Organizational Leadership and Ethical Climate in Utah’s Certified Public Accounting Profession (20-minute Presentation Slides) by Jeffrey N. Barnes, CPA, MAcc Oral Defense Slides in Partial Fulfillment of Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Business Administration UNIVERSITY OF PHOENIX February 2013
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Organizational Leadership and Ethical Climate in Utah’s
Certified Public Accounting Profession(20-minute Presentation Slides)
byJeffrey N. Barnes, CPA, MAcc
Oral Defense Slides in Partial Fulfillment of Requirements for the Degree
Doctor of Business Administration
UNIVERSITY OF PHOENIX
February 2013
Chapter 1, Introduction
• CPAs are critically involved with assuring fair presentation of financial statements.
• Foundations of fraudulent behavior are rooted in sociological, psychological, and moral-development theories (Albrecht, Romney, Cherrington & Roe, 1982).
Chapter 1, IntroductionSignificance of the Problem
• Accounting profession to benefit from the study by,
– understanding current state of organizational leadership,– finding confirmatory or disconfirmatory evidence that
leadership correlates to ethical perceptions, – determining if religiosity and regulatory influence relate to
leadership and ethical climate perceptions, and– designing leadership training interventions.
Chapter 1, IntroductionOverview of the Research Design
• H10: A leaders’ transformational leadership style does not relate to the subordinate’s perception of the firm’s ethical climate in Utah.
• H20: A leaders’ transactional leadership style does not relate to the subordinate’s perception of the firm’s ethical climate in Utah.
• H30: A leaders’ laissez-faire leadership style does not relate to the subordinate’s perception of the firm’s ethical climate in Utah.
Chapter 1, IntroductionOverview of the Research Design
• H40: Known exogenous regulatory/punishment factors, as perceived by subordinates, do not relate to the subordinate’s perception of the firm’s ethical climate and immediate leadership in Utah.
• H50: The degree of service or church attendance does not relate to the subordinates’ perception of the firm’s ethical climate and immediate leadership in Utah.
• Alternate hypotheses, for each of the null hypotheses, suggest that relationships exists
Chapter 1, IntroductionOverview of the Research Design
Chapter 2, Review of LiteratureIntroduction
• The current study,
– explains previous research related to leadership and ethical climate, which is sparse in the accounting profession,
– provides secondary evidence regarding regulatory controlling subordinate effect, and
– provides secondary evidence regarding the nascent emerging positive subordinate effects of religiosity.
Chapter 2, Review of LiteratureDocumentation
Category of Documentation Number Percentage
2006 to present 123 44.2%
Prior 2006 154 55.8%
All references 277 100.0%
Founding or extending theorists 41 14.8%
Empirical research 83 30.0%
Peer-reviewed articles 198 71.5%
Books 57 20.6%
Dissertations/unpublished research 4 1.4%
Official websites 18 6.5%
Chapter 2, Review of LiteratureSummary
• Both the lack of empirical research into the public accounting profession and the possible insights correlative influence these two moderating variables could provide and substantiate the additional needed empirical studies regarding the current state of accounting firms’ ethical climate structure and the prevailing leadership style typically exhibited.
Chapter 2, Review of LiteratureSummary
• An organization’s ethical climate, is founded on the collective foundation of it individuals moral and ethics philosophies. These moral and ethical philosophies are related to the five empirically derived ethical climate types found within organizations.
• Organizational leadership shapes and is shaped by the organization’s ethical climate. Potentially affecting the public accountants’ perceptions of organizational leadership and ethical climate are two potential moderating variables, which are awareness of regulatory statutes and personal religiosity, respectively.
Chapter 3: MethodTheoretical Model Design
Known Exogenous Regulatory/Punishment
Factors(MV: H4)
1 FSGO Scale
(FSGO Survey, 12 Questions)
Subordinates' Perception of
5 Ethical Climate Scales(DV)
(ECQ Survey, 26 Questions)
Extent of Religiosity/Compassionate
Service(MV: H5)
1 Scale
(REL Survey, 4 Questions)
Superiors'Leadership Style(IV: H1, H2, H3)
9 Leadership Scales
(MLQ Survey, 45 Questions)
Legend:
DV Dependent VariableIV Independent VariableMV Moderating (Intervening) VariableH Hypothesis
• Four instruments were used in this research study, the
– Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ), or standard MLQ, or also known as the MLQ 5X short, by Avolio and Bass (2004),
– Ethical Climate Questionnaire (ECQ), by Victor and Cullen (1987, 1988),
– Understanding of Federal Sentencing Guidelines for Organizations, by researcher (2012), and
– Religiosity, by researcher (2012).
Chapter 3: MethodPopulation
• In 2010, approximately 1,175 certified public accountants (CPAs), in the practice of public accounting, in the State of Utah and members of the Utah Association of Certified Public Accountants (UACPA, 2009).
• There were 469 separate physical CPA firm offices in Utah at the time of the study, many with below five CPAs. Of the 469 firms, only 41 firms with five or more CPAs exist (UACPA, 2009).
• 11 CPA firms provided written permission to contact organization personnel, via email, for the administration of the electronic survey of this research study.
Chapter 3: MethodData Collection (Cont.)
• The original request was sent on February 7, 2012, the second request was sent on February 18, 2012, and the third and last request was sent March 13, 2012.
• The 257 email addresses, at the time the survey was administered, there was provided 236 continuing valid prospective respondents. The reduction of 21 emails represented natural attrition from the firms. The number of survey participants was 103 from a target population of 236, providing a 43.6% response rate.
Chapter 3: MethodResearcher Error with ECQ Instrument (Cont.)
Proper Ethical Climate Questionnaire Scale and Scale Used in This Study Proper ECQ Measurement Scale
Chapter 3: MethodResearcher Error with ECQ Instrument (Cont.)
• According to Bart Victor, Ph.D. (personal communication, August 2, 2012), who is one the originators of the Ethical Climate Questionnaire (Victor and Cullen, 1988), this study’s collected data would expect to still be meaningful. He provided the following guidance,
. . . the data collection need not be reperformed; to address the scale error in the ‘Methods’ section of the dissertation; to state that the existing data means, variances, and correlations are meaningful and reportable; to suggest that the scale errors do not cause a systemic or universal disqualifying error, because the recorded survey respondents’ impressions about the perceived ethical climate types are still valid; to not transform the data, thus, to use the existing data as is; and to check for similar intercorrelations and reliability.
Chapter 3: MethodCorrelation Analysis
Guilford Interpretation of the Magnitude of Significant Correlations
Absolute Value of Rho (r)
Interpretation
< .20 Slight, almost no relationship
.20 - .39 Low correlation, definite but small relationship
.90 – 1.00 Very high correlation, very dependable relationship Source: Van Aswegen & Engelbrecht, 2009, p. 5.
Chapter 3: MethodANOVA Analysis
• Prior to running the ANOVA analyses, assumptions for ANOVA were tested. The assumptions for normality were tested, which ascertain that the scores be normally distribution around the mean of the dependent variable. Histograms were developed for all the dependent variable ethical climate types.
• Also tested was the homogeneity of variance, which requires that the groups have equal variances in the population. Scatterplots of dependent variable’s various ethical climate types were constructed to determine the absence of heteroscedasticity. Both histograms and scatterplot tests were performed visually.
Chapter 3: MethodANOVA Analysis (Cont.)
• ANOVA analysis was performed for those correlative relationships with statistical significance. ANOVA or analysis of variance provided the F-crit statistic (F-test, F) , R2, and significance.
Chapter 3: MethodUnivariate Analysis
• Statistical analysis also treated the demographic categories, with sufficient subsample size, as independent variables.
• Running univariate analysis of variances between the demographic independent variable and the leadership independent variable to the ethical climate’s dependent variables was performed. Those relationships that demonstrated significant relationships were reported
Chapter 4: ResultsStatistical Analyses
• Findings for Hypothesis 1—Transformational Leadership’s Relationship to Ethical Climates
• Findings for Hypothesis 2—Transactional Leadership’s Relationships to Ethical Climates
• Findings for Hypothesis 3—Laissez-faire Leadership’s Relationships to Ethical Climates
• Findings for Hypothesis 4—Regulatory Influence Relationships to Leadership and Ethical Climates
• Findings for Hypothesis 5—Religiosity’s Relationships to Leadership and Ethical Climates
• Limited Cross-sectional Statistical Analysis• Post Hoc Power and Effect Size Analysis
Chapter 4: ResultsFindings for Hypothesis 1--Correlations
• To understand the significant interaction between gender (or with
any other demographic independent variable), and transformational leadership (or any
other independent variable), on the caring ethical climate type perception (or
any other dependent variable), the transformational leadership (or any other independent
variable) was grouped into those scoring higher than one standard deviation (+1SD) and those scoring lower than one standard deviation (-1SD) and plotted with gender (or with any other demographic independent variable).
MLQ Frequency Key: 0.0 = Not at all, 1.0 – Once in a while,2.0 = Sometimes, 3.0 = Fairly often, and 4.0 = Frequently, if not always
Chapter 5: RecommendationsChange Leadership Behavior and Attributes
Chapter 5: Conclusions and Recommendations Limitations, Improvements, & Suggestions
• Improvements– Inadequacy of the Transactional Leadership for
Ethical Climate Awareness• The independent variable, transactional leadership style, produced non-statistical results, with respect to the
impact of the subordinate’s perception of their ethical workplace climate. However, upon deeper correlation analysis and ANOVA analysis, accepted leadership subscales of contingent reward and management-by-exception active had statistical correlation and significance. Transactional leadership has, in previous research, been problematic in accounting profession research.
• In the future, perhaps some exploratory qualitative research can better understanding how transactional leadership style’s subscales of contingent reward, management-by-exception—passive, and management-by-exception—active, is present and utilized in the public accounting profession. Then a better quantitative research conceptual model could be posited.
Chapter 5: Conclusions and Recommendations Limitations, Improvements, & Suggestions
• Suggestions for Future Research• First, with appropriate corrections for the ECQ Survey instrument, this study can be replicated in other
professional public accounting jurisdictions. The accumulation of future replications can add to the aggregating of a larger, robust sample, perhaps leading to a meta-analysis.
• Second, better religiosity construct development can be pursued.
• Third, further research opportunities. For example, – why in Utah do women’s employment percentages nearly shrink in half, over time? – Why do men represent a higher percentage in the accounting profession’s senior positions? – What are the social factors creating a “glass ceiling” effect in Utah’s public accounting profession? – Why does the public accounting profession continue to appear unattractive to minority persons?
• Fourth, can better process-based management philosophies, with leadership training interventions, further bend the Utah public accounting leadership culture more toward transformational leadership, less towards transactional, and the eradication of laissez-faire leadership?
• Fifth, could accounting firms that improve their transformational leadership practices, – heighten the subordinates’ perception to the more preferred ethical climate types (i.e., caring, lawcode, and rules) ?– earn higher employee satisfaction, experience less professional staff turnover, and increase profitability?
References
Provided in the separate chapter PowerPoint presentations