Assessing Virtual Reality’s Influence on Honesty in Reporting

Organizations, businesses, and society are exploring and adopting virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). VR is expected to boost the global economy by 1. 5 trillion by 2030. In this study, we focus on the effect of VR on an important accounting variable—reporting honesty. We examine reporting honesty across two tasks, various measures, and various populations, that are commonly used in existing research. In our initial experiment, participants misreported more in a dice rolling task when performing it in a VR setting than in a non-VR setting. However, in a second and third experiment attempting to replicate and extend our findings, participants did not misreport more in the VR condition, suggesting our findings are not entirely robust. We contribute to our understanding of ethical decision making in VR as well as the importance of replication in accounting research.