A Pedagogy for Inculcating Professional Values in Accounting Students: Results from an Experimental Intervention

Research has shown that rankings of personal values significantly differ between accounting professionals and accounting students in the United States and other countries. This difference implies a lack of Person-Organization (P-O) fit between students and the accounting profession. This study presents an educational pedagogy, using both a Curriculum Modification (CM) Intervention and a Value Self-Confrontation (VSC) Intervention, that highlights professional values and can lead to value change in accounting students. Experimental results indicate that this pedagogy can have a significant impact on converging student values with those of the profession (AICPA ethics code). This finding suggests that a Curriculum Modification Intervention combined with a VSC Intervention could be used by educators globally to converge values of accounting students with those of professional accountants, thereby improving ethical decision-making by individuals, as well as having positive impacts on accounting firms’ hiring, socialization, and retention of employees