Professional Behaviour of Accounting Academics: Fruits of Nonconcurrence

Abstract

This paper studied how lack of professional behaviour by accounting academics impacts reputation of their employing universities in Ghana. We employed cross-sectional survey design to collect data from 1,225 accountants and analysed via Cronbach’s alpha, tests of differences-between-proportions, and one-way ANOVA. Generally, few academics lack professional behaviour, yet students would not recommend their universities to others. Consequently, lack of professional behaviour causes loss of reputation, and negative stakeholder relationships with appreciable financial cost consequences. The accounting profession, business schools, other accountancy training institutions and organisations must provide policies, practices, programmes and punitive measures that are capable of averting the situation.

Keywords: Accounting academic, accounting ethics, non-adherence, cost consequence, professional behaviour