Ethical Competences in Accounting Higher Education: An Expectation Gap between the Profession and University

Abstract

The integration of the Spanish University System into the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) introduces, among other aspects, competency-based learning (MECD, 2003). For a discipline like accounting this context implies the challenge of introducing ethics into accounting education, since ethical values have been included as a fundamental part of the generic competencies that graduates are required. The following study analyzes, in the light of the importance that academics and professionals give to ethical competences, to which extent universities have committed with ethics, considering the information provided in their respective websites relating their first cycle degrees. The outcomes obtained show the little presence of ethical competencies in the information published in the websites of the offered courses.