In recent years the interest for ethics has increased exponentially. It has become more and more common with the ethic rules and guiding of principles within the business world, both in companies and in different professional groups. Auditors face difficulties and have to deal with different ethical problems where ethics and morality is taken up. It is important that accountants can react in a legal and correct manner. To become an accountant a person should have gone through college or university where the schools have some responsibility to provide the student with basic ethics course for a accounting education.
The main aim with our paper is based on the theories of Lawrence Kohlberg about ethical development investigation potential differences in the ethical reasoning among student who are in first or last year of the studies with orientation in accounting. Related by these results established ethics course impact on how it affects the ethical reasoning of students.
The empirical investigation we did was that we conducted through interviews with eight students, of which four of them was in their first year of studies and the other four was in their last year of their studies at the Stockholm University.
The study showed that there are differences among grades. The respondents that was in their first year of their studies was on average level of three. The other respondents who was on their last year of study was on average level of five on the Kohlberg’s theory for ethical development.