ARTICLE
31 August 2026

Institutions, Concepts, and Practices: Professional Ethics Development in Accounting from the Perspective of Integrity Culture

Ningning Zhang1 Xiaoyan Guan2
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1 Finance Department, North China Electric Power University, Beijing, China
2 Department of Economics and Management, North China Electric Power University, Beijing, China
PBES 2026 , 9(8), 72–78; https://doi.org/10.26689/PBES.v9i8.15201
© 2026 by the Author(s). Licensee Whioce Publishing, Singapore. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract

Integrity is not only a traditional virtue of the Chinese nation but also the cornerstone of the operation of the market economy. However, dishonest practices such as financial fraud still occur from time to time, which seriously erodes the foundation of market credit. Accountants and financial professionals are deeply involved in economic activities and are responsible for ensuring the quality of information. Their professional ethics directly affect whether the economic information is true and reliable, and it is related to whether the market economy can operate healthily. Moreover, new technologies such as artificial intelligence and big data are profoundly changing the operation mode of the social economy and the form of financial accounting work. Therefore, it is extremely urgent to further strengthen the construction of professional ethics in the accounting industry. This article systematically discusses the significance and implementation paths of strengthening the construction of accounting professional ethics within the context of integrity culture, in response to the current frequent occurrence of financial fraud incidents and the ethical challenges brought by new technologies. The article holds that integrity culture constitutes the foundation and value core of accounting professional ethics, and the two promote each other and grow together. The key to strengthening accounting professional ethics lies in achieving the organic unity of institutional constraints, concept guidance, and behavioral norms, thereby enhancing the public trust of enterprises and the image of the accounting industry, promoting the professional growth of accounting personnel, and consolidating the credit foundation of the market economy.

Keywords
Ethical culture
Professional ethics
Accounting information quality
Financial fraud
Accounting law
Funding
This paper was the achievement of the Natural Science Foundation of Hebei Province project “Research on the Governance Effects and Mechanisms of Market-Based Allocation of Data Elements on the ‘Greenwashing’ Behavior of Manufacturing Enterprises in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region” (Project No.: G2026502014), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities project “Research on the Peer Effects of Digital Transformation Empowering the Green Development of Manufacturing” (Project No.: 2026MS198), and the Hebei Provincial Social Science Development Research Project “Study on the Constraints and Implementation Paths of the Transformation from Dual Control of Energy Consumption to Dual Control of Carbon Emissions in Hebei Province” (Project No.: HBSKFZ25QN199).
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