Investigating the Relationship between the Andatory Rotation of Audit Firms and the Auditor's Professional Skepticism

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Birjandi Hamid; FATHI ZAHRA

Title

Investigating the Relationship between the Andatory Rotation of Audit Firms and the Auditor's Professional Skepticism

Author(s)

Birjandi Hamid | FATHI ZAHRA | Issue Writer Certificate

Keywords

Mandatory Rotation of Audit Firms

The Auditor's Professional Skepticism

Audit Organizations Member of the Association of Official Accountants

Abstract

Objective: Independent auditors ensure the transparency of corporate information through accreditation of financial statements and other information under review. Recent financial scandals around the world, from Atron and WorldCom in the United States to Parliament in Europe, have raised concerns about the reliability of financial statements. While the main responsibility for preparing financial statements rests with the company's management, these events are generally referred to as audit failures. In fact, the general perception is that the reason for such events is the lack of independence and poor quality of auditing. Following these events, legislators and developers of accounting standards sought to enact legislation to improve the independence of auditors and the quality of auditing. One of the main concerns of the auditing profession is auditor independence and the gradual decline of auditor independence is a serious threat. The auditor's long relationship with the client creates a level of closeness between the two that makes it very difficult for the auditor to perform the audit work in a way that maintains an appropriate level of professional skepticism and does not compromise his or her independence. . In fact, proponents of auditor change believe that in the event of a forced turnaround, auditors will be in a position to resist the pressures and demands of managers and to make more impartial judgments. The auditor's long presence with an client creates a tendency to maintain the client's management's point of view, a situation that undermines his or her independence and impartiality. In addition, the close proximity of the two causes the auditors' independence to be compromised as the auditing firm's staff is more likely to be hired by the client. Mandatory rotation of auditing firms is one of the regulations that have been enacted to maintain the independence and improve the quality of auditing. But anagement actions lead to professional skepticism in auditors and perception of turnover risk in auditors, which can affect the quality of their audits. Given the importance of the issue of auditing professional skepticism, this study examines the relationship between mandatory rotation of auditing firms and the characteristics of auditing professional skepticism. Methods: For this purpose, the effect of the mandatory rotation of the audit firms on the six audit traits of The Auditor's Professional Skepticism, based on Hurtt et al., (2013) research, (questioning mind, suspension of judgment, Search for knowledge, interpersonal understanding, self-esteem, and autonomy) are considered. In this research, a questionnaire was distributed among 119 auditors of the audit organization and audit institutions of the member of the official accountant community of Iran, including all partners, managers and supervisors of the audit, In order to analyze the research hypotheses, structural equation modeling was used with Smart PLS software. Results: According to the empirical findings, the auditor's mandatory rotation of the audit firms has a positive and significant effect on the six characteristics of auditor's professional skepticism (questioning mind, suspension of judgment, Search for knowledge, interpersonal understanding, self-esteem, and autonomy). Of the six components of the auditor's skepticism, the component of knowledge search is further influenced by the mandatory rotation of the audit firms. Conclusion: In order to reduce the effect of an increase in the auditor's period auditor's professional skepticism should increase to improve the quality of the audit and the reliability of financial reports. This means that those audit firms that took advantage of auditors with a stronger view of professional skepticism are more capable of issuing audit reports and detecting significant deviations, and improving their audit quality. It is argued that in the event of a forced rotation of audit firms, auditors will be in a position to resist the pressures and demands of managers and to make objective and impartial judgments. The auditor's long-term presence with an client creates a desire to maintain and respect the client's management views; A situation that undermines the independence and skepticism of his profession. Also, this long-term period can create a series of emotional relationships to the extent that it creates a sense of loyalty in the auditors and it is possible that it will affect his judgment and in case of long-term relationship between the auditor and the owner their ability to judge whether it is appropriate or not. Accounting and reporting practices are declining. As a result, this relationship reduces the quality of the audit; The results therefore suggest that the long-term relationship between the auditor and the client may limit the professional skepticism and ultimately the auditor's judgment. Therefore, by reducing the duration of this relationship or in other words, increasing the mandatory turnover of auditing firms can lead to the application of more knowledge and skepticism of the auditing profession. The results also showed that among the six components of auditor professional skepticism, the search component for gaining more knowledge is affected by the forced rotation of auditing firms. It seems that with the increase of mandatory rotation of auditing firms, the auditor's attention to the discovery of evidence will increase. In other words, the auditor clarifies the situation in order to obtain evidence by examining important aspects of fraud and the acquisition of knowledge; That auditing firms should pay special attention to this component of professional skepticism compared to other components. This result is in line with the results of research such as Popova (2006). According to the research results, investors are advised to pay attention to information about the auditor rotation by companies when deciding to invest, because auditor rotation by companies may contain messages to investors that The quality of the audit report. And considering that among the characteristics of The Auditor's Professional Skepticism, the knowledge search feature has a significant relationship with the rotation of the audit firm; It is suggested that this feature of auditors be given more consideration. Also, considering the validity and reliability of the Hurt questionnaire (2013), it is recommended to the mentioned auditing firms to use this questionnaire in selecting auditors to measure their skeptical characteristics.

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APA: Copy

Birjandi, Hamid, & FATHI, ZAHRA. (2022). Investigating the Relationship between the Andatory Rotation of Audit Firms and the Auditor's Professional Skepticism. JOURNAL OF ACCOUNTING KNOWLEDGE, 13(1 (48) ), 203-228. SID. https://sid.ir/paper/961012/en

Vancouver: Copy

Birjandi Hamid, FATHI ZAHRA. Investigating the Relationship between the Andatory Rotation of Audit Firms and the Auditor's Professional Skepticism. JOURNAL OF ACCOUNTING KNOWLEDGE[Internet]. 2022;13(1 (48) ):203-228. Available from: https://sid.ir/paper/961012/en

IEEE: Copy

Hamid Birjandi, and ZAHRA FATHI, “Investigating the Relationship between the Andatory Rotation of Audit Firms and the Auditor's Professional Skepticism,” JOURNAL OF ACCOUNTING KNOWLEDGE, vol. 13, no. 1 (48) , pp. 203–228, 2022, [Online]. Available: https://sid.ir/paper/961012/en

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Scientific Information Database

ISSN: 2588-4824

Journal Paper

Investigating the Relationship between the Andatory Rotation of Audit Firms and the Auditor's Professional Skepticism