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To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study that aims to present a comprehensive view of the auditing ethics literature by unboxing 40 years of efforts in the field.

This study combined bibliometric, social network and content analysis by analyzing 114 articles published in accounting and top business ethics journals on the Web of Science database from 1980 to 2021.

The results show a rising interest in this topic and reveal auditors’ ethical decision-making and moral reasoning as the most discussed topics in the literature. The work also clusters the literature according to keywords and scopes, identifying literature gaps and suggesting new avenues for future research.

The research results assist provide an overarching image of the auditing ethics field. In addition, these results draw possible future avenues to bridge the void in the current auditing ethics literature by presenting indispensable directions for potential research. For example, future research could pay more attention to whistleblowing, fraud, personal auditor characteristics, auditor ethical sensitivity, auditor ethical conflict, ethical climate and underreporting of time. Moreover, the rapidly changing business environment necessitates the auditing ethics research to move to more practical implications to mitigate previous mistakes and avoid any future risks.

All crises are an ideal breeding ground to motivate fraud and audit failures. In fact, auditing ethics research has been subordinated to the different economic crises. However, despite increasing awareness of the topic’s relevance, no comprehensive study focuses on auditing ethics literature. Now, the devastating effects of the COVID-19 crisis are producing a new wave of financial distresses and avoiding former mistakes is timelier than ever. With this novel and integrated approach, this work goes one step forward, developing a comprehensive picture of the auditing ethics literature.

Ethical concerns in the field of trade and business and research efforts in the area of management and implementation of ethical standards in the organizational chain in the current situation, mainly due to the impact on the performance and procedures of organizations, and, finally, the effect on the views and attitudes of stakeholders and users of corporate information have become critical. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the impact of business ethics on stress, anxiety and depression and the success of auditors in Iran and Iraq.

The study’s statistical population includes all partners, managers and auditors working in auditing firms. Three hundred sixty-five questionnaires were completed by Iranian respondents and 250 questionnaires by Iraqi respondents in 2021. Also, the analysis of variance and regression of ordinary least squares have been used for data analysis and testing of hypotheses.

The research results show a negative and significant relationship between the results of business ethics and stress, anxiety and depression of auditors in Iran and Iraq and a positive relationship between business ethics and auditors’ success in Iran and Iraq.

As the current research was conducted in emerging financial markets such as Iran and Iraq, which are highly competitive, along with special economic conditions, and as the occupation of the ISIS terrorist group, the civil wars in Iraq, the world’s severe economic sanctions against Iran and following the global crisis of COVID-19, both countries have had special conditions. Therefore, the current research can bring helpful information to the readers and help everyone develop science and knowledge in this field.

Highlights similarities among the codes of ethics promulgated by professional societies in the United States such as The Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA), the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA), and the EDP Auditors Association (EDPAA). Takes the Code of Ethics of the Institute of Internal Auditors, an international professional association, as an example to demonstrate that most of the articles of professional codes do not reflect the cultural dimensions of Asian, European, and other countries. Since one single universal code of ethics may not meet the needs of an international group, international professional societies may wish to consider alternatives to incorporate in their codes of ethics, especially the cultural dimensions of other countries. Cultural differences often limit the effectiveness of a uniform international code of ethics because they create a lack of consensus within a profession as to what constitutes acceptable behaviour.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of the presence of a code of ethics on the quality of auditors' judgments, within the context of the new International Standard on Quality Controls 1 (ISQC1).

A sample of 112 professional accountants and auditing students was employed to investigate the effect of the presence of a code of ethics (operationalised as the presence vs absence of an organisational code of conduct) on the quality of audit judgments, pertaining to an inventory writedown, using a 2 × 2 full factorial “between‐subjects” experimental design.

The results of this study indicate that the presence of a code of ethics has a positive impact on the quality of the judgments made by professional accountants, but not on students. This suggests that it is the code of ethics, in the context of greater general experience that leads to higher quality of judgments.

The results suggest that the requirements of ISQC1 are relevant to the quality control of accounting firms and have potential to positively impact the quality of audit performance.

This is the first paper to examine the impact of the presence of a code of ethics within an audit context. It is the first time that the interactive effects of the code of ethics and technical competency, which together form an integral part of standard‐setters' quality control standards, upon the quality of auditor judgments has been investigated.

Auditors' ethical orientation and reasoning influence their professional and ethical decisions, thus impacting users of financial statements. This study examines gender and career level influences on ethical orientation and reasoning and documents systematic differences across the accounting firm. Seniors were most likely to adopt the ethical views of relativism and situation ethics. Male managers and partners were conventional ethical reasoners who adopted society's view of ethical problems, with partners scoring highest on Stage 6 principled reasoning. Female managers were largely Stage 5 principled reasoners. The results emphasize the importance of developing richer descriptions of auditors' ethics before recommending changes in the profession.

Currently, there is no formal recommended structure, particularly regarding the client’s ethics, for determining whether an external auditor should continue the business relationship with an audit client. This statement is not meant as a criticism, but rather as the backdrop for proposing that (1) a structure is needed that will assist auditors in evaluating client ethics and (2) such a structure should be institutionalized as an integral part of the continuance decision. Auditors will never be able to guarantee that a client is ethical – even those clients with detailed codes of ethics – but auditors could benefit from a more comprehensive and established process to assess a client’s commitment to ethical behavior. This paper begins by discussing some of the psychological aspects of the audit client continuance decision. Then, reviews existing, professional guidance related to evaluating client ethics. This is followed by the authors’ baseline model and client ethics evaluation checklist designed to assist external auditors in institutionalizing the evaluation of client ethics as part of the continuance decision.

By its nature, the capitalistic economic system has produced numerous ethical conflicts. The professions, as well as business in general, have been impacted by the increased emphasis on ethical behaviour. In the past few years, there has been an increased interest in business ethics. One profession which has especially grown due to the increased awareness of ethical issues is internal auditing. This has been in part due to the need for more reliable accounting records, tighter administrative controls, and improved operational efficiency. In order to provide some guidance to its members regarding ethical behaviour, the Institute of Internal Auditors has constructed a code of ethics. Describes how, through the use of a questionnaire, the views of practising internal auditors regarding the currently used code of ethics were obtained and analysed. The responses revealed that a substantial number of internal auditors do consult the code of ethics for guidance in making ethical decisions. A majority of the auditors believe that the code of ethics could be more effective if better enforcement methods were put into effect. Most respondents also believe that the code is complete as it is currently written and does not need to be expanded.

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.

There is limited research that utilizes the consequential‐conflictual (CC) approaches, which utilized radical orientation of double loop, second order and reorientation of organizational learning strategies. Both the functional‐institutional (FI) and CC approaches are integrated with the sustainability and ecological resources management literature. The aim of this paper is to fill this research gap.

The paper applies FI and CC sociological approaches.

This paper's contribution to the managerial auditing education literature is based on the proposition that ethics education can improve the moral and ethical reasoning of auditors, when the educational processes incorporate both the FI and CC sociological organizational learning strategies. The paper suggests that ethics education in auditing could benefit from experiential teaching methods utilized in allied applied disciplines of medicine, engineering, and educational psychology.

Sociological approaches have been commonly applied in behavioral managerial accounting and control systems research. This paper extends the FI and CC framework to ethics education in managerial auditing research.

The subject of accounting ethics education is important to auditors. When accounting ethics education utilizes both the FI and CC teaching approaches, the managerial auditing education processes become interactive and cooperative by bringing experiential organizational experiences to the classroom.

Accounting ethics education is shaped by ecological and environmental sustainability concerns. Recently, business school interest and growth in sustainability management has contributed to the integration of ethics education in managerial auditing and accounting contexts, overcoming the shortcomings accounting programs experienced from stand‐alone ethics courses.

The purpose of this paper is to consist in examining the effect of the auditor’s behavioral and individual characteristics on the integrated reporting quality, in regard to a sample involving 130 European industrial companies, relevant to the year 2017.

The present study’s adopted methodology rests on the hypothetico-deductive approach. The relevant data applied are analyzed by means of multiple linear regression models.

The reached results prove to indicate well that both auditor specialization and auditor ethics factors appear to have a significantly positive effect on the integrated reporting quality. Noteworthy, also, is the fact that the audit firm size and auditor behavior have been discovered to have a positive and insignificant effect on the integrated reporting related quality.

Faced with the scarcity of studies linking the auditor characteristics and the integrated reporting quality, the present study is elaborated to provide some kind of modest contribution, whereby, the determinants of integrated reporting are distinguishably highlighted