Ethical Reasoning, Machiavellian Behavior and Ethical Decision Making Among Accountancy Students in UUM

This research is designed to acquire better understanding of how final year accounting students in UUM respond to issues pertaining to realism in philosophy, business ethical dilemmas. Earlier research suggests that accounting students present lower levels of ethical reasoning compared to other business and non-business majors. This study uses the Defining Issues Test,Version 2 (DIT2) to measure accounting students' ethical reasoning processes. The Mach IV (MACH IV) scale is used to measure moral behavior. Eight ethical vignettes made suitable from prior ethics studies referring to realism, business ethical scenarios were used. A total of 115 (n=115) final year undergraduate accounting students, were used to examine two hypotheses. Literature suggests that individuals with lower ethical reasoning levels are more
likely to agree with unethical behaviors. Therefore, the first hypothesis investigated the relationship between ethical reasoning and ethical decision making. Literature also suggests that individuals agreeing with Machiavellian
statements are more likely to agree with questionable activities. The second Hypothesis investigated the relationship between Machiavellian behavior and ethical decision making. Results indicate that ethicaI reasoning is significantly correlated with students' ethical ratings on the business on ethical decision making (vignettes), which means is negatively related to ethical decision
making. However, Machiavellian behavior is significantly correlated with students' ethical ratings, which means positively related to ethical decision making.