The Efect of Ethical Commitment Reminder and Reciprocity in the Workplace on Misreporting

Despite the pervasive use of ethics training by companies, research in management accounting has not considered the
efectiveness of such training in curtailing managers’ misreporting. This study examines the efect of ethics training on misreporting as a reminder to raise the awareness of employees’ ethical commitment. Furthermore, this study investigates the
extent to which reciprocity in the workplace afects managers’ misreporting. The results from an experiment involving 124
managers show that in the absence of an ethical commitment reminder, managers are more likely to engage in misreporting
than when an ethical commitment reminder is present. The results suggest that ethical commitment reminder interacts with reciprocity in the workplace, afecting managers’ misreporting. Specifcally, the results reveal that managers are more likely to engage in misreporting under the reciprocity in the workplace condition when the ethical commitment reminder is absent.
The theoretical and practical implications of these fndings are discussed.