Matching the 'Knowing what to do' and the 'Doing what you Know' in Ethical Decision-making

Corporate events in the past decades have contributed to a continued interest in the ethicaldecision-making of individuals in accounting. Much of the research in ethics and educationhave relied on the assumption that the individual’s level of ethical development is related tohis/her ethical behavior. Adapting a simplified version of Thorne’s (2000)prescriptive/deliberative reasoning in a cheat-to-gain business scenario, a survey of accountingstudents suggest that ethical development may not be related to behavior. In addition,consistent with Thorne (2001), results suggest that even if individuals may ‘know what to do’for the ideal ethical decision, they may not always actually choose that path or ‘doing whatthey know’.