The Model of Professional Ethics of Accountants and Auditors and its Relationship With the Readability of Financial Reporting (Thematic Analysis and SEM Approach)
Subject Areas : Financial and Behavioral Researches in Accounting
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Keywords: professional ethics, financial reporting readability, reporting transparency, content analysis, structural equations,
Abstract :
accountants and auditors need to use different and appropriate mechanisms to check the level of usefulness of the financial information provided and protect themselves against audit and financial risks, in this regard, compliance with ethics, rules and professional care is a great help to this. The problem is, therefore, a combination of professional ethics and qualitative features of financial reporting should be used. In this regard, the present study aims to provide a model of professional ethics of accountants and auditors and examine its relationship with the readability and transparency of financial reporting.
This study is an exploratory mixed research, in the qualitative part, using thematic analysis technique and based on semi-structured interviews with 20 members of the public accountant community in Tehran and Shiraz, it has been presented a qualitative model of professional ethics; In the quantitative part, confirmatory factor analysis was used using a researcher-made questionnaire of 30 questions, in order to check the validity of the proposed qualitative model.
In the theme analysis section, 30 basic themes, 3 organizing themes and one overarching theme were identified. Also, the results of the confirmatory factor analysis technique confirmed the fit of all three proposed models (overarching themes). In addition, the result of the structural equation modeling technique showed that professional ethics have a positive and significant effect on the readability of financial reporting.
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