Volume 20, Number 2, December 2025
| Training in Ethics: A Bulwark Against the Dilemmas Faced by Auditors in Cameroon |
Abstract
The objective of this research is to examine, in the context of Cameroon, whether ethics training enables auditors to resolve ethical dilemmas. Specifically, to examine the influence of ethics training on the auditor's ethical reasoning and perception of the moral intensity of ethical dilemmas. To achieve this, a questionnaire survey was conducted in the cities of Douala and Yaoundé between the months of July, August and September 2021 among a sample of 45 audit firms. For the data analysis, we used Principal Component Analysis (PCA) for the construction of indices related to the ethical variables and Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) multiple regression for parameter estimation. The analysis of the results led to a number of findings. First, the auditors in the sample had a good level of ethical dilemma identification (68%) and ethical judgment (76%) and a low level of ethical intention (30%). Second, more than half of the listeners in the sample have a high level of perception of the moral intensity of the dilemma (57%). Third, the results show that the level of ethical reasoning of the listeners and their perception of the moral intensity of the dilemmas depend significantly on their ethics training.
Keywords:Training, Ethics, Audit, Ethical dilemmas, Ethical decision
JEL Classification: G20, M41, M42, Z23