The Effect of Perspective-taking and Incentives on Auditors’ Professional Skepticism

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Ph.D. Student in Accounting, Faculty of Management & Economics, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Kerman, Iran

2 Professor of Accounting, Faculty of Management & Economics, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Kerman, Iran

3 Professor of Accounting, Faculty of Management & Economics, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Kerman, Iran.

Abstract

An appropriate level of professional skepticism is necessary for a high-quality audit, for this purpose, this paper aims to investigate the effect of two interventions, perspective taking and incentives, on auditors’ professional skepticism when auditing complex estimates. Specifically, this paper examines the different ways that perspective taking (management versus inspector) and incentives (absent versus reward versus penalty) combine to impact skepticism. The statistical population of this research includes all auditors working in trusted audit institutions of Tehran Stock Exchange Organization. The sample of the study consisted of 234 auditors working in trusted audit institutions of Tehran Stock Exchange Organization in 2023 who were selected by random sampling. To investigate hypotheses, an analysis of variance and SPSS software were used. Results indicate that in the absence of incentives, adopting a management perspective raises professional skepticism when measuring skepticism as appropriateness of management’s fair value estimate while adopting an inspector perspective raises professional skepticism when measuring skepticism as need for more evidence. Evidence has also been obtained that the use of incentives along with the adopting a perspective raises the auditors' professional skepticism. This paper extends the literature by shifting the focus from a single perspective to a comparison of two perspective-taking approaches and discusses how each of these approaches enhances professional skepticism.

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References

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Journal of Accounting Advances
Volume 15, Issue 2
November 2023
Pages 63-92

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History

  • Receive Date: 06 September 2023
  • Revise Date: 03 February 2024
  • Accept Date: 04 December 2023

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