Q방법론을 활용한 회계윤리 인식에 대한 연구 = A Study on the Perception Types on Accounting Ethics Using the Q-Methodology

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Accounting ethics plays an important role as a part of ethical management. Recently, to practice ethical management through improving transparency and ethics in the field of accounting has come under spotlight and the reason why the education on the ethics wasn``t much activated in our society is currently being reviewed. The Bedford Committee of the American Accounting Association has ever argued that Specialized accounting education should underscore not only its necessary technology and knowledge but the ethical standard and practice of the experts. The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants has suggested that accounting ethics be included in the education. The Accounting Supervision Institute has also proposed taking courses like business or accounting ethics be a must to prospective certified public accountants. Likewise, accounting ethics has come to be a required subject not an optional one today. Therefore, the paper starts from a basic level of the recognition on the ethics, and then applies a Q methodology, which is a very useful qualitative research method for the next quantitative research. In other words, I``ve tried to categorize a subjective perception on the accounting ethics after surveying respondents who have ever participated in the accounting ethics education, utilizing the Q methodology. And I``ve tried to improve the availability of a hypothesis heuristic approach for further empirical studies. The analysis based on 23 P-samples and 26 Q-statements are divided into 4 groups. The < Type Ⅰ > puts on emphasis on ``ethics`` and ``authority``. Especially, they strongly approve the ``ethics``, but denounce the term, ``authority`` widely. I call the < Type Ⅰ > as 「Conscience and Ethics Type」, because they stress the basic moral of the related people itself. The < Type Ⅱ > suggests that accounting ethics are highly relevant to the conception of ``the will of the person in charge``, ``conscience``, ``control system``, ``monitoring system`` and so on. On the other hand, the < Type Ⅱ > strongly denies the term of ``conflict management``, ``force of habit management``, whereby I name the < Type Ⅱ > as 「Institution Intention Type」. While the < Type Ⅲ >, 「Transparency Type」, proposes that the concept of ``transparency``, ``settlement of ethical culture``, and ``ethics`` be closely related to the accounting ethics, ``authority``, ``accounting management experiences``, ``assigned tasks`` isn``t. The < Type Ⅳ > thinks the accounting ethics has a strong relationship with ``the will of CEO``, ``ethics``, ``transparency``, but has not with ``authority``, ``force of habit management`` etc. So, I call the < Type Ⅳ > as 「CEO intention Type」. Recently, the interest in ethical management is increasing in our society. With this tendency, the theoretical and normative frames of business ethics have been systematically established. The ability to recognize and deal with complex business ethics issues has become a significant priority in twenty-first-century companies. In recent years, a number of well-publicized scandals resulted in public outrage about deception and fraud in business and a subsequent demand for improved business ethics and greater corporate responsibility. So, the accounting ethics plays an important role as a part of complex business ethics. The qualitative study is an interpretational paradigm to identify its inherent property after looking over a various and complicated reality, social phenomenon, object, and people as it is, and then, from what``s heard and seen there, restructuring each event or language. Accordingly, it is not such an easy way as researchers should have a competence to analyze and accept the meaning of the phenomenon. Since it doesn``t require lots of specimen, there exists a lack of objectivity in the qualitative methodology. Nevertheless, I expect the new paradigm to be more utilized by improving the availability of the Q methodology interlinking qualitative with quantitative information