The public trust within the Maltese accountancy profession

Abstract

PURPOSE: The focus of this research is to gauge the public’s perception of the Maltese accountancy profession and also looking into the aspect of restoring such trust. Furthermore, this research aims to gauge the ethical reasoning of Maltese professional accountants to be able to provide a link between that and the public’s level of trust. Lastly, this study will look into what the main accounting institutions do to safeguard the profession as well as the aspect of ethics.

DESIGN: Two questionnaires were conducted to gauge different aspects. One questionnaire was undertaken to assess the perception of the public at large with respect to the local accountancy profession and the aspect of rekindling the public trust. The second questionnaire was undertaken to elicit the ethical reasoning of the professional accountants. A couple of semi-structured interviews were undertaken to substantiate the data gathered from such questionnaires and to assess the purpose and processes of the main accounting institutions.

FINDINGS: The findings were analysed through the use of SPSS Software whereby by utilising the Friedman, Kruskal-Wallis and the Chi Square tests. In total, 446 responses were gathered from the public whereas 128 responses were gathered from the professional accountants.

CONCLUSIONS: The findings indicated that the level of trust within the public has not decreased due to the accountancy scandals, but it is actually perceived to be relatively high. Furthermore, accountants are viewed to have a good ethical radar. As for the main accounting institutions, they have the necessary procedures in place to preserve the profession, however, it is believed that more should be done.

VALUE: There is relevant international literature and research with respect to the level of trust within the public, however, locally, this is somewhat lacking whereby it only extends to research limited within the area of audit itself which dates back a few years. Furthermore, it does not provide any links between the level of trust and the accountants’ ethical reasoning. Therefore, this research should aid the reader to understand what the public’s perception is with respect to the accountancy profession whilst it is being weighed against the ethical reasoning of accountants.