Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Journal of Business Ethics https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-020-04606-1 ORIGINAL PAPER Personal Values and Ethical Behavior in Accounting Students Grace Mubako 1  · Kallol Bagchi 2  · Godwin Udo 2  · Marjorie Marinovic 2 Received: 13 February 2020 / Accepted: 18 August 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020 Abstract This study develops and tests an integrated model that explains how Schwartz’s higher order personal values of Openness to Change, Conservation, Self-Transcendence and Self-Enhancement infuence the ethical behavior of accountants. The study further explores the infuence of ethics training, gender and religiosity on ethical behavior. A survey instrument was administered to 252 accounting students and the fndings reveal that some of the higher order personal values (Conserva- tion, Self-Transcendence, Self-Enhancement) are signifcant in explaining the ethical behavior of accounting students. The fndings also reveal that gender and ethical training infuence ethical behavior, and that efect of the personal value Self- Transcendence difers depending on participant gender and also religiosity. The implications of the fndings are discussed. Keywords Personal values · Ethical behavior · Ethics training · Gender · Religiosity Introduction Ethical behavior is one of the key requirements of account- ing professionals as demonstrated by all accounting pro- fessional associations’ codes of conduct. For instance, the American Institute of Certifed Public Accountants (AICPA) requires members to abide by the ethical guidelines laid out in their professional code of conduct. Appropriate ethical behavior is particularly important considering that the work of accountants plays a critical role in fnancial markets and they have an enormous responsibility to the investing public, which demands public trust (Fritzsche and Oz 2007; Shafer et al. 2001). Given the important role of ethical behavior in the accounting profession, it is worthwhile that researchers examine the factors that may infuence the ethical behavior of accountants (Karacaer et al. 2009; Abdolmohammadi 2005). Signifcant research eforts have been aimed at the subject of ethical behavior of people in general, and that of profes- sional accountants in particular (Buchan 2005; Cohen et al. 2001; Alleyne et al. 2013). This stream of research identi- fes factors that infuence ethical behavior including personal values. Some of these studies have shown a relationship between personal values and ethical behavior (Baird and Zelin 2007; Douglas and Schwartz 1999; Christensen et al. 2016; Fritzsche and Oz 2007). Researchers have developed diferent instruments to measure personal values as well as ethical behavior in individuals (Alleyne et al. 2013; Glover et al. 1997) and these instruments have been refned over time. One of the most recent and comprehensive instruments was developed by Schwartz (Schwartz 2017) and is based on Schwartz’s value theory. The instrument is generally regarded as the most comprehensive cross-cultural metric (Oishi et al. 1999), hence is one of the most commonly used theories in value studies (Krogh 2011). It is for this reason that we adopt the Schwartz value theory in the present study. The Schwartz’s values instrument is based on 19 low order values (LOV), which are further categorized into four high order values (HOV) (Schwartz 2017). It is a modifca- tion of the original 1992 instrument, which was made up of Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-020-04606-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Grace Mubako mubako@csus.edu Kallol Bagchi kbagchi@utep.edu Godwin Udo gudo@utep.edu Marjorie Marinovic mamarinovic@utep.edu 1 California State University Sacramento, 6000 J Street, Sacramento, CA 95819, USA 2 University of Texas at El Paso, 500 West University Avenue, El Paso, TX 79968, USA