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This research provides accounting-ethics authors and administrators with a benchmark for accounting-ethics research. While Bernardi and Bean (2010) considered publications in business-ethics and accounting’s top-40 journals this study considers research in eight accounting-ethics and public-interest journals, as well as, 34 business-ethics journals. We analyzed the contents of our 42 journals for the 25-year period between 1991 through 2015. This research documents the continued growth (Bernardi & Bean, 2007) of accounting-ethics research in both accounting-ethics and business-ethics journals. We provide data on the top-10 ethics authors in each doctoral year group, the top-50 ethics authors over the most recent 10, 20, and 25 years, and a distribution among ethics scholars for these periods. For the 25-year timeframe, our data indicate that only 665 (274) of the 5,125 accounting PhDs/DBAs (13.0% and 5.4% respectively) in Canada and the United States had authored or co-authored one (more than one) ethics article.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how accounting students view cheating actions inside and outside the classroom. It relates the love of money, a psychological variable, to the ethical perceptions of accounting students by examining their cheating perceptions.

A survey is developed based on cheating actions and the love of money scales and administered to 213 undergraduate and graduate accounting students in two universities in the western US students' perceptions of cheating are measured. Students are classified according to their love of money as money‐worshippers, money‐repellants, or careless money‐admirers.

Accounting students view cheating actions outside the classroom as more unethical than cheating actions inside the classroom. The love of money is significantly related to perceptions of cheating. Money worshippers view cheating actions as more ethical followed by money‐admirers and money‐repellants who view such actions as more unethical.

The surveyed students may not be representative of all students in the USA. In addition, perceptions of cheating may not determine cheating behavior.

Instructors should continue to emphasize the importance of ethical behavior. Future employers should consider the love of money as an important psychological variable related to ethical perception in their hiring decisions.

Previous research founds that classroom cheating can be used to predict future workplace cheating among accounting employees. The study is the first to examine the relationship between the love of money and cheating among accounting students.

Recent high-profile bankruptcies have renewed attention to earnings management practices. This study investigates whether high publicity of corporate bankruptcies makes a difference in the ethical perception of these practices. A survey depicting actual earnings management scenarios was administered to business students before and after these bankruptcies. The results showed a significant increase in the negative perception of earnings management actions after high publicity of unethical corporate behavior. In addition, many demographic factors such as age, experience and college major played a role in business students’ perception of the ethics of earnings management. The study suggests that business students are influenced by actual unethical examples of earnings management. These results, along with demographic differences, have implications for accounting education and the accounting profession.

Professional skepticism has been an essential part of every audit. Recently, Hurtt (2010) introduced the concept of trait skepticism (an enduring aspect of an individual's psychology). The current study examines trait professional skepticism using a sample of accounting students and investigates its potential relationship with ethical perception of earnings management actions. Results indicate that more skeptical students viewed earnings management actions as more unethical compared to less skeptical students. More specifically, higher skeptics viewed earnings management actions that benefited the manager and accounting manipulations as more unethical than actions that benefited the firm and were considered normal operating decisions. These results offer guidance to accounting instructors as they emphasize ethical issues in the classroom and are important to Certified Public Accountant (CPA) firms as they train their auditors in professional skepticism.

Earnings management behavior has been a concern in the accounting profession for a long time. This study surveyed 583 certified public accountants (CPAs) in public accounting, industry and academia to determine if there is a link between corporate ethical values and perception of earnings management. Selected earnings management scenarios were mailed to the respondents before high‐profile bankruptcies became public information. The results indicated that CPAs employed in organizations with high (low) ethical standards viewed earnings management activities as more unethical (ethical). Within‐group analyses of the respondents also found significant differences on the perception of corporate ethical values based on gender, age, job title and other demographic factors. The results indicated that there were early warning signals in the accounting profession regarding ethical values and earnings management. The results were particularly alarming among CPAs employed in industry who reported lower perception of their corporate ethical values.

The accounting profession has emphasized the need for professionals to develop ethical attitudes early in their career, even before they enter the profession. The current study aims to examine the attitude of 128 US auditing students regarding whistleblowing.

Some determinants of whistleblowing perception such as professional commitment and anticipatory socialization (as operationalized by perception of financial reporting) are explored.

The results indicate that auditing students very close to graduation with more commitment to their profession and higher perception of financial reporting are more likely to blow the whistle on illegal management actions.

The results of the research have implications for the accounting profession and accounting education.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of public accounting firms' mix of service revenue on their average productivity measured by total revenue per partner.

Using data from Public Accounting Report on top public accounting firms by revenue, an OLS regression model is applied by regressing revenue per partner on the percentage of revenue generated from auditing and attest, tax, management consulting, and other services independently.

Results show that the proportion of auditing and attest service revenue is negatively associated with public accounting firms' productivity. However, the proportion of other services revenue, other than tax and management consulting services, is positively associated with productivity. Additional investigation shows that if public accounting firms provide other services in their mix of services, then tax and management consulting services do not contribute to these public accounting firms' productivity.

Results of this study cannot be generalized beyond the top 100 public accounting firms, and the measurement of revenue per partner ignores the exact number of partners within different service areas.

Although auditing and attest services are considered core services of public accounting firms, they do not increase the productivity of the firm.

This study helps in assessing whether average productivity of public accounting firms is affected by the proportion of a specific type of service in the post‐SOX era.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the stability or loyalty in the auditor‐client relationship. It explores the association between audit fees and auditor loyalty. Specifically, it investigates whether clients paying less audit fees relative to other companies in their industries are more likely to be loyal to their auditors.

Logistic and ordinal regression analyses are used to compare loyal clients to clients that switched audit firms after controlling for factors that are expected to be associated with client loyalty.

Results show that relative audit fees have a significant effect on the degree of loyalty of clients to their audit firms. Additional analysis shows that the loyalty of clients that pay higher audit fees relative to similar clients in their industry are highly affected by increases in audit fees. However, the loyalty of clients who pay lower audit fees compared to similar clients in their industry is not affected by further increases in relative audit fees.

The study does not differentiate between auditor dismissal and auditor resignation in the classification of clients that switched auditors. It also does not classify auditor switches into auditor‐initiated switches and client‐initiated switches.

It is cost effective for clients to stay with the same audit firm. Audit firms should be careful when adjusting their audit fees from one period to another, as there is a higher probability of losing a client, when increasing the audit fees, especially if this client is already paying higher audit fees relative to similar clients.

The findings of this study increase the understanding of how relative audit fees affect client loyalty in the audit market.