Management Accountants’ Empathy and Their Violation of Fiduciary Duties: a Replication and Extension Study Using fMRI
| Autor: | Mina Ličen, Sergeja Slapničar, Grega Repovs, Anka Slana Ozimič, Frank G. H. Hartmann |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2021 |
| Předmět: |
Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management
medicine.diagnostic_test Brain activity and meditation media_common.quotation_subject Center for Cognition Culture and Language (CCCL) Empathy Replication (computing) Task (project management) Fiduciary Strategic business unit Accounting Management accounting medicine Functional magnetic resonance imaging Psychology Social psychology Institute for Management Research media_common |
| Zdroj: | Behavioral Research in Accounting |
| ISSN: | 1050-4753 |
| Popis: | Research shows that management accountants' role to support business unit managers' decision-making may cause them to succumb to managers' pressures to misreport. Using electroencephalographic (EEG) evidence, Eskenazi, Hartmann, and Rietdijk (2016) demonstrate the role of automatic emotional mimicry, which drives misreporting when managers' personal interest is at stake, but not when BU interest is at stake. In this study, we aim to replicate this finding using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which enables us to separate affective from cognitive empathy. Thirty accounting professionals completed an emotion observation task during which empathy-related brain activity was recorded. We then explore accountants' inclination to misreport using empathy-invoking accounting scenarios. We find that the inclination to misreport correlates with activation of cognitive empathy regions, but only for scenarios in which accountants misreport to serve business unit's interests, rather than managers' personal interests. We find no evidence for a role of affective empathy. Data Availability: Data are available upon request from the corresponding author. JEL Classifications: M41; D87. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
| Externí odkaz: |
|