弊端揭發：核數師決策研究

Abstract

目前有關於揭弊者的研究是迫切及重要的，因為公眾對於會計師事務所及其客戶不當行為之揭弊機制訴求日益高漲。過去的實證研究主要均局限在會計範疇內的道德決策及倫理問題為主題。有趣的是這些研究大多都是以美國或其他已開發國家為主的研究，鮮少有以其他地區的專業審計人員作為對象，本論文的研究即欲彌補此差距以四大會計師事務所香港及中國大陸辦事處之專業審計人員為研究對象，並嘗試找出專業審計人員於道德決策時的考量。 本論文研究目的具有兩個面向：首先是嘗試找出若審計人員為揭弊者，其在道德決策時的影響因素（包括個人因素、情境因素及道德因素的取捨等）；其次是審計人員作為揭弊者在道德決策時，所面對的工作環境有哪些道德問題會成其考量項目。 本論文以Rest (1986) 所構建的倫理決策模型作為基礎，推斷個人因素（如年齡及性別等）、情境因素（如專業守則及組織的道德氣候等）及道德面向（如後果影響的程度等）等與決策時所經歷的三個階段（即識別、判斷和意向等）的相互關係。本論文採橫斷面（cross-sectional）之研究方法，先於KPMG搜集數據樣本後透過統計方法進行分析研究並對研究的假說進行測試檢定，然後本研究再繼以深度訪談以回應研究問題。 本論文研究結果顯示，專業審計人員在道德決策的三個階段中與個人的道德哲學面向關連性最為顯著強烈。此外，道德層面的因素對於審計人員揭弊決策階段也佔有明顯重要的解釋部分。最後，雖然情境因素的影響於檢定中沒有顯著的關係，但年齡、性別及教育程度等對道德決策階段的影響卻仍有較少顯著的影響。

Research on whistle-blowing is timely and important given the increasing pressure on public audit professional firms and their clients to provide appropriate mechanisms to facilitate effective whistle-blowing. Several empirical studies have been conducted on the subject of ethical decision making and ethical issues within accounting. Interestingly, most of this research has been done in the USA and the remaining has been conducted mainly in developed countries and very little research has been conducted in the other area of professional auditors. This study addresses this gap by adding empirical evidence related to the association of numerous variables with professional auditors’ ethical decision making in a Big-4 audit professional firm in Hong Kong and mainland China. The purpose of this study is twofold: first, to investigate the impact of those variables (individual variables, situational variables, and moral dilemmas) on the auditors’ whistle-blowing decision making and second, to determine what types of ethical issue are faced by the auditors at their workplace. The ethical decision making model adopted in this study hypothesizes that individual variables (e.g., age and gender), situational variables (e.g., professional ethics code and ethical climate), and moral dimensions (e.g., magnitude of consequences) have relationships with the first three stages of ethical decision making (recognition, judgment, and intention) as constructed by Rest (1986). Adopting a cross-sectional methodology, a questionnaire that included four scenarios were used to gather data from KPMG. Using statistical techniques, the study hypotheses were tested and followed by a study of in-depth qualitative interviews. The results of this study reveal that, individual moral philosophy dimensions had the strongest and most significant relationship with the three stages of ethical decision making for the professional auditors. Also, moral dimensions explained a significant portion of the variance in the auditors’ whistle-blowing decision making stages. Finally, while no significant relationships were found in relation to the impact of all situational variables examined, very few significant results were found with regard to the impact of age, gender, and educational level on ethical decision making stages.