Identify and Rank the Factors Affecting Accounting and Auditing Ethics based on Multi-Criteria Decision Making Methods

The accounting and auditing profession must acquire the necessary skills in ethical judgment, so that it can consider the well-being of all those affected by its performance. Without strong and moral behaviour, the position of this old art and profession is shaken. This issue should be considered more by people who want to enter this field and technology than by companies. The main purpose of this study is to identify and rank the factors affecting accounting and auditing ethics among accountants and auditors. In order to identify the effective factors, while reviewing the studies, a semi-structured interview was conducted using a qualitative method of theme analysis. The experts interviewed were sixteen university professors and activists in the accounting and auditing profession. A review of the literature, research, and interview results reveals nine key themes that categorize the factors influencing corporate accounting and auditing ethics. In this research, key factors have been identified and then the fuzzy Delphi technique has been used to rank and find the importance of the factors. The results showed that government and legal, economic, individual, social, cultural, corporate governance, organizational and intelligence factors are involved in accounting and auditing ethics, respectively.

Keywords:

Ethics , accounting and auditing ethics , Ranking , fuzzy Delphi