Accountant Competence and Independence in Providing Accountancy Services to Small and Medium-Sized Entities: Evidence from a Developing Economy Perspective

Abstract

In most developing nations, such as Ghana, SMEs provide a significant portion of the GDP to ensure economic growth, employment, income stability, and poverty alleviation. Despite the aforementioned duties, most of these SMEs are currently failing as a consequence of poor performance. By this, the study investigates accountants’ competence and independence in delivering accounting services to small and medium-sized organisations as a method of sustaining their vitality and allowing them to play the expected crucial roles as the engine of growth in the country’s economic development. The study delivered questionnaires to a sample of eight hundred and seven (807) employees who were selected using the purposive sampling technique from the targeted demographic. The descriptive and inferential quantitative techniques were utilised to investigate the influence of the independent factors on the dependent variable in the Cape Coast Metropolitan Assembly. Descriptive statistics such as frequency and percentages whilst inferential statistics such as correlation and regression were run using SPSS version 23. The results of the study show that competence and independence have a positive and significant effect on how well accounting services are delivered among SMEs in Ghana. The findings of this study may be utilised as a source of reference and beneficial information for researchers, additional studies, and parties who require it to get too concerned concerning accountants’ competence and independence in delivering accountancy services

External Auditors' Impact on Corporate Governance of Unlisted Firms: A Developing Country Perspective

“…The agency theory emphasizes the necessity for shareholders to keep an eye on the actions of the board of directors (Ahmed et al, 2022;Zogning, 2017). An independent auditor with core financial training and expertise will reduce the incidence of management irregularities or fraud in this relationship.…”