A Three- dimensional Model of Ethical Competencies’ Education in Accounting Program

One of the leading characteristics of accounting profession is its accountability to the public. Unfortunately, occurrence of recent financial crisis has dwindled the trust to accounting profession. Many researchers believe that the destroyed trust can only be recovered by ethical leadership and learning ethics. Therefore, the objective of the present research is to offer a model for ethical competencies’ education in accounting profession. The desired model includes three aspects namely recognition of ethical competencies, teaching method, and the accounting course in which the mentioned competencies should be taught. In this research, the required data were gathered in 1398(Iranian year) from the 150 questionnaires which were distributed among accounting elites including accounting lecturers and certified public accountants. Fuzzy Delphi methodology with screening approach is used to analyze the data. Based on the results, eleven ethical competencies are recognized which should be taught using combinational method separately rather than teaching as a sub-set of an accounting course. In general, it is expected that using the mentioned model for ethical competencies’ education in academic environments will familiarize the accounting students with the necessary competencies needed to make ethical decisions. And then, by improving the accounting decision making in workplaces, graduates can pave the way toward public’s trust to accounting profession.