The Impact Of Accounting Firms’ Organizational Characteristics,Ethical Climate On Auditors’ Ethical Decision-Making

Auditors’unethical behavior is a result of the ethical decision-making essentially. Previous studies have found that organizational ethical climate is an important factor that affect employee’s ethical decision-making, and the ethical climate is probability shaped by organizational characteristics. The study of organizational ethical climate in our country is in its infancy and there are very few studys exploring the accounting firms’organizational ethical climate.what the types of accounting firms’ethical climate are,which organizational characteristics may affect the types of ethical climate and how ethical climate influence the auditors’ ethical decision-making, all of these are topics for discussion desiderately. Therefore,it is worthy of further exploration of the relations between and among accounting firms’organisational attributes,ethical climate and auditors’moral decision-making.The study is the extension and enrichment of the correlation theory of ethical decision and ethical climate,which helps auditors make ethical decision preferably.The study adopted questionnaire survey method and chosed auditors in accounting firms of liaoning and henan provinces as the research object.The aim of this study is to explore the ethical climate structure of accounting firms and verify the impact of accounting firms’ organisational attributes, ethical climate on auditors’ethical decision-making, what’s more discuss the influence of interaction between auditors’moral orientation and ethical climate on auditors’ ethical decision-making.The data is handled and analyzed by SPSS 17.0 and AMOS 7.0 and the conclusions of this paper show that:Firstly, accounting firms’ethical climate present five-dimensional structure,namely, efficiency, rules and procedures, legal norms, social responsibility and corporate profits.Secondly, auditors perceived ethical climate in a partnership accounting firm is more ethical than that of a limited liability accounting firm; auditors perceived ethical climate in a large and medium-sized accounting firm is more ethical than that of a small-sized accounting firm. Thirdly, When auditors perceived ethical climate such as rules and procedures, legal norms and social responsibility, auditors are more inclined to make more ethical decision;When auditors perceived corporate profits ethical climate, auditors are more inclined to make unethical decision. Fourthly, compared with the limited liability accounting firm, auditors in the partnership one perceive rules and procedures, legal norms and social responsibility ethical climate more easily and are more inclined to make more ethical decision; auditors in the partnership one perceive corporate profits ethical climate more uneasily and are inclined to make unethical decision.Fifthly, there is no interaction between idealism orientation and ethical climate,but there is an interaction between relativism orientation and legal norms ethical climate,which makes auditors be inclined to make more ethical decision.Research results sustain that ethical climate of accounting firms is a principal element affecting auditors’ ethical decision-making and different organizational forms and organizational scale of accounting firm lead to the differences of ethical climate. So it is suggested that there shuould be a higher standard for the establishment of limited liability accounting firms and pay more attention to related work about the transition form limited liability accounting firm to partnership accounting firm. What’s more, Regulators should guide accounting firms to shape positive ethical climate and at the same time accounting firms shoule shape a positive ethical climate to guide and regularize auditor’s behavior.