Survey of Time Devoted to Ethics in Accountancy Programs in North American Colleges and Universities

A survey of 122 accounting administrators (chairs) of the largest North American accountancy programs was analyzed from two institutional perspectivesprivate versus public and AACSB-accredited versus non-AACSB-accredited-to determine attitudes on ethics education. The results reveal that chairs in all institutional categories agreed that ethics education is ''of great importance,'' both in the business and the accountancy curriculum, and that most chairs felt it was even more important in the accountancy curriculum. Findings indicate that most institutions currently incorporate ethics education into the accountancy curriculum instead of having stand-alone, ethics-specific classes. Furthermore, most chairs preferred the integration approach to teaching ethics rather than offering stand-alone classes. The findings also indicate that although ethics education has increased substantially in the accountancy curriculum, departmental chairs ideally want to allot more time to ethics.