Accounting Professionals’ Ethical Judgment and the Institutional Disciplinary Context: A French–US Comparison

International audienceThis paper investigates whether one aspect of the national institutional context (namely the disciplinary process of the accounting profession) may be associated with accounting professionals' ethical judgment, in France and the United States. For each country our study seeks to find if there is a link between the ethical judgment of accounting professionals and the disciplinary context, then we make a comparative analysis between the two nations. Our findings suggest that the judgment of the American accounting professionals is more influenced by the disciplinary decisions of the accountancy board. Conversely, the judgment of French accounting professionals seems to be more independent of the disciplinary context. Beyond the differences between the two countries, our results also show some common points; in both countries women tend to judge misconduct more severely than men. We then discuss these results by highlighting some characteristics of the legal systems (such as the facility of the procedure and the publication of sanctions), and that of the national culture (mainly the perception of the law and its link to ethics) which may account for the differences between the two nations. We conclude by identifying implications for the regulation of the accounting profession