are prejudiced against members of ingroups but because members of ingroups have a vested interest in maintaining their own positive self-identity (Brewer, 1999).

Therefore, previous works and theoretical explanations suggest that being part of the profession influences the perceptions of accountants' ethical behaviour. So, on this basis, we can formulate our last hypothesis:

H6.GenMe perceptions of accountants' ethics are better for respondents who belong to the accounting profession.

Research Method

Instrument

The research instrument used is a five-page questionnaire organized in different parts. The first part was designed to capture some background information about the respondents, such as gender, age, and education.

The second part consisted of an open-ended question that required the respondents to indicate five characteristics they associate with accountants. The question was open-ended and framed in the following way: ‘Take a few minutes to think about an accountant and indicate at least five characteristics (concerning, e.g., the accountant's physical aspect, personality traits, competences, and cultural background, etc.) you associate with this professional’. Characteristics were numbered from one to five, so that we could keep track of the sequence in which they were pointed out by respondents. This question was designed to capture what were the first characteristics freely associated in the respondent's mind with the image of an accountant.

Then respondents were required to disclose their views about accountants' ethical behaviour. The following question was presented: ‘and concerning personal and physical traits (e.g., she/he is shy, she/he dresses in a trendy style, she/he is conscious of her/his duty) and professional traits (e.g., she/he has long-term earnings potential, her/his job requires an ability to delegate), as well as some traits included in the definition of ethical behaviour provided by extant contributions (e.g., she/he is law-compliant, she/he is incorruptible). These items are rooted in the previous literature, as shown in Table 1, and aimed to tap respondents' perceptions of the image of the accountant, again using a five-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = totally agree). In the questionnaire, the list of items was introduced with the following question: ‘How/what do you think an accountant is and does?’ We include in the list all the items that we found in the previous literature about the image of accountants, avoiding any a priori exclusion, in order to allow respondents to find all the possible characteristics (e.g., traits, behaviours, skills) that could reflect his/her own view of accountants. 4

Table 1. QUESTIONNAIRE ITEMS (*)

Questionnaire items	References
He is bald	e.g., Cory (1992); Dimnik and Felton (2006)
He is male	e.g., Bierstaker et al. (2005)
Her/his job implies a variety of tasks	e.g., Pollock et al. (2002); Granlund and Taipaleenmäki (2005); Hartwell et al. (2005)
Her/his job presents opportunities for advancement	e.g., Hartwell et al. (2005); Jeacle (2008)
Her/his job requires the ability to make decisions	e.g., Granlund and Lukka (1997); Scott et al. (1998)
Her/his job requires the ability to delegate	e.g., Scott et al. (1998)
Her/his job requires the ability to work with others	e.g., Scott et al. (1998); Caglio (2003)
Her/his job requires computer skills	e.g., Caglio (2003); Hunt et al. (2009)
Her/his job requires leadership	e.g., Scott et al. (1998); Burns and Baldvinsdottir (2005)
Her/his job requires the ability to problem-solve	e.g., Smith and Briggs (1999)
Her/his job requires written and oral communication skills	e.g., Scott et al. (1998)
She/he can speak foreign languages	e.g., Scott et al. (1998)
She/he complies with the law	e.g., Dimnik and Felton (2006); Jeacle (2008)
She/he is concerned with job security	e.g., Hartwell et al. (2005)
She/he dresses formally	e.g., Jeacle (2008)
She/he dresses in a trendy style	e.g., Dimnik and Felton (2006)
She/he feels comfortable with public speaking	e.g., Dimnik and Felton (2006)
She/he gets high marks at school	e.g., Scott et al. (1998); Schlee et al. (2007)
She/he gets on well with the opposite sex	e.g., Dimnik and Felton (2006)
She/he has a calm disposition	e.g., Coate et al. (2003); Dimnik and Felton (2006)
She/he has flexible working hours	e.g., Hartwell et al. (2005)
She/he has free time	e.g., Grayson (1999); Pollock et al. (2002)
She/he has little faith in her/himself	e.g., Coate et al. (2003)
She/he has long-term earnings potential	e.g., Pollock et al. (2002); Hartwell et al. (2005); Jeacle (2008)
She/he has no friends	e.g., Anderson-Gough et al. (1998); Dimnik and Felton (2006)
She/he has the opportunity to do the whole job from beginning to end	e.g., Nouri et al. (2005)
She/he has other interests apart from accounting	e.g., Hartwell et al. 2005; Holt (1994); Smith and Briggs (1999)
She/he has prestige	e.g., Friedman and Lyne (2001)
She/he is a person of habit	e.g., Coate et al. (2003)
She/he is always sitting at her/his desk	e.g., Dimnik and Felton (2006)
She/he is ambitious	e.g., Dimnik and Felton (2006); Schlee et al. (2007)
She/he is an idealist	e.g., Coate et al. (2003)
She/he is boring	e.g., Dimnik and Felton (2006)
She/he is brave	e.g., Dimnik and Felton (2006)
She/he is capable in her/his job	e.g., Friedman and Lyne (2001)
She/he is collaborative	e.g., Coate et al. (2003)
She/he is committed to life-long learning	e.g., Nouri et al. (2005); Scott et al. (1998)
She/he is conscious of her/his duty	e.g., Coate et al. (2003)
She/he is demanding	e.g., Coate et al. (2003)
She/he is discreet	e.g., Bougen (1994)
She/he is easily influenced	e.g., Dimnik and Felton (2006)
She/he is energetic	e.g., Coate et al. (2003)
She/he is generous	e.g., Coate et al. (2003)
She/he is good at maths	e.g., Scott et al. (1998); Schlee et al. (2007)
She/he is a hard worker	e.g., Jeacle (2008)
She/he is incorruptible	e.g., Yeager (1991); Bougen (1994); Friedman and Lyne (2001)
She/he is kind	e.g., Dimnik and Felton (2006)
She/he is meticulous	e.g., Friedman and Lyne (2001)
She/he is modest	e.g., Coate et al. (2003)
She/he is old	e.g., Dimnik and Felton (2006)
She/he is organized	e.g., DeCoster (1971)
She/he is pale	e.g., Bierstaker et al. (2005)
She/he is physically attractive	e.g., Dimnik and Felton (2006)
She/he is bad at coping with stress	e.g., Dimnik and Felton (2006)
She/he is sad	e.g., Parker (2000); Jeacle (2008)
She/he is shy	e.g., Dimnik and Felton (2006)
She/he is sincere	e.g., Dimnik and Felton (2006)
She/he is small	e.g., Dimnik and Felton (2006); Jeacle (2008)
She/he is thin	e.g., Dimnik and Felton (2006)
She/he is trustworthy	e.g., Di Pietra et al. (2001)
She/he is lucky	e.g., Dimnik and Felton (2006)
She/he practises sports	e.g., Jeacle (2008); Anderson-Gough et al. (1998); Scott et al. (1998)
She/he prefers to be alone	e.g., Hunt et al. (2009)
She/he remains shut in a room	e.g., Nouri et al. (2005)
She/he speaks abnormally	e.g., Coate et al. (2003)
She/he suffers from nervous ticks	e.g., Dimnik and Felton (2006)
She/he travels a lot	e.g., Jeacle (2008)
She/he trusts other people	e.g., Coate et al. (2003)
She/he wears glasses	e.g., Dimnik and Felton (2006)
She/he works on her/his own	e.g., Dimnik and Felton (2006)
She/he works with numbers all day long	e.g., Grayson (1999)

(*) Five-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = totally agree). Items were randomized in the questionnaires.

Finally, in the last part of the questionnaire, the participants were asked to select up to three sources of influence on their way of thinking about accountants. In particular, we incorporated a question phrased as follows: ‘What is your most important source of information about what an accountant is and does?’ Based on previous literature, alternatives such as friends, TV, movies, and books were suggested.

Concerning questionnaire validity, we used items already validated by the previous literature, as shown in Table 1. In addition to drawing on previous contributions to operationalize our variables, we relied on preliminary discussions with colleagues to validate the questionnaire and administered it to a small sample of different respondents (around 15, ranging from university students not majoring in business administration to practicing accountants) as a pre-test. We made some necessary revisions after the pre-test (Hunt et al., 1982): some items were re-worded and better specified.

A covering letter briefly described the project and assured participants of confidentiality.

Sample

The questionnaire was distributed to students, prospective CPAs, and young employees at various auditing firms. The basic idea was to reach young people with different backgrounds (especially in terms of education) and a diverse familiarity with the profession as well as various degrees of closeness and frequency of contact with accountants, including accountants themselves. Although we aimed at a certain variety in terms of the characteristics named above, as anticipated, we decided to focus on a homogeneous group, that is, GenMe (Twenge, 2006, 2010).

We contacted students at universities, as well as prospective CPAs and audit firm employees during the courses they attended to prepare for the state exam for professional qualification 4 or during in-house training courses. Respondents completed the questionnaires without assistance and returned them to the researchers immediately after completion (which took, on average, 15 minutes).

Approximately 2,100 questionnaires were distributed, yielding 1,794 usable responses, a response rate of approximately 85%. As shown in Table 2, our final sample was composed of 1,293 university students and 501 CPA/audit firm employees. Among the 1,293 university students, 773 were studying business and economics, while the rest were studying other disciplines, including law (17.2%), architecture (15%), engineering (11.8%), classics and literature (8.5%), political science (8.3%), and mathematics and statistics (5.9%). Seven hundred and sixty-seven students were attending a graduate course. The mean age of the respondents was 22.65 years and there was a slight majority of males (around 52%). Concerning accountants, 232 (46.3%) were attending an in-house course before starting their professional activity, 129 (25.7%) had been working in the accounting field for less than one year, and the remaining 140 (28%) had been working as accountants for more than one year.

Table 2. DEMOGRAPHIC SAMPLE CHARACTERISTICS

Sample composed by		Accountants	Students	N.
Gender	Male	283	642	925
	Female	209	651	860
	N/A	9	0	9
Medium age (min. 18, max. 31)		25.1	21.71	22.65
Total observations		501	1,293	1,794

Results

We performed various analyses on the data collected by means of our questionnaire. We preliminary performed factor analysis among all the items included in the questionnaire and conducted Harman's one-factor test to check for the presence of the common method effect. The result suggests that common method bias is not of concern and thus is unlikely to confound the interpretations of our results. In fact, the first (largest) factor does not account for a majority of the variance (but only for 20.257%). All the other analyses are related to the two main research questions we address in this paper and will be presented accordingly in the following.

1) What is the GenMe perception of accountants' ethics?

First of all, we reviewed the open question section of the questionnaire (second section): in only 245 questionnaires out of 1,794 (13.66%), being ethical or unethical 5 was indicated as one of the five characteristics freely associated with ‘the accountant’. Among the 245 cases in which ethical was indicated, 13% mentioned it as the first characteristic, 24% as the second, 22% as the third, 21% as the fourth, and 20% as the fifth. Around 12% of the total sample (i.e., 84.49% of those who indicated ethicality/unethicality as one of the five traits freely associated with accountants) considered accountants as being ethical, while the ‘free’ association between accountants and lack of ethics concerned around just 2% of the total sample.

The mean referring to the specific question included in the third part of our instrument (‘Accountants behave ethically’) is 3.3 on a five-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = totally agree), as shown in Table 3, Part A. Therefore, overall, respondents have a perception of accountants' ethics that is significantly different from three, the neutral point (we ran a one sample t-test with a test value of three and results show p = 0.000 6) and slightly positive.

Table 3. ACCOUNTANTS' ETHICAL BEHAVIOUR PERCEPTION

Part A: Descriptives
	Mean	Std. Deviation	Minimum	Maximum	No. obs
Ethical behaviour	3.2993	1.17941	1.00	5.00	1,784
Trustworthy	3.4807	1.04278	1.00	5.00	1,787
Incorruptible	2.6444	1.20478	1.00	5.00	1,783
Discreet	3.3813	1.05781	1.00	5.00	1,786
Easily influenced	2.5429	1.06006	1.00	5.00	1,783
Law compliant	3.4664	1.13477	1.00	5.00	1,784

Five-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = totally agree).
Part B: Pearson correlations (sig. at *0.01 and 0.05 level two-tailed)
	Ethical behaviour	Trustworthy	Incorruptible	Discreet	Easily influenced	Law compliant
Ethical behaviour	1
Trustworthy	.393^**	1
Incorruptible	.405^**	.374^**	1
Discreet	.170^**	.173^**	.251^**	1
Easily influenced	-.178^**	-.254^**	-.224^**	-.048^*	1
Law compliant	.592^**	.473^**	.462^**	.201^**	-.216^**	1

In order to better capture accountants' ethical behaviour, we also used other items in our questionnaire, in addition to the abovementioned specific question. In effect, since ‘ethics’ is an elusive concept, a rather vague and slippery notion that can be understood in a variety of ways (Cowton, 2009)—ranging from a sense of personal obligation to rules of conduct that need to be applied in everyday jobs—we decided to include multiple items in our measurement instrument to further elucidate this point. While reviewing the accounting-related literature on ethics, we noted that most authors refer to the pronouncements of professional bodies and to the formal ethical codes governing the profession (e.g., Everett et al., 2005; Uysal, 2009). Although we did not find any unequivocal definition, the most commonly quoted ideas about accountants' ethics are: being accountable and trustworthy (‘trustworthy’); acting with the highest integrity (‘incorruptible’); pursuing confidentiality (‘discreet’) and objectivity (‘being easily influenced’); and complying with the law (‘law compliant’). To avoid influencing our respondents, the items related to these dimensions were not included in the part of the questionnaire related to the ethics question, ‘Do you think accountants behave ethically?’ Instead, they were mixed with the other items presented in the questionnaire (see Table 1). The results concerning all these dimensions are summarized in Table 3, Part A.

The findings shown in Table 3, Part A support the idea that, overall, accountants are perceived as being trustworthy (mean 3.48), law compliant (mean 3.47), discreet (mean 3.38), and not easily influenced (mean 2.54). Yet they are not incorruptible (mean 2.64): recent corporate scandals may have played a major role in generating the perceptions about this last item, possibly indicating that accounting scandals tend to remain vivid in the GenMe consciousness. In fact, GenMe has experienced the collapse of iconic companies (e.g., Enron, Arthur Andersen, and Parmalat, which took place in Italy and is referred to as ‘Europe's Enron’). The correlation matrix shows significant relationships between the perception of accountants' behaviour as ethical and all the previously indicated items. In particular, the relationship is positive with trustworthy, incorruptible, discreet and law compliant, and negative with easily influenced (Table 3, Part B).

Finally, we also calculated the correlation coefficients (untabulated) between ‘ethical behaviour’ and all the other items included in Table 1—apart from those reported in Table 3, Part B and already discussed above. Interestingly, the three highest coefficients are those with ‘sincere’ (0.382; p = 0.000), ‘hard worker’ (0.327; p = 0.000), and ‘collaborative’ (0.271; p = 0.000). These items indicate some characteristics that members of GenMe associate with accountants' ethical behaviour, but that are not immediately included in the definition of professional bodies.

2) What are the factors that contribute to influencing the GenMe perceptions of accountants' ethics?

Table 4 summarizes the results of the analyses that explore whether different personal and educational background characteristics, as well as belonging to the profession and the source of information on accountants of the surveyed GenMe individuals, could influence their opinions on accountants' ethics.

Table 4. FACTORS INFLUENCING ACCOUNTANTS' ETHICAL BEHAVIOUR PERCEPTIONS

Part A: Ordinal logistic regression
Parameter		B	Wald Chi-square	Sig.	Exp(B)
	Threshold
Do you think accountants behave ethically?	1.00	−2.293	375.649	.000	.101
	2.00	−1.172	132.335	.000	.310
	3.00	.199	4.167	.041	1.220
	4.00	1.698	250.390	.000	5.462
H1 Media sources (*)		−.025	.056	.813	.975
H2 Level of education		−.234	4.655	.031	.792
H3 Accounting at high school		.313	7.189	.007	1.368
H4 Mngmt&BA background		.152	1.931	.165	1.164
H5 Gender		−.354	16.830	.000	.702
H6 Accountant		.588	22.015	.000	1.801

Part B: Anova tests
Sig. 0.000	Mean	Std. deviation	Minimum	Maximum
Undergraduate non-Mngmt&BA	3.1529	1.13816	1.00	5.00
Undergraduate Mngmt&BA	3.3480	1.24301	1.00	5.00
MSc in accounting	3.2732	1.17071	1.00	5.00
Accountants	3.6384	1.09311	1.00	5.00
Only accountants (subsample): Accountants' ethical behaviour & working experience
Sig. 0.025	Mean	Std. Deviation	Minimum	Maximum
No experience	3.7817	1.01972	1.00	5.00
Up to 1 year	3.5039	1.21416	1.00	5.00
More than 1 year	3.5252	1.07225	1.00	5.00
Total	3.6384	1.09311	1.00	5.00

(*) Media sources is a dummy variable that takes the value of one when respondents answered movies, TV, and newspapers to the following question: ‘What is your most important source of information about what an accountant is and does?’ and zero otherwise; Level of education is a dummy variable that takes the value of one when respondents are attending or already hold an MSc and zero otherwise; Accounting at high school is a dummy variable that takes the value of one when respondents attended an accounting course at high school level and zero otherwise; Mngmt&BA (Management & Business Administration) background is a dummy variable that takes the value of one when respondents are attending or hold a bachelor in Management & Business Administration and zero otherwise; Gender is a dummy variable that takes the value of one when respondents are males and zero otherwise; Accountant is a dummy variable that takes the value of one when respondents are practicing accountants and zero otherwise. The regression was run on 1,761 observations, as in 33 cases one or more of the variables included in the model are missing.

We use an ordinal logistic regression model, as this model is appropriate for ordinal dependent variables (Hardin and Hilbe, 2007). This is our case as our dependent variable is the score obtained in the ethical question ‘Do you think accountants behave ethically?’ where the respondents were asked to express their opinions using a five-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = totally agree). In particular, ordinal regression analysis allows us to understand how much the dependent variable will change, when the independent variables change, by looking at the odd ratios (see below). We run GENLIN procedures with SPSS.

First of all, we ensured that the four ordinal logistic regression model assumptions were satisfied (Menard, 2010): indeed we have one dependent variable, which is measured on an ordinal scale (Assumption #1) and we also have independent variables that fall into one of the following categories: continuous, ordinal, or categorical (Assumption #2). Indeed, in our model, we have only dichotomous independent variables (see Table 4, Part A). We also verified whether our model meets Assumption #3, that is, no multicollinearity, through the VIF test. The highest VIF is 1.672, which is well below the threshold of 10 suggested by Kennedy (2008). So there is no evidence of multicollinearity threats in the model we employ. As we use cumulative odds ordinal logistic regression with proportional odds, the last assumption we verified (Assumption #4) requires that each independent variable has an identical effect at each cumulative split of the ordinal dependent variable. This assumption can be tested in SPSS with a full likelihood ratio test comparing the residual of the fitted location model to a model with varying location parameters. The assumption is met (χ2(18) = 23.241, p = 0.181). 6

The results obtained with our model are summarized in Table 4, Part A. The model statistically significantly predicts the dependent variable over and above the intercept-only model, χ2(6) = 89.178, p < 0.001. Looking at the parameter estimates table (Table 4, Part A), specifically at the significance column and the B column, we can see whether our hypotheses are verified or not. In particular, looking at the B column, a positive coefficient for an independent variable means that higher scores of the dependent variable (i.e., having a better perception of accountants' ethics) are more likely, whereas a negative coefficient tells us that lower scores are more likely (Norušis, 2012). Overall, our results do not show any significant impact of media sources on the GenMe perceptions of accountants' ethical behaviour. Therefore, Hypothesis 1 is not confirmed. On the contrary, Table 4 (Part A) shows that the level of education is significant with a negative coefficient, thus confirming Hypothesis 2. Our results are consistent with Chen et al. (2008) who found that students' perceptions about accountants change over the period of their education. Regarding Hypotheses 3 and 4 on the type of educational background, our analyses illustrate that the attendance of an accounting course at high school level has a significant impact on GenMe perceptions of accountants' ethical behaviour (thus confirming Hypothesis 3). This is in line with studies on high school students' perceptions of accounting (e.g., Byrne and Willis, 2005; Hartwell et al., 2005; Jeffrey, 2002) which, overall, show that accounting students hold a positive view of accounting and accountants, while non-accounting students have a more negative perception. On the contrary, college background is not significant (therefore Hypothesis 4 is not confirmed), although previous contributions show a link between type of educational background and perception of professional behaviour (e.g., McDowall et al., 2012; Byrne and Willis, 2005). Regarding the last two hypothesized relationships, gender and being a practicing accountant are both (highly) significant. However, whereas the sign of Hypothesis 6 is also confirmed (accountants show a better perception of accountants' ethics), the predicted sign of Hypothesis 5 is not confirmed. In fact, Table 4 (Part A) shows that male respondents have a worse perception of accountants' ethics compared to female ones.

Overall, our results tell us that, on an all other things being equal basis, those who have a lower level of education, have attended an accounting course at high school, are female, and are accountants have a better perception of accountants' ethics. In particular, focusing on the significant results reported in Table 4 (Part A), we can see that in comparison to non-MSc students, MSc students show a worse perception of accountants' ethics (see column B, decrease in log odd = –0.234). Looking at the odd ratio, that is, the value in the Exp(B) column, we can also appreciate that for MSc students the odds of scoring lower on the dependent variable is 80% higher (0.792) than for non-MSc students. Therefore, the likelihood of MSc students having a worse perception of accountants' ethics is 80% higher than for non-MSc students. Similarly, respondents who attended an accounting course at high school level exhibit a significantly better perception in comparison to those who did not (increase in log odd = 0.313). Specifically, for the former, the odds of scoring better (i.e., having a more positive perception of accountants' ethics) is 137% higher than those of respondents not having attended an accounting course at high school level (odd ratio 1.368). Moreover, males have a worse perception of accountants' ethics in comparison to females (decrease in log odd = –0.354) and the odds of scoring lower on the dependent variable is 70% higher (0.702) for males than for female respondents. Finally, in comparison to non-accountants, accountants show a better perception (increase in log odd = 0.588) and the odds of scoring higher on the dependent variable, that is, having a better perception of accountants' ethics, is nearly two times higher (1.801) than for non-accountants. Being an accounting practitioner has a strongly significant (sig. 0.000) and positive relation with perceptions of accountants' ethics, which can be explained by the vested interest they have in maintaining their own positive identity (Brewer, 1999). These results are also in line with Brown et al.’s (2007) findings on auditors' self-perception.

In order to explore this point further, we also ran an ANOVA test (p = 0.000), which is summarized in Table 4, Part B. Practising accountants have the most positive perception, whereas the most negative is exhibited by undergraduate students studying subjects other than management and business administration (e.g., architecture, mathematics, and statistics, etc.). Post hoc tests (untabulated) are run in order to understand which means are significantly different from each other (Hair et al., 2006), primarily using Tukey's HSD test. Tests show a significant difference in the opinion of practising accountants in comparison to all the other groups. Results hold also using the Bonferroni test. Therefore, as also shown by our ordinal logistic regression model, to be part of the profession matters for the perception of the accountants' ethics. On the other hand, among practising accountants, those who are new entrants (i.e., have just entered the profession and have basically no work experience in the accounting field) 7 report the most positive perception. These results are in line with the studies that found that students' own perceptions influence their career decisions (e.g., Holland, 1973). Our evidence also shows that more experienced professionals have less positive perceptions of the ethical attitudes of their colleagues—and themselves—in comparison with new entrants. This could be explained by their direct experience in the field. Once again, post hoc tests (untabulated) are run, primarily using Tukey's HSD test. Tests show a significant difference in the opinion of professionals with no work experience in comparison to all the other groups. Results hold also using the Bonferroni test.

Discussion

First, to respond to our first research question, we explored whether accountants are viewed as ethical or unethical by GenMe individuals. By analyzing the open-question section of the questionnaire (second section) we find that 13.66% of the total sample indicated being ethical or unethical as one of the five characteristics freely associated with ‘the accountant’. In particular, around 12% considered accountants as being ethical, whereas around just 2% of the total sample made a free association between accountants and lack of ethics. The mean of the item ‘ethical’ for the whole sample, which is around 3.3 (and significantly—p = 0.000—different from three) suggests that accountants seem not to be generally perceived as unethical. Yet we cannot conclude that there is not a reputation problem concerning the trustworthiness of members of the profession, as the mean is nearer to three (neutrality) than to four. The impression of the accountant as a corrupt professional is not dominant in GenMe, but our results certainly suggest that there is room for improving public perceptions of accountants' ethics. Are these results good news? Care should be taken in interpreting them, given the characteristics of our respondents. Individuals belonging to GenMe are depicted in the psychological literature as cheaters (Twenge, 2006) with reference to university examinations, and as being more permissive (than the previous generation) in, for example, software piracy (Freestone and Mitchell, 2004). This casts some doubts on the level of ‘ethicality’ of GenMe individuals themselves, which is also confirmed by the fact that they tend to see no manipulative implications in unethical or unconventional methods because ‘everybody’ engages in these tactics to secure a job (Boyd, 2010).

In order to explore this point further and understand which characteristics are relevant to GenMe for differentiating between ethical accountants and unethical ones, we also explore whether the ethics dimension is associated with the other dimensions included in the definition of ethical behaviour provided by the literature. We found that the perception of accountants' ethical behaviour is associated in the GenMe mind with the idea that these professionals should make decisions based on external codes to avoid breaking the law (‘law compliant’), with the importance of professional independence (‘being easily influenced’) and moral content and values in the individual locus (‘incorruptible’ and ‘discreet’) (Cullen et al., 2003; Martin and Cullen, 2006). The link with the ‘trustworthy’ element—which is at the root of accountants' set of practices—indicates a demand for transparency and accountability as part of the accounting profession's inherent ethical responsibilities and of their fundamental role in serving the public interest. These findings may be interpreted in two ways. On the one hand, they may be understood as a robustness test of our previous question on the perceived ethical behaviour of accountants, thus moderating some concerns about the interpretation of ‘ethicality’ by members of GenMe. On the other hand, they seem to suggest a general convergence between the claims of accounting bodies and the GenMe view. This finding could also be evaluated in the light of the characteristics of the Italian setting (absence of a strong independent profession and low number of disciplinary measures from professional bodies, as explained in the introduction): the risk that the integrity and ethical standing of the profession may be perceived as merely symbolic is more than serious. It is also interesting to note that, in our sample, among the aforementioned items, the highest correlations are between ‘ethical behaviour’ and, respectively, ‘law compliant’ and ‘incorruptible’. However, the mean of this latter item is below three, thus suggesting that, in the GenMe perception, the accountant is ‘vacillating’. This can be interpreted in the light of the characteristics of Italian accounting regulation, described, on the one hand, as firmly political and legislative (Di Pietra et al., 2001) but, on the other hand, as leaving room for a certain flexibility of interpretation (Zan, 1994). This flexibility, in a country where the perceived level of corruption is relatively high 8 and where the Parmalat 9 scandal, defined as ‘Europe's Enron’, took place—and has certainly impacted the GenMe experience (Twenge et al., 2010)—may explain the strict association between accountants' ethical behaviour and incorruptibility, as well as the low mean of this latter item. Our analyses, moreover, highlight that there are three further items—‘sincere’, ‘hard worker’, and ‘collaborative’—strongly (and positively) associated with the item ‘ethical behaviour’. These items are not generally included in the definition of the dimensions of ethics provided by the literature and by professional bodies. They thus seem to suggest the existence of a more multifaceted perception of accountants' ethics. GenMe appears to exhibit a more articulated idea about which dimensions are important for judging an accountant as an ethical professional. In fact, they include some characteristics (such as being collaborative) that are not immediately linked to ethics and that are not totally similar to the definition that professional bodies convey through their public pronouncements on standards of ethics. GenMe seems also to direct its attention more to individual characteristics: this indicates that accountants' ethical behaviour is also considered to be the product of their personal traits and that the GenMe public demands more than conventional adherence to the law and to the professional standards of ethics. Notice that our respondents belong to a generation in which the importance of the individual supersedes all other concerns (Twenge, 2006). This attention to individual characteristics is, therefore, not surprising.

With reference to our second research question, we explored the factors potentially influencing GenMe perceptions of accountants' ethics. Our evidence shows that the opinion of accountants' ethics is more favourable among females than among males. This finding is not in line with our hypothesized relationship, which was rooted in the business ethics literature, but could be interpreted in accordance with recent research conducted by Hunt et al. (2009), showing that women are less influenced than men by negative stereotypical representations of the profession. This is also consistent with previous literature that maintains that women are less likely to believe in occupational stereotypes (Lips, 1992). From a practical point of view, this fact could positively affect the future image of accountants, since, in Italy, as in most developed countries, top executives and CFOs are mainly men but the number of women is increasing (albeit in many countries slowly, e.g., Helfat et al., 2006).

We also found, as expected, a negative relation between perception of accountants' ethics and level of education and a positive relation between perception of accountants' ethics and the fact that respondents attended an accounting course at high school level. In particular, the latter might be explained by drawing on Hunt et al. (2004), who observe that high school teachers are focused on the bookkeeping aspect of accounting. A curriculum with such a focus could create the idea of accountancy as a regular technical activity (Albrecht and Sack, 2000), associated with precision and reliability (Jeacle, 2008), without much room for subjectivity and flexible interpretation of rules, which could be understood as potentially unethical behaviour.

Our analysis also shows that belonging to the profession is important for explaining perceptions of accountants' ethics. Accountants had the most positive perception, whereas the most negative was exhibited by undergraduate students engaged in studies other than management and business administration. Yet more experienced professionals had less positive perceptions of accountants' ethics than their less experienced colleagues. This could be interpreted in various ways. First of all, it could be considered good news that the most negative opinion was exhibited by the respondents who were not close to the profession, as this perception is likely not indicative of the actual ethicality of the profession. However, it is bad news from the point of view of the generally low level of trust in accountants exhibited by GenMe. So our findings call for the need for appropriate actions to reinforce the reputation of the profession, especially with reference to the general public. Moreover, considering the results about those respondents who had had work experience in accounting, one could assume that their opinions related only to other professionals, and this was not how they viewed themselves. In this case, as more experienced accountants know better than younger ones how the business world works, it could be assumed that they are simply painting a more precise picture of reality. Considering that this group of respondents represents the best-informed view, it raises some concerns about the ethicality of accountants. It is easy to imagine a young professional at the beginning of his or her career willing to work ethically and being confronted with a deceitful accountancy world, where ‘compromises’ are an everyday occurrence (Marques and Azevedo-Pereira, 2009). Alternatively, assuming that the opinion of the more experienced professionals also reflects the perception they have of themselves, our findings are consistent with the idea that accounting professionals soften their ethical orientation as they become older (Sankaran and Bui, 2003). In any case, both interpretations question the effectiveness of professional ethical codes of conduct and the effectiveness and content of continuing education programs in terms of ethics issues. After the most recent accounting scandals, professional bodies reacted strongly, emphasizing in public statements (e.g., press releases, officers' speeches, testimonials, and published articles) the importance of the integrity of accountants (Rogers et al., 2005; CNDC, 2007). Our evidence suggests that these public statements, together with the new regulations (e.g., Sarbanes Oxley in the US and similar reforms all over the world, including Italy) and the establishment of standards (Quick et al., 2007) as means of promoting ‘awareness and confidence in the integrity, objectivity, competence and professionalism of CPAs’ (AICPA, 2012) may not have been effective, especially for those who work within the profession.

Concluding Remarks

In this paper, we have built on the idea that the accounting profession depends heavily upon its public image to sustain itself (Rogers et al., 2005): as in the words of the CEO of the AICPA, an accountant's reputation is his or her ‘most priceless asset’. Following this line of reasoning, we maintain that it is essential to understand not only whether accountants behave ethically but also whether they are reputed to do so, especially after the recent financial crisis and the publicity surrounding various accounting scandals (Felton et al., 2008; Gill, 2009). The perceptions of the general public could negatively affect the image of the entire profession, threatening not only its role in the economic system but also its future. However, the public view of accountants' ethics has been under investigated. We have focused on this area, taking the perspective of GenMe, that is, those of a homogenous age group whose opinion is particularly important for the future of the accounting profession.

What we can generally conclude from our evidence is that there is room for improvement. There are various means of sensitizing GenMe to ethical issues concerning accountants.

First, universities are not making use of the opportunity to promote ethical consciousness through accounting courses for young students. In fact, from an analysis of the accounting curricula of the main Italian universities, there is a serious shortage of courses in ethics, signalling a lack of attention among academics to the importance of incorporating ethical issues in university classroom activities (Gunz and McCutcheon, 1998). It is essential that students are made aware of the possible dilemmas they might face during their careers (Marques and Azevedo-Pereira, 2009). According to previous psychological studies, GenMe individuals become stressed when they receive ambiguous signals from the environment: they are perfectionists, apprehensive, and show low self-reliance (Twenge, 2006). All these traits make them ill-equipped to deal with the dilemmas typically encountered during a career in accountancy. Explicitly introducing ethical and deontological issues in accounting courses could enhance both the attitude of students about accountants and their understanding that accounting decisions may be complex, due to a ‘mesh of conflicting obligations that constitutes our lives’ (Young and Annisette, 2009, p. 95). A good starting point to improve this situation could be a better alignment with the approach proposed by the International Accounting Education Standards Board (IAESB), which emphasizes not only the ability of individuals to perform to the standards expected of professional accountants but also an appropriate level of values, ethics, and attitudes to achieve that competence. In fact, unfortunately, the compliance to International Education Standards (IESs) issued by IAESB is far from being completely reached in the Italian accounting curricula in many aspects. Focusing on IES 4 Professional Values, Ethics and Attitude, a survey conducted in Italy (Veneziani, 2013) shows that topics covered by IES 4 are the least taught among the topics considered in the survey (those incorporated in IES 2, IES 3, and IES 4). Moreover, it seems that meeting the membership obligations of IFAC, in relation to providing information about compliance with IESs, is not being wholly respected across all IFAC member bodies. Specifically, 11 professional bodies operating in nine countries (including Italy) did not supply compliance information in relation to IES 3 and 4. This behaviour tends to suggest that ‘they do not perceive it necessary to remit information about aspects of their education programs to the IAESB … and may also indicate lack of compliance with, and therefore lack of legitimacy of, IESs’ (Crawford et al., 2014, p. 86).

Second, accounting firms and other professional bodies should question whether the importance of professional integrity and of serving the public interest is sufficiently stressed in their continuing education and training programs as well as in their communications. In recent years, specific attempts have been made by accounting firms to promote a more active, sociable, and high-status professional. This is because professional bodies and accounting firms are concerned about the lack of talented graduates willing to choose a career in accounting due to the low appeal of the profession (e.g., McDowall and Jackling, 2010; American Assembly, 2003). However, this representation seems to clash with the idea of professional reliability, accountability, and ethical behaviour (Jeacle, 2008). Perhaps, in their public communications, accounting firms and other professional bodies could better balance the ‘exciting’ side of the profession with more emphasis on values related to professional integrity and ethics. Moreover, our results question the effectiveness of professional codes of conduct and the effectiveness and content of continuing education programs in terms of ethical issues.

In conclusion, although our study provides some new insights into perceptions of the accounting profession, it is important to acknowledge the limitations of our research that are in turn linked to the elements of novelty in our study, that is, the fact that we focus on GenMe perceptions and that we collected our data in Italy. Specifically, our results should be interpreted with some caveats, that is, bearing in mind GenMe is considered to be manipulative, permissive, and willing to engage in unethical behaviour, and Italy does not have a strong independent profession. For this reason, we think that an interesting avenue for future research could be a comparison of the image of ethical behaviour among accountants across various generations and/or countries and to relate the potential differences to diverse socio-cultural and institutional settings to better understand which results are generalizable across generations and/or countries. Another possible avenue for future research could take into consideration the calibre of skills of the respondents. As professional image is an important consideration for people making career choices (Smith and Briggs, 1999) and the main drivers of quality for accounting work are the calibre of skills and personal qualities of the human resources, it should be interesting to focus on management and business administration students and separate the opinions of those who want to become an accountant or are entering the profession from those of the respondents who do not want to become accountants, also taking into consideration personal skills. Basically, this means making a distinction betwen the opinions of the ‘high-potential’ students from those of other students, in order to explore whether those students who are interested in an accounting career and see accountants as more ethical are also the brightest and the best.

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1 Despite a certain convergence during the past few years, the Anglo-Saxon or Anglo-American context has always been contrasted with the continental one, relying on a relatively weak accounting profession, heavy governmental influence on accounting regulation, and exhibiting a higher importance of debt financing over equity capital (Di Pietra et al., 2001).
2 Though the approach adopted in this paper is different, we would like to acknowledge a rich stream of research on professions originated by the notable contributions by Foucault (e.g., Goldstein, 1994; Abbott, 2005; Power, 2000) as well as previous contributions exploring the accounting profession and the evolution of accounting professionals working within firms (e.g., Caglio, 2003).
3 It is important to clarify that our aim is to understand which of the factors indicated by previous literature affect GenMe perceptions of accountants' ethics. As will be explained in the following research methodology section, we use an ordinal logistic regression model that evaluates whether the likelihood of perceiving accountants as being ethical increases (or decreases) depending on some specific factors, for example, belonging to a profession, gender, or educational background.
4 Note that, in this paper, we are specifically focusing on those traits/characteristics that are linked to accountants' ethics. We report the whole list of attributes included in the questionnaire for the sake of completeness.
4 To be an Italian CPA, one is required to have earned a university degree in management and business administration or the equivalent, and to have completed a training period followed by a state examination. The purpose of the exam is to ascertain the theoretical knowledge of the candidates and their ability to put this theory into practice (Cameran, 2007).
5 We coded as ethical all the characteristics that include the words ethical/ethics together with the following words: honest (honesty), sincere, truthful (true), fair, law compliant, correct, moral rigidity, respectful, incorruptible, trustworthy, reliable, responsible, dutiful, conscious of her/his duties, rigorous, conscientious. As unethical we coded the opposite of the words/expressions reported before in addition to: able to cheat, cheater, swindler, tax dodger, involved in bribery and corruption.
6 The same test was run every time we referred to a significant difference between a mean and a certain value (generally three, the neutral point).
6 The null hypothesis states that the location parameters (slope coefficients) are the same across response categories. Thus, the assumption of proportional odds is met if the test reported above is not significant and this is our case.
7 As previously explained, some of the respondents were contacted during in-training courses attended by just-employed graduates.
8 International rankings based on CPI (Corruption Perception Index, created in 1995, ranging from 10 to one) show that in 2008 Italy ranked 55^th, between South Africa and Seychelles, with a score of 4.8; Denmark, New Zealand, and Sweden ranked highest, with 9.3. Somalia ranked lowest, with a score of one. To give the reader a better idea of the implications of these data, it could be worthwhile knowing that other European countries with characteristics similar from an institutional point of view to Italy (like France and Spain) are ranked 23^rd and 28^th, with a score of 6.9 and 6.5 respectively. The UK and the US are ranked 16^th and 18^th (score 7.7 and 7.3) (<http://www.transparency.org/research/cpi/cpi_2008>, accessed 8 October 2015).
9 In December 2003, Parmalat's—the world's largest dairy firm, with 36,000 employees, ranked as the eighth largest company in Italy—financial problems became known publicly. Parmalat's primary auditor was one of the Big 4 audit firms, but the Milan branch of Grant Thornton dealt with some of the company's subsidiaries. Two partners of the Italian affiliate of Grant Thornton were the first individuals to be prosecuted in the scandal. On 28 July 2004, following the events linked to the Parmalat scandal, Consob (the Italian regulatory body for the stock exchange, the equivalent of the SEC in the US), for the first time since its establishment, removed the renamed Italaudit S.p.A. (previously Grant Thornton S.p.A.) from the list of audit firms allowed to audit the financial statements of Italian listed companies.

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Volume53, Issue1

March 2017

Pages 1-27

Is it Shameful to be an Accountant? GenMe Perception(s) of Accountants' Ethics

Abstract

Literature Review and Research Questions

The Image of Accountants

Ethics and Accountants

Research Method

Instrument

Sample

Results

1) What is the GenMe perception of accountants' ethics?

2) What are the factors that contribute to influencing the GenMe perceptions of accountants' ethics?

Discussion

Concluding Remarks

References

Citing Literature

References

Information

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Is it Shameful to be an Accountant? GenMe Perception(s) of Accountants' Ethics

Abstract

Literature Review and Research Questions

The Image of Accountants

Ethics and Accountants

Research Method

Instrument

Sample

Results

1) What is the GenMe perception of accountants' ethics?

2) What are the factors that contribute to influencing the GenMe perceptions of accountants' ethics?

Discussion

Concluding Remarks

References

Citing Literature

References

Related

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