Researching Ethical Accounting Issues in Australian Hotels

This research proposal aims to examine the role of ethical issues in accounting on the business performance of hotel companies in Australia. It develops effective objectives, research questions, and hypotheses, and evaluates past literature, including discussions on the triple bottom line and sustainability. The study intends to identify measures and indicators for quantifying social impact and will use a mixed-methods approach to evaluate the impact of these factors on accounting and business. The proposal outlines the research philosophy, approach, design, data collection, and analysis methods, including sampling, reliability, validity, and ethical considerations, to draw relevant conclusions about accounting challenges faced by the hotel industry.

Running head: RESEARCH PROPOSAL
Research Proposal
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

1RESEARCH PROPOSAL
Abstract
The report had proposed to examine the role of ethical issues in accounting on business
performance of hotel companies in Australia. The report had developed effective objective,
research question and hypothesis. Past literature has been clearly evaluated. Triple bottom
and sustainability have been discussed in detail where the study will aim to identify the
different measures and indicators needed to quantify social impact. The impact of these
factors on accounting and business would be evaluated by using mixed method. The
methodology for conducting the study had also been proposed and is expected to draw
relevant conclusion.

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Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction..........................................................................................................................3
1.1 Research Problem.............................................................................................................3
1.2 Background of the study..................................................................................................3
1.3 Objective of the research..................................................................................................4
1.4 Research question.............................................................................................................4
1.5 Research hypothesis.........................................................................................................4
2.0 Literature review..................................................................................................................4
2.1 Introduction......................................................................................................................4
2.2 Business ethics, sustainability and triple bottom line......................................................5
2.3 Modern accounting...........................................................................................................6
2.4 Literature gap...................................................................................................................6
3.0 Research methodology.........................................................................................................6
3.1 Research philosophy........................................................................................................7
3.2 Research approach...........................................................................................................7
3.3 Research design................................................................................................................7
3.4 Data collection and Analysis............................................................................................7
3.5 Sampling..........................................................................................................................8
3.6 Reliability and Validity....................................................................................................8
3.7 Ethical consideration........................................................................................................8
4.0 References..........................................................................................................................10

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Title: To Evaluate the Role of Accounting Issues in Hotel Industry
1.0 Introduction
This report will propose to perform a research where the role of accounting issues in
Hotel industry will be evaluated. Management accounting is one of the key areas of
operations and decision making for managers in the hotel industry. It provides specialised
information about the performance of each department along with effectiveness of the
resource allocation. Globalization has increased the competitiveness in the market and the
companies in the hospitality industry have been facing immense competition as hospitality
industry is one of the major contributors to economic growth in Australia. Accounting has
been changing in the past few years where it is has been easier to keep record and track of
data after the incorporation of information technology in accounting. Companies can use
accounting as a means of improving their overall operation but there are certain and issues
that modern organizations face while developing sustainable business practices and this study
will critically evaluate these factors to provide solutions for the hotel industry in Australia.
1.1 Research Problem
Business sustainability and sustainability practices are major concerns for the
organizations due to the increase in carbon emission and scarcity of resources. Hotel industry
is one of the fastest growing sector and role of management accounting has been immense in
enhancing the performance of the industry. Hotel industry is driven by products and services
both at the same time and it is essential to evaluate the quality of the services regularly to
keep the consumers satisfied. Management accounting has changed significantly in the past
decade due to the incorporation of online accounting systems where companies are able to
easily convert data and financial statements into knowledge and meaningful information.
However, the majority of the peer reviewed journals have not been able to throw light on the
fact that whether the companies in the hospitality industry in Australia are using triple bottom
line for developing sustainable practices. The incorporation of a triple bottom line and
implementation of ethical practices to act as a responsible corporate citizen is the need of the
hour. Ethical aspect of accounting would be dealt with in this research to critically examine
the accounting challenges faced the organizations.
1.2 Background of the study
The changes in the modern organizational setting and societal changes have made the
organizations in different sector accountable for the impact of business on sustainability. The
importance of accounting has increased significantly and companies use triple bottom as a
measure of identifying their contribution to the society and the environment. However, it is
quite difficult to quantify the positive contribution and record it into a sustainability report.
The basic accounting issues internal accounting and auditing has been removed mostly due to
the use of software, the chances of error is almost zero (Bavik, 2016). Ethical issues in
accounting arises from different factors and conflict of interest is one of the major issues and
accessibility of data. The overall accounting data and financial statements are stored in online
accounting systems. Security and accessibility of the data creates ethical dilemma among the
stakeholders to understand the level of accessibility to be provided to the employees (Beck,
Kim and Schmidgall, 2016). Financial statement reflects upon the performance of the
organization in terms of profitability and contribution of the society. It is easy to manipulate
data to show performances and mislead the stakeholders. This happens quite often due to the
immense pressure that the companies are put through due to the intensity of the competition
in the global market.

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Omission of important aspect and figure is similar ethical issue which would change
the financial statement of a company and portray a different performance of any organization.
However, the incorporation of the online accounting systems has reduced the chances of
these issues within organizations. The different ethical functions are quite clear within
organization in terms of accounting. There have been different types of ethical issues within
organizations in the hotel industry but there is no significant discussion on the accounting
related ethical issues that organizations face. The relevance of accounting information is null
if it does not contain intangible values within financial position. This is the reason the
accountability and measurement of social impact of the companies is essential to measure as
it is seen that consumers tend to associated with those business entities that are socially active
and contribute to the wellbeing of the society (Bavik, 2016). Even for the candidates, looking
for jobs would prefer to be associated with companies having social purpose. This is the
reason that stakeholders ask for better information on the impact of the business entities on
the environment and society. The inclusion of environmental and societal effect is an
additional contribution and does not initially go into the account statements. Transparency
and compliance are two of the major regulatory requirements for companies as they need to
give details to their stakeholders regarding the overall operation. Triple bottom line and its
incorporation into the financial statements have increased the complexity of the accounting
operations and the given study will evaluate this ethical aspect of sustainability where the
different ethical issues faced in quantifying these contributions will be identified. The
incorporation of business sustainability accounting and its role in shaping the modern hotel
industry will also be evaluated in this research.
1.3 Objective of the research
 To examine and evaluate the different types of ethical issues faced by the hotel
industry
 To critically evaluate the role of accounting issues in the hotel industry
 To evaluate the different types of ethical issues in accounting in respect to hotel
industry
 To recommend suitable strategies for eliminating accounting issues
1.4 Research question
 What are the different types of ethical issues faced by the hotel industry?
 What is the role of accounting issues in the hotel industry?
 What are the different types of ethical issues in accounting in respect to hotel
industry?
1.5 Research hypothesis
H0: There is no significant role of accounting issues on the business performance in hotel
industry
H1: There is significant role of accounting issues on the business performance in hotel
industry
2.0 Literature review
2.1 Introduction
There are general ethical issues which the companies face while recording data into
financial statements. These issues have been reduced significantly with the advent of online
management accounting systems where majority of the work is done by the online software
and there is significant reduction in human error. Triple bottom line has been incorporated in

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the majority of the organizations so that they can contribute effectively to the society and
environment (Park and Jang, 2014). The measurement and quantification of the social impact
is difficult but it needs to be done as stakeholders focus on the three bottom lines. The
inclusion of social and environment impact into the third bottom line means that it has to be
represented in the balance sheet. However, developing effective sustainability is complex and
companies face difficulty in measuring and registering this into the financial statements
effectively. Fraj, Matute and Melero, (2015) states that subjective measurements need to be
quantifiable and these measurement factors should be set based on the goals of the research.
2.2 Business ethics, sustainability and triple bottom line
As stated by Wise, (2016), Business entities are liable to their stakeholders and they
want to keep track of the progress of each of the initiatives taken. This is the reason that
business entities are under strict scrutiny from the stakeholders. Hussain, Rigoni and Orij,
(2018) opined that it is imperative that stakeholders are concerned about sustainability
practices as the society has become more aware of these issues and the reputation of the
company is an important component of brand equity. There have been rapid changes in
products and services where the companies are trying to offer products and services that
promote sustainability of the society and the corresponding environment. The growth in the
technology has been rapid which means that there has been significant reduction in wastage
of resources. Tate and Bals, (2018) states that it is evident that countries having strict
environmental regulations and developing green products are doing better when compared to
other countries.
The developed countries facet these challenges even more due to the high percentage
of carbon emission from such countries like USA and UK. The major factor is that companies
should give value to the community and take effective measures to protect the society as a
whole. Australia has increased its awareness in case of environment protection and creating
awareness and driving the contribution of the business entities to the proception of the
environment. Park and Jang, (2014) states that triple bottom line is one of the accounting
frameworks to measure financial, ecological and social performance of a company. A large
number of companies have adopted triple bottom to make sure that they are able to contribute
to their protection of the corresponding environment. GRI and government has taken
initiatives to make sure that they provide adequate guidance to different companies to record
their sustainability performances effectively (Jones, Hillier and Comfort, 2016).
Martínez, Pérez and Del Bosque, (2014) states that it is essential to incorporate triple
bottom, line within modern organizations as it facilitates in developing sound corporate
governance and culture that is driven by value is generated. This also facilitates in
benchmarking within the industry and with other companies in different industries. The
allocation of resources can be made more effective and companies can reach economies of
scale by developing effective measurement systems. It has been seen that majority of the
large-scale companies all over the world use separate sustainability report for the
stakeholders to clearly understand the initiatives taken and return on these investments.
Ethical issues in accounting arises from different factors and conflict of interest is one of the
major issues and accessibility of data. As stated by Wang, (2014), the overall accounting data
and financial statements are stored in online accounting systems. Security and accessibility of
the data creates ethical dilemma among the stakeholders to understand the level of
accessibility to be provided to the employees. Zoghbi-Manrique-de-Lara and Guerra-Baez,
(2016) opined that financial statement reflects upon the performance of the organization in
terms of profitability and contribution of the society. It is easy to manipulate data to show
performances and mislead the stakeholders. This happens quite often due to the immense

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pressure that the companies are put through due to the intensity of the competition in the
global market. The relevance of accounting information is null if it does not contain
intangible values within financial position (Gibson 2016). This is the reason the
accountability and measurement of social impact of the companies is essential to measure as
it is seen that consumers tend to associated with those business entities that are socially active
and contribute to the wellbeing of the society. Even for the candidates, looking for jobs
would prefer to be associated with companies having social purpose.
According to Köseoglu et al., (2016), the most crucial factor in environmental
measurement is setting boundaries and companies generally consult with stakeholders to
identify their boundaries. However, it becomes more complex for organizations outsourcing
their products and has multiple number of suppliers. Lynch, (2017) states that management
control is the basic way of defining the boundary of a business entity. In majority of the
cases, the companies prefer to keep their initial reporting quite narrow and expand their
boundaries based on the progress of the company. Transparency and compliance are two of
the major regulatory requirements for companies as they need to give details to their
stakeholders regarding the overall operation. Triple bottom line and its incorporation into the
financial statements have increased the complexity of the accounting operations and the given
study will evaluate this ethical aspect of sustainability where the different ethical issues faced
in quantifying these contributions will be identified.
2.3 Modern accounting
Hatfield, (2014) states that advent of information technology has changed the face of
accounting where the majority of the companies have developed their own accounting
software as per the need of the business to evaluate the performance of the organizations.
Păşcan, (2015) opined that performance evaluation is even more important for hotels as there
are multiple number of departments. The managers need to check the performance of these
departments regularly to make sure that optimal resources are being used and none of the
resource is being wasted. It also helps in identifying the different factors responsible for
improving the overall sustainability of the business (Krahel and Vasarhelyi, 2014). There are
multiple positives of using modern accounting systems as reduces the time and cost of data
interpretation. Moreover, the data is of high quality but the privacy and accessibility are two
major issues which the companies face while dealing with their data. Management
accounting has changed significantly in the past decade due to the incorporation of online
accounting systems where companies are able to easily convert data and financial statements
into knowledge and meaningful information.
2.4 Literature gap
The majority of the past literature have not addressed the issues faced with modern
accounting. The ethical issues discussed in the different articles are generic and aspects of
modern accounting has not been considered any instant. The ethical aspect of modern
accounting will be addressed in this research. Business sustainability and triple bottom line
has been discussed in detail but the problems and challenges in setting up indicators and
boundaries have not been clearly defined in majority of the articles. Therefore, this study will
not evaluate the different ethical issues in modern accounting but will evaluate the problems
in measuring sustainability factors. The role of ethical aspect will also measure its impact on
accounting and business performance companies in the hotel industry.
3.0 Research methodology
Research methodology deals with the process of collecting and analysing data
effectively. The research topic is an applied business research which deals with the

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accounting ethical issues focusing on sustainability issues within hospitality organizations.
Saunders research onion will be followed in the research where the different layers of the
research onion will be unfolded to provide information on the step by step process of
understanding the different tool and techniques used to generate knowledge in the research
(Mackey and Gass, 2015). Saunders research onion will describe the research philosophy,
research approach, research design, data collection method, data analysis method, ethical
consideration, research sampling, data validity and reliability. This study will use a mixed
method analysis to collect data and analyse it as it reduces the shortcomings of single
research and will facilitate in generating relevant answers to the developed research question.
There is practical implication to this study and suitable recommendations will be provided
which can be used by the organizations in the hotel industry to reduce ethical issues and
sustainability issues in accounting.
3.1 Research philosophy
Research philosophy describes the values and beliefs of the researcher within the
research. In every research, assumptions are made at every level of the study and the different
assumptions define the ontological view, epistemological view and axiological view. These
assumptions are key to understand the appropriate philosophy for a research. In this current
study, pragmatism has been chosen as the philosophy of choice as it assists in conducting
mixed method analysis (Hughes and Sharrock, 2016). The philosophy is chosen based on the
research question and in the study, there are different types of research question where some
require subjective study to get significant results and some require objectivism to derive
relevant conclusions. Pragmatism believes in existence of multiple realities in the research
which means that there are different interpretation and perspective of understanding an issue
and solving that issue. Pragmatism will accept any theory or concept only if it backed by
adequate facts. This means that pragmatism is open to accepting any theory that is
addressing the research question as long as it is relevant and valid.
3.2 Research approach
Research approach defines the way the data will be analysed. In inductive approach,
observations are made, facts are collected and theories are developed based on evaluation
which is tentative in nature. On the contrary, in case of deductive approach, the existing
theories are tested through observations and facts. In this study, deductive approach has been
chosen to analyse the quantitative data and inductive approach has been chosen to analyse the
qualitative data (Sekaran and Bougie, 2016). The deductive approach will test the hypothesis
where the relationship between accounting issues and business operations will be evaluated.
On the other hand, the inductive approach will be used to evaluate the different ethical issues
in accounting in the modern industry. It will also evaluate the difficulty in accounting social
and ecological activities and the way it can be minimized.
3.3 Research design
Research design defines the overall plan of conducting the research and based on the
research design the other factors in the research are chosen. Research design also facilitates in
choosing between the type of data to be chosen in the research. There are generally three
types of research designs and they are explanatory, exploratory and descriptive(Meyers,
Gamst and Guarino, 2016). The names of each of the research design indicates the purpose of
using those designs. In this current study, concurrent triangulation will be used as the
research design. Concurrent triangulation is the method of conducting multiple methods to
corroborate, confirm and cross- validate the findings. The data will be collected concurrently
in this research which both quantitative and qualitative data will be collected simultaneously.

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This will facilitate in overcoming the weakness of either method and all the questions can be
addressed effectively.
3.4 Data collection and Analysis
This study will collect primary data to develop relevant findings in the research.
Primary data will be collected simultaneously and as this is a mixed method analysis, both
quantitative and qualitative data will be collected. The quantitative data will be collected
through survey questionnaire. The survey questionnaire will consist of close-ended questions.
The close ended questionnaire will consist of demographic questions and questions on
research variables (Palinkas et al., 2015). Nominal, interval and ratio scales will be used to
provide valid options to the respondents. Likert scale will used in case of variable questions.
In case of qualitative data collection, semi structured interviews will be conducted where in-
depth answers will be collected from the respondents in the research.
The data will be analysed using inferential statistical techniques and coding. The
quantitative data will be analysed using SPSS which is a statistical package for social
sciences. The respondent frequency will be plotted in graphs and tables along with
descriptive statistics. The descriptive statistics will consist of mean, mode, median and
standard deviation. Pearson’s correlation will be used to the check the bivariate correlations
among different elements. Regression analysis will be used to generate a model for
understanding the role of accounting issues in business performance (Sutton and Austin,
2015.). The qualitative data will be analysed using coding where the collected data will be
coded into phrases using open coding. Axial coding will be used to relate the theories to the
coded data by identifying the patterns within the different answers from different
respondents.
3.5 Sampling
Sampling is the method of choosing specific elements from the target population in a
research. Sampling is used when the time span and cost of conducting the study is limited.
Sampling consist of five phases where initially the target population is chosen. The next
phase is choosing the sampling frame and the third phase is selecting the sample size
(Creswell, 2014). The last two steps consist of choosing the sampling method and performing
the sampling technique. In this given study, the target population consist of the business
entities in Australia, the sampling frame will include only the business entities in Australia
and the sample size in the research is 100 for the quantitative study and 5 for the qualitative
study. The employees working in the hotel industry in Australia has been chosen as the
respondent for the quantitative survey and the managers have been chosen as the respondents
for the qualitative survey. The study will use systematic sampling to select population
randomly so that each respondent has the equal opportunity of being selected. The study will
use convenience sampling for choosing the respondents for the qualitative data collection.
3.6 Reliability and Validity
Reliability is the ability of the research to replicate to the results by using different
sets of data. The study will use Cronbach’s alpha to measure the internal consistency and
scale reliability of the quantitative data (Noble and Smith, 2015). The study will use test
retest reliability to check the consistency of the data collected through qualitative method.
However, it is comparatively difficult to check the reliability of qualitative data. Validity
measures the relevance of the different instruments used in the research. Pilot testing will be
used to check the quality of the questionnaire developed by taking feedback from 10
respondents. In case of the qualitative questionnaire, construct validity will be used to check
the validity of the collected data. These two aspects are crucial for generating positive results
in the research and major emphasis will be given on the quality of the data collected.

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3.7 Ethical consideration
The study will follow the data protection act by makings sure that the privacy of the
respondents is protected in the research. The study will keep the collected data anonymous
and none of the personal information of the respondents will be shared for protecting them.
The study will develop a consent form which will consist of all the information regarding the
study and the respondents will be made to sign this form. This will make them aware of the
purpose of conducting the research (Roberts, 2015). The participants will have full privilege
of exiting the survey at point of time and they may to leave questions unaddressed if they are
not comfortable with such questions. The participants will not be forced to take part and none
of questions will use discriminatory language which may hurt the sentiment of the
respondents. The study will not any plagiarised content and the name of the authors will be
properly cited. The data collected will be authentic and none of the data will be falsified to
reach effective conclusion. The data collected will not be manipulated or omitted so that
positive results can be obtained. The study will also make sure that none of the respondents is
harmed and the collected data will be disposed after the purpose of the research is fulfilled.
The collected will not be used for any other purpose or for the development of any other
research.

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4.0 References
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Beck, J.A., Kim, S. and Schmidgall, R., 2016. The ethical judgment of private club senior
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Creswell, J.W., 2014. A concise introduction to mixed methods research. Sage Publications.
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