machiavellianism

Tax avoidance is making use of legal loop holes to display an individual's financial situation as if it were lower than what it is in order to decrease the amount of income tax owed. Behavioral economics and taxation literature indicate that psychological factors can provide further insight on accountants' financial decisions. The literature claim that tax compliance can be influenced by an individual’s personality and beliefs. Therefore, in this research, the effects of psychological variables including Machiavellianism, emotional manipulation and moral foundations are examined on tax avoidance in accounting and finance professions. The aim of this study is to investigate the role of Machiavellianism and emotional manipulation as two negative attributes of human beings and moral foundations in tax avoidance in listed and unlisted firms. For this purpose, a sample consisting of 500 accountants and financial managers of listed and unlisted companies of Tehran stock exchange was selected. This study is an applied and descriptive survey. The hypotheses of the research have been analyzed by structural equation modeling using Lisrel software. The evidence of this study show that Machiavellianism has a positive and moral foundations have a negative effect on tax avoidance. But, this study doesn’t confirm any significant relation between emotional manipulation and tax avoidance. This paper also states that social and psychological variables  would  explain the tax avoidance phenomenon.

Background: Since preparation of financial statements is responsibility of the management of the Company, so the type of management personality is one of the critical factors influencing their behavior in performing earnings management. As a result, the dark (negative) personality dimensions can play an effective role in earnings management. On the other hand, ethical leadership can act as a moderating factor; this research measures the effect of ethical leadership style on reducing dark personality dimensions (Machiavellianism, psychopathy, narcissism) of effective person in earnings management. Methods: The data of 77 companies listed in the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE) and Iran Fara Bourse (IFB) from 2011 to 2018 used in this research for testing the hypotheses. Also, the linear regression test and structural equations model used. Results: The results show that most of the effective persons in earnings management are the CEOs of companies. The results also indicate a positive relationship between ethical leadership and dark personality dimensions (Machiavellianism, psychopathy, narcissism). Conclusion: The results indicate a positive relationship between ethical leadership and the dimensions of the dark personality; This is due to the closeness of dimension of "Narcissism" to the issues of intrinsic leadership, and on the other hand, this issue could be considered close to the perspective of the person involved in earnings management and supervisors and lack of belief in ethical supervision and leadership.

Introduction: The existence of moral behavior in the auditing profession is of special importance. Moral identity is defined as a person's commitment to perform ethical behaviors, which can be influenced by many individual factors. Personality is one of these factors. In this regard, this research was conducted with the aim of investigating the relationship between Machiavellianism and auditors' moral identity, considering the role of gender. Material and Methods: This is an applied research and of a descriptive-correlation type. Statistical population of the study consists of auditors working in private audit institutions. The statistical sample includes 228 people who were selected using the available sampling method. The research variables were measured using standard questionnaires, and finally, multivariate regression was used to analyze the collected data. Results: The results of data analysis showed that Machiavellianism has a negative and significant effect on auditors' moral identity. This effect is more intense for women auditors than men. Conclusion: The results of this research can help to know the individual factors affecting the moral identity of auditors, in addition to the development of behavioral accounting literature, it can provide useful information to the legislators and policymakers of the profession and finally increase the motivation of ethical behavior of auditors

SUBJECT AND OBJECTIVES : This article is to explain Machiavelli's view on the criterion of moral action and its evaluation based on the anthropological foundations of Ayatollah Misbah Yazdi. METHOD AND FINDING : The method of this article is descriptive-analytical and the findings of this article are: Machiavelli is a power-oriented philosopher who presented his moral opinions in the form of his political views. He believes that any kind of behavior and action can be used to achieve the goal of human power; But Ayatollah Misbah Yazdi believes, to determine the standard of goodness and ugliness of human actions, one must first gain a correct understanding of man, his existential dimensions, his happiness and misery, his perfection and ultimate goal. CONCLUSION : Machiavelli considers the main goal of life to be human power and considers human actions moral if they enable humans to achieve material power. From his viewpoint, power has inherent value and man can use any means to acquire it. On the other hand, Ayatollah Misbah Yazdi believes in acquiring spiritual and moral life. He believes that the goal does not justifies the means, and to attaining the human power strength, you cannot use any behavior and action to achieve the goals.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of ethics-oriented leadership and political skills of digital organizational developments on accounting students' perceptions. Method: The study population in this study was accounting students in Shiraz. The statistical population of this study includes all accounting students in Shiraz, whose number is 850 people. The number of samples was 265 based on the Morgan table. 400 questionnaires were distributed electronically and randomly and 265 questionnaires were selected. After data collection, structural equations were analyzed using SPSS and SMART PLS software. Findings: Based on the results, ethical leadership has a positive and significant relationship with accounting students' perception of leadership effectiveness. Political skills have a negative and significant relationship with accounting students' perception of leadership effectiveness. Machiavellianism mediates the role of leadership in the relationship between ethical leadership and accounting students' perceptions of leadership effectiveness. Machiavellianism has an increasing mediating role in political skills and accounting students' perceptions of leadership effectiveness. Conclusion: This article is practical. Therefore, its main contribution is to clarify the discussion about the impact of digital transformation in the accounting sector and the importance of accounting ethics in the digital age. Nevertheless, the results can be interesting for researchers, policymakers, teachers, professional institutions, and accounting professionals.