For simplicity, let's divide universities into two types: teaching universities and research-oriented universities. The problem with asking faculty at teaching universities to conduct research in accounting ethics is that they don't have time. Most colleagues I know who teach at these schools teach a huge number of courses, often with few repetitions. Multiple sections of the same course will create efficiencies by reducing the amount of time needed to prepare a class. With few or no chances to create such efficiencies, the instructor consumes much time just in preparing to teach. Add to these responsibilities the tasks of advising students and serving the university in various capacities, and it becomes ludicrous to ask these faculty to research accounting ethics. They do not have time.

Faculty at research-oriented schools face a different objective -- publishing enough articles of sufficient quality to obtain tenure and promotion. The competition among research universities focuses on obtaining and maintaining a reputation for good research. The schools want to be known for original, thoughtful, and rigorous work in business, and so deans want accounting academics to garner reputational capital in their discipline. This focus requires accounting faculty members to concentrate on building their own reputation and the school's. Here the difficulty in asking accounting faculty to research topics in accounting ethics is that many universities do not reward those individuals who successfully accomplish this mission. The tripping point is that academic articles on accounting ethics have not been construed as original, thoughtful, or rigorous. Accordingly, junior faculty -- indeed many senior faculty as well -- converge on topics and outlets that will help instead of hurt their careers.

Academic journals contribute to this dilemma. Premier journals such as The Accounting Review, Journal of Accounting Research, and Journal of Accounting and Economics rarely publish articles dealing with accounting ethics. In part, this is because editors and reviewers deem articles with a heavy dose of mathematics and statistics to be creative and precise, but they consider qualitative pieces subjective and imprecise. More to the point, many editors and reviewers think ethics an unscientific effort. In their minds, ethics necessarily involves value judgments, while science eliminates such subjective thinking. (Science does no such thing, but we shall leave that to another essay.) The main point is that the gatekeepers of the prestigious journals have constructed walls to prevent "unscientific" papers from entering, and this includes almost anything on ethics.

Even if we could eliminate these constraints, what's the point? Some scholars do study accounting ethics and publish essays in such journals as Research on Accounting Ethics and Advances in Accounting Education. What is their collective impact on the profession? Just about nil. Practitioners ignore these outlets, they do not read these papers, and even when they do, they do not implement any of the ideas. Practitioners generally assume that they know best and disregard anything that does not offer immediate impact on their work.

Some academics have attempted to make their work relevant by writing essays that critique the profession, indeed, naming names. This strategy at least draws the attention of practicing professionals, but also extracts their ire. An academic that walks along this path must accept the consequences and not be surprised when practitioners threaten deans and provosts with a reduction in their financial support. Chalk up another explanation for why so few faculty members conduct research in accounting ethics.

My advice to those who obtain their doctorates in accounting is to obtain tenure and probably full professor before doing anything in the arena of accounting ethics. You might then aspire to be a gladiator, knowing that tenure protects you, at least to some extent. Even then, do not underestimate the forces that will assault you. Researchers in accounting ethics must have thick skin, not worry about salary raises, and be willing to wage a long, protracted war against accounting scandals. It also doesn't hurt to be a fool!