DOES SPIRITUALITY BELONG TO ACCOUNTING? Insights from Morality, Relevance and Fairness Dogmas

Abstract

Spirituality accounting is a novel concept that is gradually gaining a firm root in accounting literature. However, there is dearth of empirical evidence on whether spirituality belongs to accounting due to the fuzzy and obscured threads between spirituality and accounting. This paper investigated whether spirituality belongs to accounting. Drawing from the corollaries of prior studies, three spirituality dogmas - morality, relevance and fairness were employed. Questionnaire was administered via online survey to one hundred professional accountants and auditors in Nigeria; both descriptive (mean and standard deviation) and inferential (Lawley correlation) statistical techniques were employed. Our results found evidence that morality is the core spirituality accounting dogma. Nonetheless, we found a remarkable acumen, which contributes to knowledge on spirituality accounting movement that regardless morality being the core spiritual accounting dogmas as advocated by prior studies, relevance and fairness are also fundamental spirituality accounting dogmas. Our inferential result provides strong evidence that spirituality belongs to accounting. Thus, we recommend the integration of spiritual values as a course in the existing accounting curriculum; spiritual values should accentuate morality, relevance and fairness dogmas; this will help the future accountants develop core spiritual accounting values, aside existing ethical considerations in accounting curriculum.