STUDENTS' PERCEPTIONS OF ETHICAL DEVELOPMENT IN BUSINESS EDUCATION PROGRAMS

Teaching accounting in Spain is derived from the need that firms have to report their financial information, mainly due to the requirements of accounting law. The premise of accounting basis is reliability, although several financial scandals have evidenced corruption in the reporting process of the accounting information. While there is an increasing awareness that ethical issues in accounting profession should be taught in higher education degrees, the current curricula of Spanish university degrees do not include ethic accounting courses. Unlikely, other countries such as UK and Australia have integrated in their curricula ethical concepts, partly due to the lobby of professional associations. In such a context, we aim to investigate the presence of ethics and corporate social responsibility in Spanish universities. Besides, the university students' perceptions of the importance of teaching ethical issues in accounting profession are analysed. We conduct a survey with a sample of 484 higher education students in business education programs. Our results reveal that students regard ethical issues as relevant to be taught at higher education. What's more, they are prone to enrol in an ethic course. Finally, our results could help educators to remake curricula in order to emphasize the ethical component in courses.