The underreporting of chargeable time and premature audit sign-offs can adversely affect public accounting firms. While prior studies of these activities have generally lacked a strong theoretical foundation, the decision model used in this study integrates elements of cognitive moral development, moral evaluation, opportunity, and individual moderators. Accountants employed by six public accounting firms completed a questionnaire designed to measure the model elements, and responded to two case scenarios involving underreporting and premature audit signoff activities. Path analyses of the decision models do not support expected relations between model elements. Because there were no Significant paths associated with the moral development element, each of the path models was reduced to a single multiple regression. Results suggest accountants view underreporting and premature sign-offs as having different ethical dimensions. The likelihood of underreporting appears affected by reward expectation, teleological evaluation, and the time an accountant has spent in practice. The significance of reward expectation and teleological evaluation suggests that accountants may use a consequences-based approach when deciding whether to underreport chargeable time. Results also suggest that as accountants become more experienced, they become less likely to prematurely signoff. Participants with an internal locus of control were less likely to prematurely sign-off. Three other issues - impact of time budget pressure on underreporting and premature sign-offs, influence of organizational sanctions on underreporting, and effect of procedure materiality on premature sign-offs - were examined. Results indicate that the likelihood of underreporting and the percentage of time written off generally increase with time budget pressure, while the likelihood of premature sign-off activity appears unaffected. Results also suggest that codes of conduct and a threat of termination may reduce the likelihood of underreporting. Finally, participants are more likely to prematurely sign-off on an audit procedure if they believe the procedure is immaterial to performance of the audit. / Ph. D.

An auditor performing analytical review must typically diagnose material variances of observed client data from his/her own expectations. The auditor may utilize a decision aid to help in generating potential explanations for a variance; it has, however, the capacity to provide many more explanations than are possible using other means. Under the circumstances of budgetary constraints and limited cognitive load for beginning an information search with these explanations, the auditor may consider the lengthy list and arrive at a more manageable sub-list of the most probable explanations. In doing so, the auditor either eliminates those explanations that are less likely or includes those that are more likely into a reduced list for further consideration. While the goal under either approach is the same-to reduce the list-studies in psychology have shown that those including will reduce the list to a much greater extent than those eliminating. If the auditor begins an information search with this reduced list of explanations, then whether the auditor uses inclusion or elimination may have effectiveness and efficiency implications for the remainder of the analytical review process. The auditor must also contend with risk in the audit environment, which also may influence the manner in which the auditor reduces the lengthy list of explanations. A risky audit environment is generally related to heightened auditor skepticism and increased audit effort, as predicted by the audit risk model (SAS 47, AICPA 1983). Each of these translates into the desire to pursue a greater number of plausible explanations in a high risk environment than in a low risk environment. Therefore, an auditor would be expected to reduce a decision-aid-provided list of explanations to a lesser degree in a high risk environment than a low risk environment. The purpose of this dissertation was to investigate the occurrence of a goal framing effect at varied levels of client risk. Using a two-way between subjects design, auditors in this study either eliminated or included explanations from a decision-aid-provided list in a low risk or high risk analytical review setting. As suggested by the goal framing theory, auditors who eliminated concluded with significantly more explanations than those who included. Furthermore, as suggested by the audit risk model, auditors in a high risk environment concluded with significantly more explanations than auditors in a low risk environment. Because previous auditing literature provides that auditor conservatism, which is heightened in periods of high risk, often mitigates biases and heuristics found in the general decision making or psychology literature, it was also predicted that in the high risk scenario, the influence of high risk in enlarging the set of explanations would overcome the influence of the inclusion goal framing in reducing the set of explanations. No support was found for this interaction. The results of this study have implications for the implementation of decision aids in practice. This study advises that in various client risk settings, auditors evaluating a lengthy decision-aid-provided list of explanations by inclusion may arrive at a significantly smaller number of explanations than by elimination. Given that the subsequent step of analytical review-information search-is planned according to what the auditor believes are the plausible hypotheses, goal framing may have an impact on the overall efficiency and effectiveness of analytical review, in both high and low risk client scenarios. / Ph. D.

Problemformulering: För att minska beroendet i noterade bolag kommer nya reglerkring rotation införas. I onoterade bolag finns det inga reglerkring detta, kravet på revisorns oberoende är dock detsamma. Hur skulle ett införande av rotationsregel påverka beroendet och har det någon inverkan på revisorns vilja att anmäla ekonomisk brottslighet? En relation kan trots allt ändra mycket i hur man tänker och hur man agerar… Syfte: Syftet är att se hur kravet på revisorns oberoende påverkas av att det i Sverige inte finns någon rotationsregel och om detta påverkar revisorns anmälningsplikt av ekonomiskbrottslighet. Metod: Studien har genomförts genom en kvalitativ metod. För att samla in empiriska data har semistrukturerade intervjuer genomförts. Resultat: Studien kom fram till att en rotationsregel skulle minska beroendet, det skulle dock kosta mer än vad det ger och därav är det ingen bra lösning. Vidare har studien visat att en brist i revisorns oberoende påverkar viljan att anmäla ekonomisk brottslighet. Denna ovilja syns främst när hoten mot oberoendet handlar om vänskap, jäv eller intäkter. / Problem definition: In order to reduce the dependency in listed companies, new rules of rotation will be established. For unlisted companies there are no existing rules and there will not be any, however the requirement of auditor independence is the same. How would an introduction of a rotation rule affect the auditor independence and would there be any effect on the auditor’s willingness to report crimes of economic nature. After all a relationship can change the way you think and act. Purpose: The purpose is to see how the requirement of auditor independence is affected by the lack of a rotation rule in Sweden and if this has any affect on the auditors reporting obligation. Method: The study was conducted through a qualitative method. To collect the empirical data, semi-structured interviews were used. Conclusion: The study concludes that a rotation rule would reduce the dependence, however this may not be a good solution as the costs exceeds the benefits. Further the study concludes that a lack of auditor independence affects the willingness to report crimes of economic nature. This reluctance appears mainly when the independence is threated by friendship, conflict of interest or revenues from clients.

Pricing of audit fees is based on several factors that are assignable both to the professional pricing and the strategic pricing. There are few studies that have observed whether gender can affect the audit fee and the differences in characteristics identified in previous studies underlie gender impact. The purpose of the study is to explain whether any correlation between gender and audit fees exists and the study is based on the gender of the signatory auditor, the gender composition of the board of the audit firm and the CEO of the audit firm. The theories that promote the study are: agency theory, socialization theory regarding gender role and social role theory and they are relevant because the agency theory can be connected to the audit fee while the other two can be linked to differences in characteristics between men and women. A survey of all Swedish companies listed on the Nasdaq Nordic lists for small, medium and large companies has been executed. The method used for collecting data is document study, where the annual reports of the companies have been used. The conclusion of the study is that the gender of the signatory auditor, the proportion of women in the audit firm's board and the gender of the CEO's are unlikely to affect the audit fee. A contribution to future research is to study the audit team and the auditor responsible, who in practice is more involved in the auditing. / Prissättning av revisionsarvode bestäms utifrån en rad faktorer som är hänförliga både till den professionella prissättningen och den strategiska prissättningen. Få studier har tidigare studerat om kön kan vara ytterligare en faktor som inverkar på revisionsarvodet och de skillnader i karaktärsdrag som identifierats i tidigare studier ligger till grund för könets påverkan. Syftet med studien är att förklara om det föreligger något samband mellan kön och revisionsarvodet, där studien utförs utifrån den påskrivande revisorns kön, könssammansättningen i revisionsbyråns styrelse samt revisionsbyråns VD. De teorier som ligger till stöd för studien är: agentteori, socialisationsteori avseende genderroll samt social rollteori som är relevanta eftersom agentteorin kan kopplas till revisionsarvodet medan de andra två kan kopplas till skillnader i karaktärsdrag mellan kvinnor och män. En totalundersökning av svenska bolag noterade på Nasdaq:s nordiska listor för små, medelstora och stora bolag har genomförts. Metoden som använts för att samla in data är dokumentstudier där bolagens årsredovisningar legat som utgångspunkt.  Slutsatsen som kan dras av studien är att den påskrivande revisorns kön, andel kvinnor i revisionsbyråns styrelse samt könet på revisionsbyråns VD sannolikt inte har en inverkan på revisionsarvodet. Ett bidrag till framtida forskning är att studera revisionsteamet och den ansvarige revisorn som i praktiken är mer involverad i utförandet av revisioner.

Diploma thesis discusses questions about internal audit. I have focused on internal audit in the bank. I analyzed four czech banks if they had established internal audit section and Audit Comitee and how many internal auditors they employ. In the second practical part I described internal audit as a process. I demonstrated it on the internal audit of mortgage credit process.

Audit is a bilateral task where the auditors are required to socially interact with their clients during the audit process. The auditor and client may encounter different expectations that could lead to challenges in their social interaction. Thus, the purpose of this study is to explore the challenges in the social interaction between the auditor and client during the audit process. Prior literature has applied versions of agency that are implicitly based on classic contract law and virtually ignored clients as a research object. The original value of this study lies in the adoption of the dramaturgical analysis into the context of audit. This study employs a qualitative research method. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven real auditor-client dyads in Scania, Sweden. The findings suggest that clients are fixated on the price tag of an audit and do not consider the person delivering the audit service. This puts the auditor and client at risk as the findings suggest that the social interaction is important whereby a similarity attraction in sociodemographic space facilities the social interaction. Asset evaluations can create challenges in the social interaction which are solved with residual control stemming from ownership as well as social status. The seven auditor-client dyads in this study deals with their own unique challenges that resulted in seven prototypes. This study fills in a gap in the literature by interviewing and analyzing the auditors’ respective client expectations on one another. To fulfil each other’s diverse expectations, both must embody different roles.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-25T18:40:43Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Ambrosio Bispo de Almeida Neto.pdf: 991238 bytes, checksum: d5ee655783ff3b0a3fe51e9337ab519f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-04-26 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The discipline of Auditing is part of the graduation course contents for Accounting and is an activity carried out by an Accounting graduate registered at the Regional Accounting Council. Auditing requires diversified knowledge and continuous professional updating. Completion of Accounting studies and especially the teaching and knowledge covered in the discipline of Auditing should allow those graduated to practice this activity .Therefore, this study proposes to answer the following question: How to promote teaching and learning of Auditing during the undergraduate course so that graduates in Accounting may practice this activity? Considering this setting, the purpose of this study is to contribute to the process of teaching and learning in Accounting to develop strategies facilitating the relationship between theory and practice of Auditing. Data was collected in two stages. In the first, an exploratory study of literature and documents was carried out. Then a field survey was conducted using a questionnaire sent to those teaching the auditing discipline in Accounting courses in the metropolitan region of Santos, Brazil. Participatory, descriptive and qualitative research contributed to the disclosure of the teaching methods and methodologies in Auditing concerning the curricular content preparing for the practice of these activities. Results of the questionnaire reveal that methods appropriate for the teaching and learning of the Auditing discipline are: deductive, logical, systematic semi-rigid, active and globalized. The teaching methods most used for this purpose are lectures, case studies, problem-based instruction and the curricular content in the proposal by the Federal Accounting Council to prepare Accounting graduates and qualifies for auditing activities / A disciplina Auditoria faz parte do conteúdo de formação profissional na graduação em Ciências Contábeis e é uma atividade exercida pelo graduado em Ciências Contábeis com registro no Conselho Regional de Contabilidade. Essa atividade exige uma multiplicidade de conhecimentos e permanente atualização profissional. A graduação em Ciências Contábeis e em especial os ensinamentos e conhecimentos abordados na disciplina Auditoria deveriam permitir aos discentes egressos o exercício dessa atividade. Sendo assim, este estudo se propõe a responder à seguinte questão: Como promover o ensino-aprendizagem da disciplina Auditoria no curso de graduação em Ciências Contábeis, visando ao exercício dessa atividade pelos egressos? Decorrente da problematização estabelecida, o objetivo geral deste estudo é contribuir para o processo ensino-aprendizado no curso de graduação de Ciências Contábeis, desenvolvendo estratégias que possibilitem a relação teórica-prática na disciplina Auditoria. A coleta de informações teve duas etapas. Na primeira etapa, realizou-se estudo exploratório por meio de uma pesquisa bibliográfica e documental. Na segunda etapa, foi realizada uma pesquisa de campo mediante um questionário encaminhado aos docentes da disciplina Auditoria na graduação em Ciências Contábeis na região Metropolitana de Santos. A pesquisa qualitativa, participante e descritiva procura contribuir com a evidenciação dos métodos e metodologias de ensino na disciplina Auditoria e sobre o conteúdo programático da disciplina que possibilite o exercício da atividade de auditoria pelos egressos. O resultado alcançado com o questionário, em conjunto com os conceitos e definições explorados na pesquisa bibliográfica e documental, indica que os métodos de ensino adequados ao processo ensino-aprendizagem na disciplina Auditoria são: dedutivo, lógico, de sistematização semirrígida, ativo e de globalização, que diversos métodos de ensino são utilizados pelos docentes na disciplina Auditoria, sendo os mais utilizados: aula expositiva, estudo de caso e ensino baseado em problemas, e que o conteúdo programático contido na proposta do Conselho Federal de Contabilidade CFC possibilita o exercício da atividade de auditoria pelos egressos

In recent years, the commercialization of the audit market has become more and more apparent, which is an inevitable trend. After the Enron scandal broke out, researches about commercialization and audit professions, audit quality have arisen. Most of these studies are focus on western audit firms. The purpose of this study is to look at the impact of commercialization of the Chinese audit industry from the auditor perspective. This paper is based on 109 responses to a survey distributed to Chinese auditors, including Big 4 firms and non-Big 4 firms. This study use market orientation, customer orientation and process orientation as indicators of commercialization. Auditor independence and auditor competence as two main cornerstones of audit quality. The data were analyzed by multiple statistics test. Our finding indicates that all three indicators of commercialization of audit market have a positive relation with auditor independence and competence. We are thus concluding that commercialization of the audit market has a positive relation to audit quality. Also, we find that auditors in Big 4 and non-Big 4 audit farm are not much difference. This may be because the Big 4 in the Chinese market do not have the same dominance as in the Western market.

Studiens syfte har varit att förklara i vilken utsträckning icke-finansiellt beroende hos revisorer kan uppstå genom revisorernas identifikation med klienter samt undersöka dess effekter på revisorns oberoende och objektivitet. Vidare har vi försökt undersöka hur klientidentifikationen kan påverkas av professionell identifiering och revisorsrotation. Således har vår problemformulering varit ”Hur identifierar revisorerna sig med sina klienter hur detta påverkar revisorns objektivitet? Hur påverkas klientidentifikationen av revisorns profession? Hur kan revisorsrotationen bidra till en minskning av identifikationen med klienten? ”.Det empiriska materialet har samlats in genom en elektronisk enkätundersökning som skickades ut till 1200 godkända och auktoriserade revisorer i Sverige. Bortfallet blev 87 %, den bakomliggande anledningen kan vara att enkäten skickades ut i samband med alla deklarationer. Vidare har den insamlade materialet bearbetats och analyserats i statistikprogrammet (SPSS) med hjälp av olika analysmodeller.Studiens resultat visar att svenska revisorer identifierar sig med sina klienter och att denna identifikation uppstår på grund av den sociala relationen mellan revisorn och klienten. Det icke-finansiella beroendet som uppstår genom identifikationen med klienter visar dock ingen påverkan på revisorns objektiva bedömning, vilket tyder på att revisorn oavsett klientens önskemål gör en korrekt bedömning vid en redovisningstvist. Vidare visar denna studie att48identifikationen med professionen leder till ökad identifikation med klienten. Detta har sin grund i den sociala identitetsteori som antyder att individer kan identifiera sig med olika sociala grupper samtidigt och att den ena identifikationen inte behöver utesluta den andra. Slutligen har vi visat att revisorsrotationen inte kan bidra till en minskning av identifikationen med klienten. Tidigare forskning visar nackdelar med revisorsrotationen, så som merkostnader och förlorad förkunskap, vilket indikerar i att rotera revisorn var sjunde år är ingen korrekt lösning som kan gynna både parterna. / The purpose of this study was to explain the extent to which non-financial dependence of auditors may arise from auditors' identification with clients and examine its effects on the auditor's independence and objectivity. Furthermore, we have attempted to examine how the client identifier can be influenced by professional identification and auditor rotation. Thus, our problem was "how auditors identify themselves with their clients how this affects the auditor's objectivity? How is the client identifier of the auditor's profession? How can the auditor rotation contribute to a decrease in identification with the client? ".The empirical data were collected through an electronic survey sent to 1200 approved and certified public accountants in Sweden. The loss was 87%, the underlying reason may be that the questionnaire was sent out in all declarations. Furthermore, the collected material processed and analyzed in the statistical program (SPSS) using various analytical models.Our results demonstrate that Swedish auditors identify with their clients and that this identification occurs due to the social relationship between the auditor and the client. The non-financial dependency arising from identification with clients, however, shows no effect on the auditor's objective assessment, which indicates that the auditor whether the client wishes make an accurate assessment of an accounting dispute. Furthermore, this study shows that the identification with profession leads to increased identification with the client. This is due to the social identity theory suggests that individuals may identify with different social groups at the same time and that one identification need not exclude the other. Finally, we have shown that auditor rotation can‟t contribute to a decrease in identification with the client. Previous research shows the disadvantages of auditor rotation, so that additional costs and loss of entry, indicating that rotate auditors every seven years is not a proper solution that can benefit both parties.

Background: The environment and the design of auditing regulation can vary significantly between countries, which can affect the form, content and quality of the audit report. The purpose of the International Standards on Auditing, ISA, is to facilitate the work for auditors on an international basis. Sweden today follows the RS 600 which is based on ISA 600, which contains standards for when an auditor use work performed by other auditor. In October 2007, came a revised and redrafted version of ISA 600 that will be enforced in Sweden in the audit of the financial year beginning on 1 January 2011. To what degree the new requirements will affect the group audit is clearly dependent on how the reporting, evaluation and instructions between the group auditor and other auditor has been carried out previously. Aim: The aim with this paper is to explain the reporting between the group auditor and other auditor in an international corporate group. The aim is also to study the factors that can influence the final outcome of this report and why they affect the outcome. Furthermore, the paper will discuss the report process changes that could take place between the group auditor and other auditor after the introduction of ISA 600. Definitions: This paper has a geographic delimitation to Sweden. The paper is delimited to only consider auditing of corporate groups whose parent is located in Sweden and subsidiaries are located abroad. This means that respondents are bounded to the group auditors. Completion and results: Factors affecting reporting between auditors in an international corporate group turned out primarily to be language and communication differences, differences in accounting standards and determination of the materiality level. The risks are considered minimized through documentation reviews and both internal- and external quality controls. An understanding of social and cultural differences is a key factor to be able to have successful cross cultural collaborations. Education, experience and practise are the solutions to understand this issue. This paper demonstrates that cross-cultural training is not given at the accounting firms, which are proposed to be a beneficial investment. The instructions and contact with other auditors are expected to be put earlier after the introduction of ISA 600, also that the report itself will be more detailed.