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This research describes the status of accounting ethics course in accounting undergraduate program curriculum in Indonesia, which is based on the data available from the National Accreditation Agency for Higher Education website. The sample consists of 60 programs which have an accreditation status of A and the status is not expired yet. The result suggests that the majority of the programs offer an accounting-specific course and only a few of them have two stand-alone course on ethics in their curriculum. Not much differences are found regarding the naming of the course. Variations are observed regarding the course placement, nature of the course and the required prerequisites. Suggestions given include covering accounting ethics topic in the curriculum, preferably in a stand-alone course, or integrating it into other courses if a stand-alone one is not feasible and making sure that the learning outcomes related to accounting ethics are actually covered.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the attitude of public accountants in situations of ethical dilemmas in their professional activities. This paper examines the effect of ‘teposliro’ on ethical decision-making and seek to establish the prevalence of ‘semuci’ perception bias in accounting research. Public accountants’ preferences determine their ‘teposliro’ levels as they answered questions about fi ve scenarios related to auditing practicest to measure their ethical judgments. An important fi nding of this study suggests that ‘teposliro’ infl uence ethical decision making and there is existence of social recognition of the ‘semuci’ or ‘holier than others’ among the public accountants.

Conflict analysis as described in agency theory shows that asymetric information could occur. Information given to the principal might be sorted out in order to secure agents’ interests. This behavior is called oportunisitic behavior that encourages the practice of earnings management. To predict and explain opportunistic behavior, Watts and Zimmerman formulate three hypotheses: (1) bonus plan hypotheses, (2) debt covenant hypotheses, and (3) the political cost hypotheses. Research results based on these hypotheses prove that the practice of earnings management is more likely to be done without regard to principles of ethical values. By using cognitive and humanistic psychology, such as the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), and the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB)) the motive for opportunistic behavior could be explained and ethical behaviour that are influenced by social norms such as religions could be reconstructed. If individual feels that opportunistic behavior is contrary to religious norms and rules (GAAP /PSAK) then he will refuse to behave opportunistically. The rules of accounting policies that provide the opportunity for agents to select based on merit, enable rationalization of the opportunistic behavior as a self reaction mechanism that could justify the behavior as efforts to protect from external threats.