The “Big Five Personality Traits” and Accountants’ Ethical Intention Formation

Abstract

Abstract From an online survey of 114 participating accountants at staff, senior staff, and supervisor levels from a top-100 U.S. accounting firm, we investigate the effects of the Big Five personality traits (Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Extraversion, Neuroticism, and Openness) on the ethical decision-making process of accountants. Within the framework of Rest’s (1986) Four-Component Model of Ethical Behavior, we focus on Component III, the formation of an intention to act upon one’s best ethical judgment. Based on the limited extant literature on the connection between personality and ethical behavior, we expect that accountants high in Conscientiousness and Openness will tend to form an intention to act ethically despite pressure in an ethical dilemma. We develop more tentative hypotheses about the remaining three factors. Controlling for age, gender, education, sole earning status, and experience, we find clear positive statistical effects of only Conscientiousness and Openness. These findings have implications for the human resource departments of accounting firms, as well as contributing to a basic understanding of the relationships between Big Five personality factors and ethical intention.

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