Swedish auditors' view of auditing: Doing things right versus doing the right things

Abstract

This paper aims to describe and analyse the thought patterns of Swedish auditors with regard to the way in which they audit information provided by listed companies, and possible changes in their duties. Eighty-two auditors were interviewed using the repertory grid technique and open-ended interview questions. To check the stability in the thought patterns of the respondents, six retests were made and, to validate the findings, an expert panel and two reference groups consisting of auditors and other representatives of the accounting and auditing professions were consulted. Distinct patterns emerged in the mean grid of the thought patterns of all the respondents. One dimension was related to the time perspective, past versus future, and another to auditing practice. Auditors devote a relatively long time and considerable effort to objects that can be satisfactorily verified, but not to objects that they perceive as being of primary importance to investors and other stakeholders. This inconsistency in the thought patterns of the auditors is similar to the gap between auditing in practice and stakeholders' expectations of auditing, which is a phenomenon frequently found in previous research. Moreover, the auditors were very reluctant to make statements about any information except that elicited according to current practice. In addition to this traditional view, the auditors appear to be more concerned about their own situation than that of the parties they are meant to be protecting. Doing things right seems to be more important than doing the right things. That the auditors spend much time on objects that they themselves do not consider to be of primary importance for the investors and other stakeholders, and their unwillingness to change current practice is of great concern in Sweden, where there is a strong belief in self-regulation of the auditing profession.

Auditors’ professional and organizational identities and commercialization in audit firms

“…Broberg, 2013). Structure is often contrasted with judgment (e.g., Power, 2003;Öhman et al, 2006), judgment being seen as an important determinant of audit quality (Warren, 1984;Dillard and Bricker, 1992) and a sort of manifestation of auditor independence. More structure is generally claimed to reduce or limit the scope of judgment (cf.…”

“…However, research has indicated that this communication also ought to be seen as a sign of commercialization and an increased focus on NAS. For example, Broberg (2013) suggests that auditors in their dayto-day work tend to focus on the customers (the audited entity's managers and representatives) (see also Hanlon, 1996) rather than on the clients (traditionally defined as the audited entity's stakeholders) (Zeff, 1987;Öhman et al, 2006). From an auditor's perspective, adding value (for customers) seems to be an important part of audit quality (Broberg, 2013).…”

How Lending Officers Construe Assessments of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprise Loan Applications: A Repertory Grid Study

“…Smith, 2000;Sperlinger, 1976;Öhman et al, 2006). In this study, the retests were conducted after five months, following the procedures used by Öhman et al (2006).…”

“…In other contexts, RGT has also been used to map aggregated cognitions (e.g., Bell, 2000;Easterby-Smith, 1980;Feixas, Geldschlager, & Neimeyer, 2002;Senior, 1996;Wright, 2004Wright, , 2006Wright & Lam, 2002;Öhman, Häckner, Jansson, & Tschudi, 2006).…”

Motivações dos auditores para o uso das Tecnologias de Informação na sua profissão: aplicação aos Revisores Oficiais de Contas

“…A escolha de Portugal para a realização do estudo pretende colmatar uma lacuna evidenciada na literatura no que concerne à falta de estudos desta problemática em muitos países, como apontam Ahmi (2012) e Mahzan & Lymer (2014). De facto, identificaram-se estudos nos Estados Unidos da América (Bierstaker et al, 2013;Janvrin et al, 2009;, na Suécia (Öhman, Häckner, Jansson, & Tschudi, 2006;Temesgen, 2005), na Finlândia (Koskivaara, 2003(Koskivaara, , 2004, no Reino Unido (Ahmi, 2012), na Malásia (Mahzan & Lymer, 2014) (Rosli, Yeow, & Siew, 2012) e na Nigéria (Tijani, 2014). Verifica-se ainda que a maioria dos estudos abrange países common law pelo que sendo Portugal um país de code law, o estudo contribui para um melhor conhecimento sobre o cenário nestes países.…”