Assessing the Impact of the Giving Voice to Values Program in Accounting Ethics Education

Tara J. Shawver; William F. Miller

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Assessing the Impact of the Giving Voice to Values Program in Accounting Ethics Education

Tara J. Shawver

King’s College, USA

William F. Miller

University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire, USA

Volume 15: 2018, pp. 133-168: ABSTRACT

This paper assesses the impact of the Giving Voice to Values (GVV) program. The GVV program takes a very different approach to ethics education and shifts the focus from the traditional why actions are unethical to how one can effectively resolve ethical conflict. The GVV program encourages reflection on potential actions and reactions through practice with voicing one’s values. We chose to implement this program in an advanced financial accounting course and encouraged our students to voice their values through scripted role-plays. After implementing this program and empirically assessing the impact of the ethics intervention, we find that students are more likely to speak up and confront unethical actions by voicing their values to internal management, the CFO, and company hotlines after completing the module. While not a primary focus of the study, the intervention also appears to have increased the students’ ability to recognize and increase their sensitivity to ethical issues.