Does Engagement Partners’ Effort Affect Audit Quality? With a Focus on the Effects of Internal Control System

An audit team includes engagement partners, CPAs, and staff. Among them, partners play a vital role in performing tasks that require expertise and experience, such as analyzing and understanding the industry, and supervising the overall audit process. In detail, the partners establish an audit plan, determine the overall audit time, provide the audit input ratio of the engagement team, and review the audit reports. This study examines for association between the partner’s audit hour ratio and audit quality depending on the client firms’ characteristics. Although the role of partners is important, the information about partner audit hours is limited. However, the Korean government requires audit firms to disclose the partner hour information in the audit report starting in the 2014 fiscal year. By the disclosure, it is possible to examine the association between partner audit hours and audit quality. In this study, the information on partner audit hour is hand-collected from the firms’ business reports. Using 6340 observations from 2014 to 2017, the partner audit hour ratio is associated with audit quality, under the characteristics of client firms. Firms’ risks are adopted for client characteristics, and we focused on the operation of internal control. The internal control operation level is measured by the following: (1) the ratio of internal control personnel and (2) experience of the internal control personnel in the accounting and IT departments. The result suggests that for the firms where internal control is not effectively operated, partners make more effort to enhance audit quality.

The role of emotional intelligence and personality on the overall internal control effectiveness: applied on internal audit team member's behavior in Lebanese companies

PurposeThis paper aims to assess the influence of emotional intelligence (EI) on the perceived internal control performance in the Lebanese companies.Design/methodology/approachThe goal of this study is to decide whether there is a connection between “emotional intelligence” and perceived efficacy of “internal control” in Lebanese organizations. For the benefit and purpose of this research, a quantitative methodology will be applied. The data was collected by the use of self-directed and pre-coded questionnaires to test hypotheses made, making it a deductive research.FindingsThe findings showed that the personality traits of the members of the audit team play a key role in cultivating a control climate that is more conducive to effective control. Moreover, personality traits were key in boosting trust and openness in communication that can be seen as antecedents to having a system where all key auditing professionals within the organization can cooperate to boost the effectiveness of the internal control framework. These personality traits amplified the impact of the EI of audit manager on the overall effectiveness of the COSO framework, thus leading to improved efficiency of internal controls.Research limitations/implicationsThe exploratory aspect of this study have shown results that are general but create a basis for future comprehensive researches. This study was limited to a relatively small sample, due to the small size of Lebanon and due to the Pandemic that has limited our access to more data. This research did not regulate other relevant variables such as gender, experience, educational level and age. Nevertheless, the importance of the findings is they ascertain that internal control is not a rigid technical function that is primarily concerned with accounting and financial disciplines, rather it extends to organizational psychology and behavior.Practical implicationsThe practical implication of studying EM and personality in Lebanese organizations is to describe and understand how it affects the effectiveness of the internal control and thus the survival of the organization. When organizations are aware of such a strong impact, they will try to increase their maturity level in this regard and further seeks more efforts in tackling the EI aspect. As a summary, the practical implication of this paper is to understand how all those variables affect the effectiveness of the internal control and thus the survival of the organization.Social implicationsThe subject of this study consists of many human-related aspects such as personality and human behavior. Once these elements are combined with the internal control framework, it will have an added value at the social level by enhancing the behavior of people and their perception of others' emotions and oneself emotions, in addition to improving their performance which reflects on enhancing the overall organizational performance. Studying EI allows to understand and manage emotions in order to create positive social interactions. The benefits of EI are vast in terms of personal, academic and professional success.Originality/valueDue to the lack of research on this topic, this research will contribute to explore the field. Future studies will benefit from this analysis while using a larger sample. Future work should aim to include not only auditors but all staff of the company. Further research is required to decide whether the results of this analysis are generalized across various positions and industries and to determine whether EI is the only influential aspect involving a significant number of social interactions. In addition, this article can be used as a basis for the implementation of internal control with a COSO framework that involves the EQ of everyone in the organization.

Constructing the Audit Risk Assessment by the Audit Team Leader When Planning: Using Fuzzy Theory

The aim of this study is to construct the assessment of the expected audit risk by the audit team leader (ATL) during the planification phase of the audit. The ATL plays an important role within the audit, and even more so regarding small and medium-sized (SME) audit firms. The audit risk assessment is critical as relying more (less) on internal controls implemented by the client leads to performing less (more) substantive audit procedures. This is determined by the ATL based on their professional judgement and previous experience. The use of fuzzy theory has powerful potential into the audit arena, as the audit risk assessment (outcome) is critically related to the auditors’ judgement and perception. We argue that ATL characteristics are core conditions in determining the audit risk assessment when planning. Using hand-collected and private data from Spanish SME audit firms, we find that a comprehensive set of conditions must be given for perceived high audit risk. The results indicate that female and inexperienced ATLs planning the audit of indebted firms with high proportions of capital assets, less profitability, and with a larger board sizes, as they are expected to have bad internal control. The same conditions are met when expecting errors, as well as shorter audit tenures. Finally, conditions such as the ATL’s experience gains importance in expecting irregularities. This paper extends our understanding of the role of ATL characteristics on the audit risk assessment when planning and raising awareness on studying SME audit firm behavior.

The Association between Audit Office Team Diversity and Audit Quality

Surveys and field studies find that high-performing teams are diverse teams. Diverse teams value different perspectives and encourage the participation of team members through psychological safety, leading to higher team performance. This paper argues that team diversity is an office-level characteristic that is distinguishable from other characteristics studied in the prior auditing literature and that has an incremental effect on audit quality. I find a positive association between team diversity and audit quality that is robust to controlling for other audit office and client characteristics. Further, this positive association is stronger for more complex and non-routine audit engagements. These findings should be of interest to regulators who regulate how the auditing industry attracts and retains talent worldwide. In addition, these findings should be informative to audit committees who make auditor selection decisions and to investors and accounting researchers interested in the relation between audit team personnel and audit quality.

The Impact of a Structured Electronic Interacting Brainstorming Platform

With the advancements in technology and the recent trends in how audit teams communicate, audit firms increasingly develop and rely on computer-mediated communications and online platforms in the conduct of audits. We examine the effects of two different electronic interacting brainstorming platforms, structured (idea inputs organized into trees and shown by categories/ topics) and non-structured (idea inputs in chronological sequence), on audit team brainstorming performance. While the psychology literature suggests potential benefits from the structured brainstorming platforms, we find that, in a fraud hypothesis generation task, a structured brainstorming platform does not improve audit team fraud brainstorming performance (either quantity or quality of fraud hypotheses generated). Further, we find that a structured brainstorming platform reduces the differences in brainstorming performance and mental simulations between managers and seniors. This is because a structured brainstorming platform reduces managers’ performance, although it has no negative effects on seniors’ performance.

The copycat effect: do social influences allow peer team members' dysfunctional audit behaviors to spread throughout the audit team?

PurposeThis study seeks to identify the role that peer team members' behaviors and superiors' preferences play in influencing the likelihood that staff auditors engage in dysfunctional audit behavior (DAB).Design/methodology/approachThis study uses an experiment that manipulates peer team member behavior (DAB present or DAB absent) and superior preference (efficiency or effectiveness). Students enrolled in a graduate accounting course, proxying for inexperienced staff auditors, receive an internal control sample selection task. Participants assess the likelihood that a typical staff auditor would engage in DAB or non-DAB.FindingsFirst, staff auditors with a peer team member who engages in DAB are more likely to engage in DAB. Second, staff auditors who have a superior with a preference toward efficiency are more likely to engage in DAB. Finally, when considered simultaneously, the effect of the superior's preference on the likelihood of staff auditors engaging in DAB is not different for staff auditors, subject to a peer engaging in DAB versus those subject to a peer who engaged in a non-DAB.Research limitations/implicationsThis study uses a hypothetical audit team, a written script of team member communication, and students proxying for inexperienced staff auditors. As such, future studies might consider improving the realism of the team setting, the manner in which a message is portrayed, and implications at higher levels within the audit team hierarchy.Practical implicationsTeam interactions contribute to the prevalence of DAB within the profession. Specifically, inexperienced auditors are influenced by the behavior of peer and superior team members and this may be one cause of the prevalence of DAB within the profession. As such, future firm considerations could include well-structured mentorship programs and rewards structures.Originality/valueThis study adds to the audit team literature by investigating the influence of audit team dynamics on staff auditors' behaviors. This paper extends the current audit team literature, that is mostly focused on supervisor–subordinate relationships, by investigating social influences from peers and superiors. This study's findings inform public accounting firms of areas in which personnel may negatively affect audit quality through intra-team interactions.

The influence of ethics, experience, and competence on auditors’ professional skepticism (Study at BPKP representative of Lampung Province)

Purpose: This study aims to prove empirically the influence of ethics, experience, and competence on auditors’ professional skepticism. Research Methodology: In testing the hypotheses, 63 auditors at BPKP Representative of Lampung Province took part in responding to the questionnaires distributed. The criteria for auditors sampled: 1). Auditors who are directly involved in the assignment, especially in the process of collecting and testing audit evidence, like audit team members, audit team leaders, audit supervisors and audit quality control, and 2). Auditors who are experienced in auditing for at least one year. Partial Least Square analysis method was used and processed with SmartPLS version 3.0 software and Microsoft office excel 2007 program. Results: As hypothesized, the results revealed that ethics, experience, and competence had a positive influence on auditor professional skepticism. Discussion, limitations, and recommendations for future research are discussed. Limitations: This research is limited only to the government auditors working at BPKP Representative of Lampung Province so that the research result can not be generalized to the auditor as a whole. The auditor's tight schedule caused the returning time of questionnaires to shift from the set timeline previously. The use of questionnaires also was the last limation in terms of inaccurate answers, dishonest answers, and missinterpreted questions. Contribution: This study is beneficial for BPKP Representative of Lampung in improving auditors' professional skepticism, as well as one of literature resources for conducting further studies. Keywords: Ethics, Experience, Competence, Auditors’ professional skepticism, Auditor

Analysis of the RBA implementation and the preparation of an audit program at the Ministry of Villages, Development of Disadvantaged Regions and Transmigration

Risk-Based Audit (RBA) is an audit method that applies a risk approach in its implementation. By applying the RBA method, it is expected that an audit can be performed effectively and efficiently, thus producing maximum audit results. This study aims to analyze the implementation of RBA upon audits conducted by The Audit Board of Indonesia (BPK). Furthermore, this study analyzes the preparation of an Audit Program in line with the previously determined RBA. The research framework uses Agency Theory which emphasizes the relationship between management and principal. To ensure that management does not perform any manipulation, an independent third party must conduct the audit. This study applied a qualitative research methodology with a case study approach at BPK. The author expects to dig deeper into the application and implementation of RBA within BPK by using the case study approach support by audit documents and interviews with BPK Audit Team. The results showed that the implementation, performance, and monitoring of RBA by the BPK Audit Team were in line with the instructions and guidelines set by BPK.