Search results

In a rapidly changing career landscape where lifelong job security is no longer guaranteed, this study investigates how audit firms play an important role in shaping their employees’ career perceptions and the subsequent effects on auditor behavior. Specifically, it explores the link between audit firms’ career development initiatives and auditors’ perceptions of external employability – an important determinant of auditor behavior. Using the framework of social exchange theory, the study investigates how perceived external employability affects both relational and operational behaviors of auditors.

The study employs structural equation modeling on survey data from 359 auditors.

The results indicate that when audit firms actively support career development, it positively contributes to auditors’ perceived external employability. A higher perceived external employability, in turn, leads to positive behavioral outcomes among auditors, including stronger relational behaviors (such as professional commitment) and operational behaviors (including heightened professional skepticism and reduced behaviors that could compromise audit quality).

This study uncovers a paradox where perceived external employability, typically viewed as a risk, emerges as a potent driver of desirable auditor behavior. In today’s dynamic career landscape, emphasizing individual-centered and flexible careers, these results highlight the benefits of perceived external employability. Rather than undermining audit services, increased perceived external employability driven by firm investments in auditors’ careers acts as a catalyst for desirable auditor behavior. Organizational support in terms of career development practices creates an environment where auditors are more committed, professionally skeptical and uphold the quality of audit services.

This study aims to investigate the impact of changes in audit processes during the pandemic on auditors’ deviant behavior, considering auditors’ personal characteristics, including demographic variables, spirituality levels and personality traits.

A survey consisting of five parts was used to gather data from auditors employed at Big Four audit firms in the Middle East. The questionnaire collected data on auditors’ perceptions of changes in audit processes and deviant audit behavior during the pandemic, as well as information about their personal characteristics.

The findings revealed a significant positive association between changes in audit processes and a heightened perception of deviant audit conduct during the pandemic. Males and extravert auditors expressed less favorable attitudes toward such behavior.

The sample size was limited to 107 auditors due to the challenges of soliciting responses from auditors during the pandemic. The sole focus on the Big Four audit firms limited the generalizability of the results. Upcoming research should integrate qualitative methods alongside surveys and collect data from larger, more diverse samples to enhance the understanding of the pandemic’s impact on audit behavior.

The findings provide guidance and recommendations for audit firms to mitigate deviant behavior during crises while considering auditors’ personal factors. Recommended strategies include the organization of trainings to raise awareness of these risks and the integration of artificial intelligence to modernize audit processes and enhance audit firms’ readiness to confront future crises.

This study offers a novel empirical investigation into how pandemic-driven changes in audit procedures relate to auditors' deviant behavior, while exploring the influence of auditors' individual traits, an unexplored area in the literature. It addresses this gap specifically in the context of the understudied Middle East region.

This research paper investigates variances in auditors’ attitudes toward dysfunctional audit behavior (DAB) in two different time periods. The purpose of this paper is to explore changes in DAB among experienced/inexperienced auditors as well as differences between male/female auditors while facing time budget and time deadline pressures.

This study uses surveys administered to a group of junior auditors joining a Big 4 firm in the UK and compares the results to surveys completed by the same group of auditors after three years of experience. The survey assesses participant’s perception of DAB in the presence of time budget and time deadline.

The results of this paper show that experienced auditors have more tolerant views of DAB then inexperienced auditors. In terms of gender, inexperienced male auditors are more accepting of DAB when compared to their inexperienced female counterparts. Female auditors surveyed in both time periods seem to be unfavorable of DAB.

The uniqueness of this study derives from the fact that it explores the same group of auditors and assesses variances in their perception of DAB in two different periods over a passage of three years during which inexperienced auditors become experienced.

This study aims to examine the effect of professional commitment, commitment to ethics, internal locus of control and emotional intelligence on the ability to detect fraud through reduced audit quality behaviors.

The analysis unit is the internal auditor in internal control unit at state Islamic religious higher education in Indonesia. Data processing used covariance-based structural equation modeling using Lisrel Software and the Sobel test to verify the direct and indirect effects.

This study found empirical evidence that professional commitment and emotional intelligence positively impact the ability to detect fraud. Commitment to ethics and emotional intelligence has a negative effect on reduced audit quality behaviors. Furthermore, this study also provides that commitment to ethics and emotional intelligence indirectly impacts on the ability to detect fraud through reduced audit quality behaviors.

The organization periodically monitors auditors’ behaviors, especially reduced audit quality behaviors, during the audit process and encourages regulators to formulate policies related to increasing the ability to detect fraud.

This study provides knowledge regarding the driving force of internal auditors to mitigate reduced audit quality behaviors and increase the ability to detect fraud.

Using attribution theory, this study examined the effects of situational factors [time budget pressure (TBP), organisational ethical culture (OEC) and quality control procedures (QCPs)] and dispositional factors [auditor professional commitment (APC) and internal locus of control (ILOC)] on audit quality threatening behaviour (AQTB). In addition, it observed the moderating role of religiosity in the relationship between situational and dispositional factors and AQTB.

A total of 189 external auditors responded to the survey questionnaire. This study employed structural equation modelling via SmartPLS to analyse the proposed model.

The results documented that the OEC and QCPs situational factors were negatively related to the incidence of AQTB, whilst TBP was positively linked to the incidence of AQTB. Dispositional factors APC and ILOC were negatively connected to AQTB. Furthermore, the findings recorded the moderating effect of religiosity on most of the situational and dispositional factors related to AQTB.

Regulators and accounting firms' efforts to promote high audit quality (AQ) may consider the theological/religious lens and reinforce ethical culture and quality control to reduce AQTB.

The findings provide further insights into situational and dispositional factors that may cause or impede the incidence of AQTB in auditing practices, as well as the moderating role of religiosity in curbing AQTB.

An important part of the effectiveness of a company is related to the stimuli of the organizational voice, which provides the context for participation and the emergence of moral courage in performing organizational tasks. Although individual voice stimulation cannot be easily generalized because of the wide range of criteria affecting it, but in a general category, individual voice stimuli can be separated into internal and external criteria. Therefore, this research first aims to examine internal and external stimuli on individual voice and then examines the effect of individual voice on internal auditors’ moral courage and effectiveness.

The target population in this study were internal auditors of capital market companies that were examined in the period of 2020. The research tool was a questionnaire and partial least squares analysis was used to fit the model and test the research hypotheses.

The results of testing the hypotheses show that self-efficacy (hope and resilience) as internal drivers and independence of internal audit performance and perceived supervisor support (external drivers) have a positive effect on moral courage and effectiveness of the internal auditor.

These conclusions suggest that if behavioral incentives are considered, auditors’ level of behavioral audacity in more realistically disclosing the financial performance of their companies can be expected to increase. It should also be noted that the results of this study can increase the level of effectiveness of internal auditors’ functions and their behavioral knowledge in the direction of professional functions.

According to the management obfuscation hypothesis, managers have incentives to influence the audit reports’ communicative value. This study aims to examine the relationship between corporate earnings management and the readability of Chinese-text audit reports and the impact of key audit matter (KAM) disclosure requirements on this relationship.

This research adopts Taiwanese firms from 2010 to 2019 to investigate the association between earnings management and readability of Chinese-text audit reports within the framework of the KAM disclosure requirements implemented in 2016.

The findings show that auditors tend to issue less readable audit reports to firms undertaking earnings management, particularly after introducing KAM disclosures. Additional analyses indicate that such adverse impacts of client earnings management on audit report readability have become more pronounced for firms audited by a newly pointed or long-tenure lead audit partner, with high business risk, poor monitoring of governance mechanisms or a large amount of nonaudit services. These results suggest that auditor partners may compromise auditor independence and use flexible narratives in audit reports as a form of moral insurance.

As auditors may manage audit report readability to reduce audit liability, authorities must formulate policies concerning audit report disclosure to strengthen its communicative value and simplify language usage. Additionally, authorities should strengthen quality control standards concerning auditor independence to reduce auditor pressure from clients’ economic importance.

This study provides valuable insights into auditors' responses to corporate earnings management behavior, particularly regarding the interplay between earnings management, audit report quality and regulatory changes, thus expanding our understanding of the dynamics within the auditing profession.

This paper aims to examine the effect of the auditors’ burnout determinates on audit quality and performance. It also analyses whether the demographic characteristics of gender, age group, education and job positions affect auditors’ decisions for burnout, audit quality and performance.

A questionnaire was distributed on a sample of auditors in the top ten auditing firms in an emerging market including the Big 4. Factor analysis, correlation matrix and structural equation modeling were used for the analysis of the collected data and testing the developed hypotheses.

The results show that burnout has negative consequences for both the auditor and the auditing firm. While good organizational climate has a negative significant association with audit quality, nonethical decisions and audit performance, role clarity has positive significant association with the audit quality and performance and has an insignificant association with nonethical decisions. Also, turnover intention has significant positive association with nonethical decision, audit quality and performance.

This research is among the first to focus on auditor’s burnout determinates on audit quality and performance in an emerging market characterized by different socioeconomic, political and cultural factors compared with those of developed markets. Auditors, regulators and professional policymakers can benefit from the results of this research.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors affecting the silence of internal auditors. To this end, the impacts of the perceived climate of silence, professional commitment, independence commitment, role conflict and role ambiguity on internal auditor silence have been investigated. Furthermore, the effects of role conflict and role ambiguity through independence commitment on internal auditor silence were investigated.

The statistical population of the study consisted of Iranian internal auditors in 2021. The study used a self-administered survey of 217 internal auditors. In this research, a hierarchical component model in the partial least squares structural equation modeling analysis was used to examine the hypotheses.

The results of testing the hypotheses indicated that the perceived climate of silence and role ambiguity have positive effects, and professional commitment and independence commitment have negative effects on internal auditor silence. Furthermore, role conflict has an insignificant effect on internal auditor silence. In addition, role conflict and role ambiguity affect the internal auditor silence through the independence commitment.

This study examined the factors affecting the internal auditor silence by combining the construct of the perceived climate of silence that has been previously discussed in the field of management with the professional (professional commitment and independence commitment) and role (role conflict and role ambiguity) factors that are discussed in the internal audit profession. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study that examines the factors affecting internal auditor silence behavior. The importance of conducting this study is that it investigates a phenomenon among internal auditors that conflicts with the mission and origin of internal audit.

This study aims to investigate whether auditors compromise their independence for economically important clients in family business settings.

The authors empirically examine the research question based on China for the years 2011 to 2020. The dependent variable is the auditors’ propensity to issue modified audit opinions, which is a proxy for auditor independence. The authors use relative client audit fees as a proxy for client importance. To address endogeneity issues in the selection of family firms, the authors use the two-stage least squares regression model and, subsequently, the propensity score matching and Hausman firm fixed effect modeling.

This study reveals that the propensity to issue modified audit opinions is positively correlated with client importance. Big-N auditors are more likely to issue modified audit opinions for their economically important family firm clients, whereas such evidence is not found for non-Big-N auditors. Results are consistent and robust to endogeneity test and sensitivity analysis.

This study enriches the literature on auditor independence and the effect of family firms’ ownership structure factors on audit reporting behavior for their economically important clients. Findings may prove useful for managers and practitioners interested in family business.