Abstract

The accountant professional code of ethics contains the ethical principles applicable to his profession. The purpose of the code of ethics for the accountant is to enable the professional to adopt a personal attitude, according to the ethical principles known and accepted by society. Most financial scandals have called into question the ethical conduct of accounting professionals. The code of ethics in the accounting area aims to enable professionals to adopt a personal attitude in accordance with some ethical principles known and accepted by society, in order to maintain adequate social behavior in accordance with the requirements of society. To this end, a cross-sectional, quantitative, descriptive and inductive study was carried out of primary data collected from professionals registered with the Order of Accountants and Auditors of Mozambique, working in Maputo City in 2018, with the aim of analyzing the level compliance with the code of ethics for accounting professionals. Out of the 2600 professionals registered in the Order of Accountants and Auditors of Mozambique, 195 were submitted to the study, the majority of whom were female, young and with higher education. In this study, it was concluded that most professionals choose to observe the principles and rules of the code of ethics, despite an insignificant minority that needs more time on ethical issues.

Key words: Code of ethics, accounting, Mozambique.