ABSTRACT

Bribery and corruption in the world of business are widespread in many developing countries. We argue that accounting education is an important means by which this kind of corruption can be addressed. In particular, we believe that it would benefit developing countries if corporate social responsibility (CSR) was to become pervasive in the accounting syllabus, unlike in the west, in which CSR is essentially an add-on. We advise that developing countries be selective in terms of which aspects of western accounting education they choose to adopt, and that they look for ways to incorporate aspects of their cultural heritage within the accounting syllabus, particularly those which help to cement the need for CSR in the syllabus. We illustrate our arguments by referring to the particular case of India.