The effect of Partner Communications of Fraud Likelihood and Skeptical Orientation on Auditors’ Professional Skepticism

Authors
Mahboobe Jafari 1
Omid Pourheidari 2
Ahmad Khodamipour 3
1 Ph.D.Student of Accounting, Faculty of Management and Economics, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Kerman, Iran. M.jafari@aem.uk.ac.ir
2 Professor of Accounting, Faculty of Management and Economics, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Kerman, Iran. (Corresponding Auther).
3 Professor of Accounting, Faculty of Management and Economics, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Kerman, Iran. khodamipour@uk.ac.ir
10.61186/aapc.8.16.241
Abstract
Professional skepticism is an attitude that includes a questioning mind that makes to be alert to conditions indicating fraud, management bias, and inconsistencies across evidence. An appropriate level of professional skepticism is essential to a high-quality audit, for this purpose, this paper aims to investigate the effect of partner communication of fraud likelihood and skeptical orientation on the level of professional skepticism in auditor judgments. This study examines the effect on professional skepticism of the partner’s communication on the likelihood of fraud (making their own view known, making management’s view known or not making any view known) and the skeptical orientation being encouraged (outward orientation towards the veracity of management representations and/or inward towards the fallibility of the auditor’s judgment processes). The statistical sample consisted of 185 auditors working in trusted audit institutions of Tehran Securities & Exchange Organization in 2023 who were selected by convenience sampling. To investigate hypotheses and analyze data, an analysis of variance and the SPSS software were used. Results indicate that auditors exhibit higher levels of professional skepticism when the partner expresses management’s view, rather than their own view or no view, that there is a low likelihood of fraud. Also finding indicates emphasizing an inward skeptical orientation was not found to be more effective in encouraging professional skepticism in audit judgments than emphasizing an outward skeptical orientation.
Keywords
Keywords: Professional skepticism
Partner communication of fraud likelihood
Inward and outward orientation
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Value and Behavioral Accounting
Volume 8, Issue 16
Winter 2024
Pages 241-276