When will Managers Lie? The Influence of Personality on Honest Budgetary Reporting Measure with HEXACO-PI

Abstract

In management accounting, participatory budgets have become increasingly useful in decentralized companies. This type of budget allows managers to have more freedom to decide the allocation of resources and funds. However, this opens the door to dishonest behaviors among some managers and supervisors. This research uses the Honesty-Humility factor of the HEXACO personality inventory to measure self-reported honesty in business undergraduate students and to determine whether that measure correlates with dishonest reporting behavior. A 2x2 quasi-experiment will be conducted by using a personality test and a task instrument. Participants will play the role of managers of a division of a corporation and will be asked to prepare a Direct Materials budget. Participants will have the opportunity to misreport the actual unit price per product in order to maximize their personal profit if they so choose. Half of the participants will not be audited by a supervisor, and the other half will be audited 5 out of the 10 experimental periods. Hypothesis 1 states that individuals with a high level of the Honesty-Humility factor will always report honestly, whether an audit is conducted or not. Hypothesis 2 states that individuals with a low level of the Honesty-Humility factor will report dishonestly when there is no audit present, but will report honestly with an audit present. This research will provide additional insight into the relationship between personality factors and managerial dishonesty, and whether the possibility of audit changes the observed behavior.