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The purpose of the study is to investigate the factors that may result in a high turnover rate of auditors in Macau. The factors considered include client importance, task complexity, time budget constraints, auditor independence and acceptance of dysfunctional behaviour by Macau's audit firms.

This study involved three stages. In the first stage, interviews were carried out with auditors from Big‐4 (seven interviewees) and local non‐Big‐4 firms (three interviewees) in Macau to investigate the reasons for the high turnover rate amongst auditors in Macau. They were asked to speculate about common explanatory factors. The second stage involved 141 auditors from Big‐4 and local non‐Big‐4 accounting firms who were asked to complete a questionnaire survey for the explanatory factors. A total of 135 usable questionnaires were included in the multiple regression data analysis. The third stage of research comprised follow‐up interviews aimed at learning more about the reasons for dysfunctional behaviour.

This research provides valuable information for audit firms in Macau and will potentially help them to reduce their turnover rate and identify the factors affecting dysfunctional behaviour amongst auditors. The results extend the literature by focusing on the effect of perceived responsibility on professional responses to time budget pressures, task complexity, pressure from clients, and professional and ethical issues.

The challenge facing auditors today is to expand their auditing practices and evolve standards for adequately monitoring the operations of business entities. The current high turnover rate alarms audit firms, which are concerned with training and the provision of sufficient resources to solve the problems that auditors face in the workplace.

This is the first paper to examine the reason for turnover intentions in Macau. This study sheds light on the factors that contribute to individual auditor differences in the acceptance of dysfunctional behaviour that may result from the stressful nature of their duties.

The financial scandals in Malaysia have caused auditors to be convicted of such failure and led to the claims that they were involved in dysfunctional audit behavior. The incidences have worsened the profession’s credibility and deteriorated the public confidence on the profession. This study aims to examine the influence of professional skills, independence, work experience, time budget pressure on dysfunctional audit behavior.

This study collected primary data based on a questionnaire survey among audit firms in the Klang Valley area and registered with Malaysian Institutes of Accountants.

The findings from a survey conducted on 130 Malaysian auditors proved that time budget pressure is significantly influenced the dysfunctional audit behavior. However, this study did not support the relationship between professional skills, independence, work experience and dysfunctional audit behavior.

This study contributed to the researchers, auditors as well as educators in further understanding the factors that might influence the dysfunctional audit behavior. The findings are expected to help in improving the auditors’ credibility and uphold the public confidence on the auditing profession.

This paper aims to assess 12 audit procedures that deemed challenging to insurance audits.

This paper uses grounded theory as a framework for conducting series of semi-structured interviews with six technical audit partners, two from Big Four and four from non-Big Four. The interview agendas are drawn from the 12 audit approaches suggested by Practice Notes 20 (The Audit of Insurance in the United Kingdom) issued by the Auditing Practices Board (UK).

Without an audit standard, practitioners will exercise excessive professional judgments and deviate from audit approaches.

Though the findings are solely drawn from the insurance sector rather than a wide spectrum of sectors, they have huge ramifications to accounting and audit professions, stakeholders and regulators.

This paper reveals differences in audit approaches between the theoretical context and practical perspective.

The paper showed that impact of audit failure leads to litigation, financial losses and loss of faith in audit quality and approaches.

This paper suggests a hybrid approach on the grounded theory, provides an extensive overview of the sector’s audit approaches and issues and unravels an urgent need for a concerted international auditing standard.

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.

This study aims to determine the direct and mediating effects of time pressure, work–family conflict, role ambiguity, work stress and audit quality reduction behavior.

The sample selection in this research is done by purposive sampling method based on the criteria specified by the researcher. In addition, random sample selection does not necessarily produce a sample that can represent auditors at all levels and types of Kantor Akuntan Publik (KAP). This research uses quantitative analysis with approach of structural equation modeling (SEM) method to analyze direct and indirect effect. The main method for data analysis is SEM.

Based on the results of the research note that time pressure, work–family conflict and role ambiguity each have a significant effect on work stress. In testing the direct effect on audit quality reduction behavior, only time pressure influential significant, while work–family conflict and role ambiguity not significant. However, in the test of indirect influence/influence of mediation, there is a significant influence on all tests that time pressure, work–family conflict and role ambiguity each have a significant effect on audit quality reduction behavior through work stress.

The originality of this paper is in SEM used by involving new variable which is work–family conflict. The research location is public accounting offices (KAP) in Indonesia.

A survey is here systematically conducted to analyse auditors’ perceptions of dysfunctional auditing behaviour (DAB). As a result of many accounting scandals and litigations faced by audit firms, this paper aims to assess whether factors leading to DAB are embedded in audit firms’ practices.

The sample used in this study comprises auditors at all levels of employment with the big four audit firms in the United Kingdom (UK). DAB is analysed using two signals/indicators: premature sign-off and under-reporting of chargeable time. Time budget pressure and time deadline pressure are the factors considered here as potentially pushing auditors to exhibit DAB. A careful and considered analysis and interpretation is here articulated. Additionally, the sample individuals are divided into audit trainees and experienced auditors to assess any potential differences in the perception of DAB that reflect the experience factor.

Coordination with internal auditors, different perceptions between audit trainees and experienced auditors of dysfunctional behaviour, working during their personal time and the box-ticking exercise are amongst the findings that may help practitioners to understand the reasons behind dysfunctional behaviour and identify measures to mitigate it.

The study can aid concerned executives and audit partners to minimise DAB related to different time pressures by casting light on the key ethical issues. The study is conducted on a sample of the big four firms in the UK covering all organisational structure. It assesses if experience plays a role in the perception of DAB.

This study aims to examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the relationship between auditors’ work stress and client participation with audit quality (AQ).

This study is a descriptive-survey type and the data were collected through a questionnaire distributed online. The statistical population consisted of auditors working in audit firms in Iran and the sample was selected using a random sampling method. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data.

The findings of this study suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the negative relationship between auditors’ work stress and AQ. In addition, the results indicate that client participation in the audit process did not significantly impact AQ during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Given the global and widespread impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on individuals’ lives and work settings, this study provides an opportunity to explore the challenges auditors face concerning health protocols and their well-being during the pandemic, specifically within the context of Iran. The unique circumstances of the pandemic have placed additional pressure on auditors to navigate and address the challenges arising from COVID-19 in their workplaces. Although research on the effects of the pandemic on accounting and auditing is ongoing, this study contributes to the literature by expanding our understanding of the specific implications and circumstances faced by auditors during the COVID-19 outbreak.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

The primary purpose of this exploratory paper is to propose a novel analytical framework for examining corruption from a behavioral perspective by highlighting multiple issues associated with quantification culture.

This paper is part of the author’s exploratory study into the complex corruption phenomenon in Indonesia from a variety of viewpoints to obtain a better understanding of its nature and dynamics. By building on previous literature on quantification culture, audit culture and the corruption phenomenon, this paper explores the different issues related to overreliance on numbers and how they may have led to increased corruption, particularly in Indonesia. Using the Fraud Decision Scale framework, this paper also demonstrates how the quantification culture affects the cost-benefit analysis of corruption offenders. To develop the best anticorruption strategy and lay the groundwork for future anticorruption studies, this paper presents a fresh perspective on how to analyze and evaluate the corruption issue.

The author established that despite the benefits that quantification practices – such as indicators, scores, ratings and rankings – bring to societies and organizations, there is evidence that these practices can have unfavorable effects when used excessively or incorrectly. One of the adverse effects of quantification practices is over-quantification, which manifests as various inappropriate behaviors, including an excessive desire to acquire riches and material belongings. Additionally, the worship of ranks and status derived from quantitative evaluation processes has led many people to prioritize short-term objectives above long-term improvements. Eventually, these will cause organizations to lose productivity and make them susceptible to fraud and corruption. Future studies are needed to determine the most effective approach for mitigating over-quantification issues. In this exploratory paper, the author proposes balancing quantitative practices with qualitative knowledge to gradually alter people’s behavior by broadening their perspectives in perceiving various phenomena in the world, not only by describing and explaining them but also by comprehending their underlying meanings.

This exploratory study is self-funded and relies primarily on documentary analysis to explore the corruption phenomenon in Indonesia. Future studies will benefit from in-depth interviews with former corruption offenders and investigators.

This exploratory paper contributes to the development of a sound corruption prevention approach by presenting a novel analytical framework for examining various behavioral problems linked with quantification culture that may lead to the escalation of corruption.

This study emphasizes the significance of understanding the structure and dynamics of quantification culture and their negative behavioral impacts on people to comprehend the corruption phenomenon better.