The Impact of Auditor’s Reputation, Fee, and Professional Skepticism on Audit Quality inEarnings Management

Subject Areas : Ethics and accounting

Abolfazl Soleimani ¹ , Mahdieh Shokrian Berenjestanaki ² , Maryam Laleh Mazhin ³

1 - MA., Department of Accounting, Faculty of Management, Tehran University, Tehran, Iran
2 - Assistant Professor, Department of Accounting, Farvardin Institute of Higher Education, Qaimshahr, Iran
3 - Assistant Professor, Department of Accounting, Technical and Vocational University, Tehran, Iran

Received: 2023-03-26 Accepted : 2023-04-16 Published : 2023-04-24

Keywords: Earnings Management, Auditing, Fee, Reputation, Professional Skepticism,

Abstract :

Purpose: The purpose of the present study is to review the impact of auditors’ reputation, fee,and professional skepticism on Audit quality in earnings management from the view of auditors inthe Iranian Association of Certified Accountants.Method: In this research, the quantitative-survey method and questionnaire tool was used fordata collection. From among 230 audit institutes that were members of the Iranian Association ofCertified Accountants in 2021, 114 institutes were chosen to email the questionnaires and finally96 filled out questionnaires were received. For the assessment of the internal consistency of thequestionnaire, Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was used which showed an acceptable reliability level(0.7). The obtained data out of research were analyzed by SPSS (Version 28).Results: The results show that auditors’ fee and professional skepticism have a significanteffect on audit quality in earnings management; but auditors’ reputation does not have an importanteffect in this regard. This finding shows that auditors, for obtaining better quality in auditingmethods of earnings management, should emphasize more on their audit fee as a criterion for theireffort and professional skepticism.Conclusion: The results of this study can assist independent auditors to enhance their auditquality in recognizing and preventing any sort of intervention in earnings by the clients. Moreover,executive foundations such as audit organizations and stock exchange can help to find out somedeceitful corporations which fabricate fake financial statements by the intervention in theirearnings.

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