INTRODUCTION
The public accounting profession is a
profession that uses its expertise in the field of accounting to make
accounting information in making business decisions for companies (Ananto & Januarti, 2016). The
public accounting profession plays a role in the sustainability of a company. A
public accountant must have good morals and professional ethics. The Indonesian
Institute of Certified Public Accountants (IAPI) makes rules regarding the code
of ethics of the public accounting profession that must be obeyed by all public
accountants. This code of ethics contains rules that must be obeyed when public
accountants do their work to remind that the responsibility of auditors is very
important in protecting the public interest, especially in the form of the
availability of quality financial information (Fiske & Taylor, 2013).
auditors must also be able to detect
scandalous activities before they develop into very detrimental accounting (Norbarani & Rahardjo, 2012). An
auditor who has an attitude of competence in his audit assignments can make it
easier for him to detect fraud by (Respati, 2019).
The case that became the world's
spotlight was the bankruptcy of the largest energy company in the United
States, Enron Corporation. The error in giving the opinion issued by the
auditor made one of the public accountants (big five), namely Arthur Andersen
involved and quit. In Indonesia, a similar case also occurred, where the
ministry of finance stated that two public accountants who audited the
financial statements of PT Sunprima Nusantara Pemfundan (SNP) Finance, namely
public accountants (Amalia, Sutrisno, & Baridwan, 2019),
had violated professional auditing standards because they had given opinions
that were not in accordance with actual conditions. The existence of these
cases clearly shows that there are still many auditors who violate professional
ethics. ethics should be instilled as early as possible to create a moral
auditor character. or it could be due to
lack of experience. Because experience can expand a person's knowledge and the
more experience he has, the faster and more skilled he will be in his work. (Rahmawati & Usman, 2014) And that
case can be prevented by triangulation carried out in this study by collecting
the same data with different techniques. In this way, it not only enhances the
validity but also the results of the study can be deepened (Lukman & Harun, 2018).
Accounting students are prospective
accountants, so it is very necessary for academics to improve the education
curriculum on ethics that will be faced in identifying a problem when an
ethical dilemma occurs. (Sari, 2014) argues that accountants
are now professionals in the future and with a good ethical education it is
expected to benefit the profession in the long term.
��������� Violation cases occur a lot, resulting in a
decrease in public confidence in the professionalism of public accountants.
Efforts are made to restore public trust through education where prospective
accountants know and learn accounting science. A good world of education will
shape students into prospective accountants who have a professional attitude
based on moral and ethical standards (Apriyana & Puspita, 2018).
This study is a replication of the research conducted by (Bloodgood et al., 2013) using two of
the Four Component Rest Models (1986), namely ethical sensitivity and moral
considerations. This research was carried out again with the intention of
whether the results obtained would be the same as previous studies using the
same theory. In addition, research on the influence of the moral intensity
component on the decision-making process is still little done.
(Kennedy et al., 2018), found that the
ability of accounting students who had received accounting ethics education was
higher in identifying ethical problems (ethical sensitivity) than the ability
of students who had not received accounting ethics education. The results of
this study are not in line with research conducted by (Hutahahean & Hasnawati, 2015)
which revealed that gender had no significant effect on the ethical behavior of
accounting students. This means that at this time women and men may both have
deficiencies in reasoning ethical behavior, many of them are competing in the
career field, seeking power, seeking wealth without thinking about ethical
violations in it. The purpose of this study was to re-examine the differences
in ethical sensitivity and moral considerations of students based on semester
and gender.
METHOD
Comparative
causal research which is an ex post facto type of research. This study uses a
quantitative approach. Ex post facto research is research that aims to find the
causes that allow changes in behavior, symptoms or phenomena caused by an
event, behavior or things that cause changes in the independent variables which
as a whole have occurred. The research was conducted at the Faculty of
Economics and Business, University of Muhammadiyah Bengkulu. The population in this
study were students of the Accounting Study Program semester 2 to semester 8,
with a sampling technique using purposive sampling. (Jahja, 2013) purposive sampling is a technique
where sampling is based on certain considerations or criteria. In this study
several criteria were proposed by the researcher as a sample. The technique of
collecting data is through an online questionnaire which is distributed using a
google form. Data analysis using SPSS (Statistical Package For Social Science)
program.
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RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
A. Data
Analysis
Of
the 87 respondents who filled out questionnaires online, there were 87 questionnaires
or 100% that could be processed,
Based
on validity tests conducted with pearson correlation, it was obtained that all
indicators in the variables studied were declared valid with significance
values <0,05. Then from the results of reliability test with Cronbach Alpha
formula, obtained the result that all variables in the study were declared
raliabel with cronbach alpha value >0,06.
Based
on Table 6, the results of testing hypothesis 1a were carried out to determine
the difference in ethical sensitivity of accounting students at the University
of Muhammadiyah Bengkulu based on semester level. The analysis of the t-test
difference test uses the assumption of equal variance not assumed and appears
at a t-value of -0.567 with a significant probability of 0.572 (2-tailed) which
means the average ethical sensitivity between the 2nd and 4th semester student
groups and the 6th and 8th semester student groups. not significant, it can be
concluded that hypothesis 1a is not acceptable.
These
results prove that ethics education taught in the accounting program does not
have a positive impact on improving the ability of 6th and 8th semester
students, it is possible that students have problems understanding the
questions. The results are not in line with the (Kennedy et al., 2018) which revealed that offering ethical training
was really able to increase the sensitivity of accounting students. However,
this study is in line with Chocolate (2013), which revealed that there is no
relationship between ethics education and students' ethical level, whether or
not they receive ethics education, accounting students show higher ethical
awareness because ethical education does not always increase ethical behavior.
Furthermore,
testing the ethical sensitivity of accounting students after receiving ethics
education based on gender. Based on Table 4.9, the analysis of the t-test difference
test uses the assumption of equal variance assumed and appears at a t-value of
2.663 with a significant probability of 0.009 (2-tailed) > 0.05, which means
that there is a difference between the average ethical sensitivity between male
students. and female students, it can be concluded that hypothesis 1b is
accepted. The
results of this study are similar to the research conducted by (Bloodgood et al., 2013) which revealed that women tend to have
higher ethical awareness than men, because female students are more likely to
behave ethically in academic settings.
Testing
Testing of hypothesis 2a was conducted to determine the difference in moral
judgment of accounting students at the University of Muhammadiyah Bengkulu
based on semester level. Based on Table 4.9, the analysis of the t-test
difference test uses the assumption of equal variance assumed and appears at a
t-value of 2.120 with a significant probability of 0.037 (2-tailed) > 0.05,
which means the average moral judgment between the 2nd and 4th semester student
groups is higher. low with the 6th and 8th semester students group being
different, in other words significant, it can be concluded that hypothesis 2a
is accepted.
This shows
that the accounting ethics education that has been obtained by the 6th and 8th
semester student groups is able to increase the level of students' moral
judgment when faced with ethical dilemmas. The results of this study are in
line with (Kusuma, Setiono, & Poli, 2018), which states that
the ability to make moral judgments of accounting students who have received
ethics education is higher than accounting students who have not received
ethics education. Accounting ethics education is an important factor that
influences students' moral judgment because it has the potential to have an
impact on individual behavior, intentions and decisions in dealing with ethical
dilemmas.
Hypothesis
2b testing was conducted to determine differences in the ability to make moral
judgments on accounting students at the Muhammadiyah University of Bengkulu
based on gender. Based on Table 4.9, the analysis of the t-test difference test
uses the assumption of equal variance not assumed and appears at the t-value of
0.459 with a significant probability of 0.647 (2-tailed) which means that there
is no difference between the average moral considerations of male and female
students. , it can be concluded that hypothesis 2b cannot be accepted.
The
results of this study are in line with (Hutahaean et al., 2021) which revealed that gender had no
significant effect on the ethical behavior of accounting students. This proves
that women and men may both have deficiencies in reasoning ethical behavior,
many of them competing in the career field, seeking power, seeking wealth
without thinking about ethical violations in it.
CONCLUSION
1) This
study aims to determine whether there are differences in ethical sensitivity
and moral considerations of accounting students based on semester level and gender.
Based on the results of data analysis, the following conclusions were obtained:2)
Based on the results of statistical analysis revealed that there is no
difference between the ability of accounting students who have received
accounting ethics education better in identifying ethical problems (ethical
sensitivity) than the ability of students who have not received accounting
ethics education.3) Based on the results of statistical analysis revealed that
the ability of female students after receiving accounting ethics education is
higher in identifying ethical problems (ethical sensitivity) than the ability
of male students.4) Based on the results of statistical analysis revealed that
the ability of students who have received accounting ethics education is higher
in making moral judgments than the ability of students who have not received
accounting ethics education.5) Based on the results of statistical analysis
revealed that there is no difference between the abilities of female students
who have received accounting ethics education are better at making moral
judgments than the abilities of male students.
a. Implication
Theoretically, this
research has the implication that the dimension of moral intensity can be used
by accounting educators (lecturers) especially as a tool to discuss cases
related to ethical issues, so as to increase the understanding of accounting
students in assessing ethical or not an action. So that the gap between
accounting graduates and people's expectations does not experience a large gap.
b. Research
Limitations
This study has a
limitation, namely that it only examines 2 of the 4 components of the ethical
decision-making model. This is due to the lack of research on the third
component, namely moral motivation which makes it difficult for researchers to
conduct research development. While the fourth component is a moral action that
is difficult to measure because moral action is the final stage of the ethical
decision-making process from action to behavior. For further research, the researcher
suggests that research that examines moral intensity by using cases is carried
out using the experimental method, so that the results obtained are as
expected.
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Ethical[MD1] Sensitivity and Moral
Considerations of Accounting Students Based on Accounting
Ethics Education