Background: The existence of professional ethics in accounting is very crucial, because accountants have effective roles in social and economic processes and without fidelity to their roles; they may cause irreparable damages to the society. In order to increase the effectiveness of professional ethics, the existence of patterns corresponded to the societies’ cultures is necessary. Because, to date, no significant and effective attempt has been flourished in Iran in this field, this study aims to present a practical and comprehensive model of the accounting professional ethics.
Method: In this study, first by adopting “archival method”, 569 Iranian’s published articles relating to professional ethics in different journals and dissertations associated with accounting ethics, for the period of 2006-2015, were collected. Second, by employing “content analysis”, a novel model entitled “Sustainable Development Model of the Accounting Ethical Standards” (SDMAES) with its various constructs was presented. Third, the significance of the elements of each construct of the model was enumerated statistically via the “Delphi Technique” by seeking the opinion of the 15 professional experts in the accounting ethics.
Results: Findings show that during span of the study, a total of 104 articles related to ethics were published in the accounting journals and there is a statistical significant difference between numbers of ethics’ articles published in various journals. The proposed model, which is based on the content analysis, consists of 4 constructs and 69 factors. The priority of the model is: individual construct, social construct, economic construct, and sustainable environmental construct.
Conclusion: The promulgated model is practical and shows the significance of professional ethics, constructs, and sub-factors of the model