Ethical decision-making behavior on the students taking accounting course: Bilecik Şeyh Edebali University example

In recent years, unpleasant incidents in businesses that have taken place particularly in accounting and inspection have made reliability of information, function of enlightening the public and the role of accounting crucial. Ethical behavior of accounting professionals is vital in terms of the role of accounting profession in society. Occupational characteristics that accounting professionals must possess can best be acquired during school years. In our country, faculty courses regarding education of accounting are more common in Business departments of Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences than other departments. Yet, these courses are just theoretical, not practical. The sector needs not people who are good at keeping records but a welleducated labor force trained in certain fields, are able to think analytically and are aware of the fact that accounting is a fundamental business function. In this respect, students who want to pursue an academic career in accounting must be equipped in both theoretical and practical terms and thus the requirements of the sector must be met. Introducing criteria of ethical values to students at an early age and giving them a perspective will help these students make the connection between their jobs and ethical attitudes at any field of career they may choose. However, the number of studies on how much ethics education is covered at universities is far from being sufficient. This study aims to identify ethical perceptions of business department students, who are prospective accounting professionals, according to some variables. In this study, students of Business department in Bilecik ġeyh Edebali University participated in the questionnaire. The effects of factors like gender, age, school year, awareness of the concept of ethics, place of residence and also high school graduation on their ethical decisions were researched and statistically significant differences in terms of such variables were found. Key Words: Ethics, Professional Ethics for Accounting, Ethics Education, Perception of Ethics