ETHICAL PENALTIES: A STUDY ON POSSIBLE SITUATIONAL AND INDIVIDUAL FACTORS TO EXPLAIN LESS SEVERE PUNISHMENTS FOR ACCOUNTANTS

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.22533/at.ed.2164152403076

• Palavras-chave: Ethic, accounting, counselors, penalties.

• Keywords: Ethic, accounting, counselors, penalties.

• Abstract:

  The objective of this study was to verify whether the factors of age and professional experience of counselors who propose punishments explain the application of less severe ethical penalties to accountants. To this purpose, 390 cases opened against accounting professionals with active registrations at the Regional Accounting Council of the State of Mato Grosso were analyzed, which became final in the period from 2014 to 2018. The study had a probabilistic approach and thus, for the econometric examination, logistic regression was used. The results show that on average, reporting counselors are 58 years old and have 27 years of professional experience on average. The results showed that the older the counselors are, the less likely they are to issue warnings for ethical infractions and that more experienced counselors are more likely to punish offending accountants with a warning, that is, a less severe penalty. Descriptive statistics showed that the reserved warning, which is considered a less severe ethical punishment, represents 66.67% of the penalties applied to accountants.