Accounting Ethics Courses, Teaching Styles, Ethical Culture and Ethical Behaviour of Accounting Graduates in Malaysia

The failure of accountants to maintain ethical behaviour while performing professional services has become an issue that has been discussed over the years.Ethics education and the environment has been proven to assist to shape the ethical behaviour of accounting students.Thus, the objective of this study was to examine whether accounting ethics courses, teaching styles, and ethical culture influence the ethical behaviour of accounting graduates in Malaysia.E-survey questionnaires were distributed to accounting graduates who graduated in 2019, 2020, and 2021 with less than three years of working experience in accounting/auditing-related fields.A total of 344 usable responses were received and it was analysed using PLS-SEM.The study found that teaching delivery and culture, had a positive and significant relationship with ethical behavior but ethics courses were found to have a positive but not significant relationship with ethical behaviour.The accounting industry should foster a positive ethical culture at work by providing ethics training and holding seminars to address ethical issues in the field in order to raise awareness and understanding of ethics.Accounting professional bodies and educational institutions should use ethics cases, short videos and role play in their teaching of ethics.