Moral foundations of ethical assessments of accountants: An empirical study of Latin America and the United States

Abstract

There is a need to create precise measurement instruments and adapt them to diffrent cultures and countries. With this objective, this study examines the ethics evaluations of accounting students of then Latin countries and United States using the Multidimensional Ethics Scale. The results show new evidence that supports the relation between ethics and culture, and Gilligan's theory, but contradicts Kohlberg's theory. The results suggest that individuals use, simultaneously, multiple moral concepts to make ethics evaluations, and adjust them according to the situation and their culture, but not their gender.