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Open Access
Article
Publication date: 12 January 2023

Imen Khelil

This paper aims to examine the association between the working relationship between internal and external auditors and the moral courage of internal auditors to report management…

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Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to examine the association between the working relationship between internal and external auditors and the moral courage of internal auditors to report management fraud in the Tunisian setting.

Design/methodology/approach

Data are gathered from 163 internal auditors working in Tunisian companies and a partial least squares–structural equation model (PLS-SEM) is used to test the hypothesis regarding the effect of the cooperation between internal and external auditors on internal auditors’ moral courage.

Findings

The results of this study provide strong empirical support for the positive impact of the working relationship between internal and external auditors on internal auditors’ moral courage to report management fraud and unethical behaviors.

Practical implications

The reported results increase the awareness of Tunisian regulators to enact regulations that strengthen the collaboration between internal and external auditors to promote internal auditors’ moral courage and then limit fraud and improve organizational performance in the Tunisian setting.

Originality/value

This paper fills one of the major research gaps in internal audit and moral courage research streams by revealing that the courageous behavior of internal auditors can be fostered by specific means efficacy such as the working relationship between internal and external auditors.

Details

Arab Gulf Journal of Scientific Research, vol. 41 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1985-9899

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 28 May 2019

Firdaus Amyar, Nunung Nurul Hidayah, Alan Lowe and Margaret Woods

There has been very little qualitative “fieldwork” of audit practice. This is especially the case in relation to investigations into how audit engagements proceed. The purpose of…

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Abstract

Purpose

There has been very little qualitative “fieldwork” of audit practice. This is especially the case in relation to investigations into how audit engagements proceed. The purpose of this paper is to engage with audit practice in order to explore and explain the internal dynamics and paradoxical conditions within audit engagement teams.

Design/methodology/approach

The research adopts a qualitative methodology, framed around an intensive case study that involves several methods of data collection and analysis including interviews, observation and document analysis. The authors observe audit team practices, work programmes and organisation including observations of individual and teams involved in audit engagements.

Findings

Using the lens of paradox theory, the authors explore the backstage of audit work, where audit teams are challenged with recurring contradictory requirements and opposing demands. The authors provide insight on the complexity associated with inadequate resourcing and planning that tend to stimulate the emergence of paradoxes in audit engagement work in a government audit context. As a result, the authors identify the occurrence of cascading reduced audit quality practices (RAQP) as the teams respond to the paradoxes they face.

Originality/value

The authors reveal the interlinked and cumulative coping strategies, namely, downplaying responsibility and downscaling audit processes. These strategies are performed concurrently by team leaders and audit members to manage paradoxical tensions. The authors also identified superficial audit supervision as another type of RAQP performed by team leaders.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 32 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 12 July 2023

Patrick Kwashie Akorsu

Credit Default Swap (CDS) trading alters equilibrium interactive monitoring of external corporate monitors due to a possible change in private lenders' incentive to monitor client…

Abstract

Purpose

Credit Default Swap (CDS) trading alters equilibrium interactive monitoring of external corporate monitors due to a possible change in private lenders' incentive to monitor client firms. This study explores how audit fees change in response to CDS trade initiation on client firms and how this effect is moderated by investor protection.

Design/methodology/approach

With 6,052 cross-country firm observations, the author conducts estimations in the systems dynamic general methods of moments framework.

Findings

The author documents that audit fees rise on average after CDS trade initiations with and/or without investor protection. Meanwhile, change in auditors' risk perception result in increased audit costs when CDS trade initiation and investor protection interact. The effect of CDS trading on audit fees remain after controlling for firm, audit, and auditor features are robust to different proxies of audit cost.

Practical implications

The need for firms in high investor protection jurisdictions to initiate CDS trade to implement policies in order to maximize their gains from investor protection activities to lessen the overall impact of any increased audit cost that may arise. Furthermore, CDS regulation may be strategically targeted to lessen the effect of increased audit costs on firms after initiation. This would ensure that the resulting increase in audit cost may not materially impact the cash or profitability position of such firms.

Originality/value

This study is distinct from previous ones by focusing on variation in private lenders incentive to monitor after CDS trade initiation after controlling for possible monitoring by short-term creditors. Given that monitoring is not costless for private lenders and CDS trading on their borrowers causes a change in this cost structure, the author documents how auditors react to such changes in incentive to monitor.

研究目的

信用違約互換交易會改變外部監督機制的均衡互動監測,這是因為私人貸款者去監控客戶公司的激勵可能有所改變。本研究擬探究審計費用如何改變,以應對向客戶公司進行的信用違約互換交易啟動;研究亦探討投資者保障、如何緩和上述的影響。

研究設計/方法/理念

我們透過6,052個穿越全國的企業觀察,進行了對系統動力廣義矩估計體系的估測。

研究結果

無論投資者保障存在與否,信用違約互換交易啟動必帶來審計費用一般的平均升高,我們已把這關聯記錄下來。同時,當信用違約互換交易啟動和投資者保障兩者互相影響時,審計員的風險認知的改變,是會導致審計費用增加的。若拔除公司和審計的影響,信用違約互換交易對審計費用的影響會保持不變;而且,就各個不同的審計費用代理權而言,審計員特點是牢固的。

實務方面的啟示

本研究的結果,確定了若公司屬高投資者保護管轄權的類別,則有需要去啟動信用違約互換交易來實施政策,其目的為能從投資者保障的行動中取得最大的收益,從而減弱審計費用的增加所帶來的全面影響。再者,信用違約互換的管理或許可戰略性地訂立目標,俾能減弱於啟動後,審計費用的上昇對公司帶來的影響;這或會確保審計費用的增加、不會對有關公司的貨幣頭寸或盈利狀況產生重大的影響。

研究的原創性/價值

本研究有別於從前的研究,因它的焦點在於短期債權人可能的監督的影響給拔除的情況下,在信用違約互換交易啟動後,以監督為目的私人貸款者激勵的變化。鑒於對私人貸款者來說,監督不是不需要成本的;而且,為他們的借貸者的信用違約互換交易會為這個成本結構帶來變化,我們記錄了審計員如何對以監督為目的的激勵的有關改變作出回應。

Details

European Journal of Management and Business Economics, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2444-8451

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 14 April 2023

António Samagaio and Teresa Felício

This study aims to understand the behavior of internal auditors towards quality and analyze if some organizational and individual factors influence internal audit quality.

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Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to understand the behavior of internal auditors towards quality and analyze if some organizational and individual factors influence internal audit quality.

Design/methodology/approach

The sample is constituted by Portuguese internal auditors, and the methodology includes the use of partial least squares – structuring equation model (PLS-SEM) to test the hypothesis under study.

Findings

The results show that there is a negative relationship between reduced audit quality practices (RAQP) and organizational commitment and independence. The results found that time pressure positively affect RAQP. There is no evidence that perceived organizational support (POS) and risk profile are determinants of RAQP.

Originality/value

This work contributes by extending the literature about the determinants of internal audit quality, but also to the practice by understanding the factors that influence the behavior of internal auditors and by making recommendations that allow an improvement of the quality of internal auditing.

研究目的

本研究擬瞭解內部審計師就保持內部審計質量所作出的行為,並探討是否有些組織或個人因素、會影響內部審計的質量。

研究設計/方法/理念

研究的樣本由葡萄牙內部審計師構成,而研究方法則包括偏最小平方法的結構方程模型 (PLS-SEM) 的使用,以測試正在研究中的假設。

研究結果

研究結果顯示、降低審計質量的慣常做法與組織承諾及獨立性是成負相關的; 研究結果亦顯示、時間壓力會對降低審計質量的慣常做法產生正面影響,沒有證據證實、組織支持感和風險概況是降低審計質量慣常做法的決定因素。

研究的原創性

本研究的貢獻為、就研究內部審計質量決定因素的文獻方面、擴展了有關的學術探討; 研究亦對內部審計作出實務方面的貢獻,因研究結果幫助我們更瞭解影響內部審計師行為的因素,而且,研究人員提出了提升內部審計質量的建議。

關鍵詞

內部審計質量、降低審計質量的慣常做法、組織決定因素、個人決定因素.

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 10 March 2023

Karen-Ann M. Dwyer, Niamh M. Brennan and Collette E. Kirwan

This rich descriptive study examines auditors' client risk assessment (i.e. “key audit matters”/critical audit matters) disclosures in expanded audit reports of 328 Financial…

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Abstract

Purpose

This rich descriptive study examines auditors' client risk assessment (i.e. “key audit matters”/critical audit matters) disclosures in expanded audit reports of 328 Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE) 350 companies. The study compares auditor-identified client risks with corporate risk disclosures identified in audit committee reports, in terms of number and type of risks. The research also compares variation in auditor-identified client risks between individual Big 4 audit firms. In addition, the study examines auditor ranking of their client risks disclosed.

Design/methodology/approach

The study manually content analyses disclosures in audit reports and audit committee reports of a sample of 328 FTSE-350 companies with 2015 year-ends.

Findings

Audit committees identify more risks than auditors (23% more risks). However, auditor-identified client risks and audit-committee-identified risks are similar (80% similar), as are auditor-identified client risks between the individual Big 4 audit firms. Only ten (3%) audit reports rank the importance of auditor-identified client risks.

Research limitations/implications

Sample is restricted to one year, one jurisdiction, large-listed companies and companies audited by Big 4 auditors.

Practical implications

The study provides important insights for regulators, auditors and users of financial statements by identifying influences on disclosure of auditor-identified client risks.

Originality/value

The paper mobilises institutional theory to interpret the findings. The findings suggest that auditor-identified client risks in expanded audit reports may demonstrate mimetic behaviour in terms of similarity with audit-committee-identified risks and similarity between individual Big 4 audit firms. The study provides important insights for regulators, auditors and users of financial statements by identifying influences on disclosure of auditor-identified client risks.

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 13 October 2022

Alice Annelin

This paper aims to examine the association between audit quality threatening behaviour (AQTB) and three team equality dimensions: deindividuation, social identity and gender…

3481

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to examine the association between audit quality threatening behaviour (AQTB) and three team equality dimensions: deindividuation, social identity and gender equality. Discrimination among auditors has been experienced in accounting firms across the world, which can lead to behaviour that risks the quality of work. The negative influence of this behaviour can have consequences for clients, audit firms, regulators and the wider society due to the threat on audit quality.

Design/methodology/approach

A questionnaire was conducted at a Big 4 audit firm in Sweden. Members of audit teams that worked together on one specific engagement were asked to give their perceptions of their experience of equality and behaviours within the team. Hypotheses were tested using ordered logistic regression and partial least squares structural equation model.

Findings

Audit teams that experience deindividuation conduct more AQTBs and audit teams with higher social identity conduct less AQTBs. However, the audit team’s social identity can moderate the audit teams’ experience with deindividuation and reduce AQTB.

Originality/value

With a unique data set of practising audit teams, this study is the first to investigate how audit team equality is related to AQTB. Contributions are made to practitioners about audit team dynamics since the AQTB occurs as part of the audit decision-making process that influences audit quality. Inequality also has recruitment and reputation consequences. Thus, contributions are made to the audit market that is interested in audit quality. The study also contributes empirical evidence from an audit team context about behavioural outcomes and the social identity and deindividuation model theory (Klein et al., 2007; Reicher et al., 1995).

Details

Managerial Auditing Journal, vol. 38 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0268-6902

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 30 November 2023

Domenico Campa, Alberto Quagli and Paola Ramassa

This study reviews and discusses the accounting literature that analyzes the role of auditors and enforcers in the context of fraud.

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Abstract

Purpose

This study reviews and discusses the accounting literature that analyzes the role of auditors and enforcers in the context of fraud.

Design/methodology/approach

This literature review includes both qualitative and quantitative studies, based on the idea that the findings from different research paradigms can shed light on the complex interactions between different financial reporting controls. The authors use a mixed-methods research synthesis and select 64 accounting journal articles to analyze the main proxies for fraud, the stages of the fraud process under investigation and the roles played by auditors and enforcers.

Findings

The study highlights heterogeneity with respect to the terms and concepts used to capture the fraud phenomenon, a fragmentation in terms of the measures used in quantitative studies and a low level of detail in the fraud analysis. The review also shows a limited number of case studies and a lack of focus on the interaction and interplay between enforcers and auditors.

Research limitations/implications

This study outlines directions for future accounting research on fraud.

Practical implications

The analysis underscores the need for the academic community, policymakers and practitioners to work together to prevent the destructive economic and social consequences of fraud in an increasingly complex and interconnected environment.

Originality/value

This study differs from previous literature reviews that focus on a single monitoring mechanism or deal with fraud in a broadly manner by discussing how the accounting literature addresses the roles and the complex interplay between enforcers and auditors in the context of accounting fraud.

Details

Journal of Accounting Literature, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0737-4607

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 12 June 2020

Mohammad Husen Rifai and Agus Widodo Mardijuwono

The purpose of this research is to obtain empirical evidence about the impact of auditor’s integrity and organizational commitment to the prevention of fraud.

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this research is to obtain empirical evidence about the impact of auditor’s integrity and organizational commitment to the prevention of fraud.

Design/methodology/approach

This research was conducted using questionnaires distributed to all internal auditors who worked at East Java Representatives Office of Indonesia’s National Government Internal Auditor. One hundred and thirteen questionnaires were distributed, and fifty-seven questionnaires were received, and all have validity eligible to use in this research. The hypothesis of this research was tested using the partial least square analysis with WarpPLS version 6.0 software.

Findings

The result of this research found that auditor’s integrity and organizational commitment affect positively to fraud prevention.

Originality/value

Using government internal auditors, this study believed, brings a new insight into government internal auditor behavior.

Details

Asian Journal of Accounting Research, vol. 5 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2443-4175

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 28 May 2024

Silu Cheng and Wenyao Hu

This study explores how auditors' emotions, specifically negative moods triggered by flight delays, impact auditing quality.

Abstract

Purpose

This study explores how auditors' emotions, specifically negative moods triggered by flight delays, impact auditing quality.

Design/methodology/approach

Utilizing flight delays during audit assignments as a mood indicator, weather conditions at departure airports serve as an instrumental variable to provide a robustness check between flight delays and audit outcomes, employing a two-stage least squares model.

Findings

The findings suggest that such negative moods improve auditing effort and quality, as evidenced by reduced future accounting restatements and increased audit fees. The positive effect of flight delays on auditing quality is consistent across different tests and measures.

Originality/value

This study highlights the significance of auditors' emotional states on their professional performance, indicating a unique angle on auditing quality research by focusing on the emotional well-being of auditors as influenced by external factors such as flight delays.

Details

China Accounting and Finance Review, vol. 26 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1029-807X

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 27 June 2019

Kim Ittonen, Emma-Riikka Myllymäki and Per Christen Tronnes

This paper focuses on bank audit committees and examines whether audit committee members who are former auditors are associated with the acquisition of audit and non-audit…

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Abstract

Purpose

This paper focuses on bank audit committees and examines whether audit committee members who are former auditors are associated with the acquisition of audit and non-audit services from their former employers.

Design/methodology/approach

The study empirically examines a sample of large banks that are included in the S&P Composite 1500.

Findings

The paper reports significantly lower audit fees and a higher proportion of non-audit fees to total fees when the audit committee chair is an alumnus of the incumbent audit firm. Moreover, additional analysis reveals that these findings are stronger for banks with more earnings management.

Research limitations/implications

Overall, the findings indicate that audit firms might consider banks using their alumni as audit committee chairs to be less risky or easier to audit, thus requiring relatively less effort from the auditors. The reduced effort required to audit clients with audit firm alumni on their audit committees then has the effect of reducing the audit fees charged. Alternatively, their auditing experience and cognitive proximity might influence the assessment of the need for auditing or the ability to negotiate lower audit fees on the part of audit firm alumni.

Originality/value

This paper provides empirical evidence of the association between audit firm alumni in influential positions on an audit committee and fees paid to those audit firms in the banking industry. The findings contribute to the literature by suggesting that banks with affiliated former auditors chairing their audit committees not only have significantly lower audit fees but also a higher proportion is spent on non-audit services.

Details

Managerial Auditing Journal, vol. 34 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0268-6902

Keywords

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