Formation and Consequences of Going Concern Opinions: A Review of the Literature

Shortly after the passage of SAS No. 59, Asare (1990) summarized the evolution of research on the going concern opinion (GCO) in order to evaluate the Auditing Standards Board\u27s assumptions regarding the signals sent to the market via the GCO. Over the past twenty years, researchers have continued to investigate the importance of GCOs. The authors objectives are to bring current the evolution of standards, regulations, and literature concerning GCOs, to synthesize a body of research that still presents inconsistent findings, and to suggest future research that could further our understanding of GCO formation and consequences. Given the large volume of research on GCOs, their review will be especially helpful to researchers interested in examining new or unresolved issues within this field of accounting research

Financial Condition, Growth, Audit Quality and Going Concern Opinion: Study on Manufacturing Companies Listed on Indonesia Stock Exchange

Going concern audit opinion is accepted by the company represents the presence of conditions within the auditor doubts of the company’s going concern. Going concern audit opinion can be used for the users of the financial statements in making investment decisions in a company. This study examines the effect of the company's financial condition, company’s growth, and audit quality on acceptance of going concern audit opinion. This research uses 252 sample of manufacturing companies listed in Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) in 2010-2012. The hypotheses in this research investigated using logistic regression. The hypothesis testing showed that company’s financial condition influence the acceptance of the going concern audit opinion, while company’s growth and audit quality do not influence the acceptance of going concern audit opinion. So the limitation of this research is this research only on manufacturing company the writer hope in the next research could do a research in a different sector for showing a consistency research result

Opinion Analysis Going Concern Through Auditor Quality And Auditor Experience

The research was conducted in Malang City area with auditor as the population while the sample with pursposive sampling while the data analysis used is variable test with linkert scale and using SPPS statitisk test. In this study conducted at the Public Accounting Firm in Malang, showed that by using validity test, reliability, assumption Heterokedastisitas, multicolinierity assumption test, hypothesis testing simultaneously and partial and autocorrelation test showed that the questionnaire used by the researchers is feasible as a measuring tool for analysis in this study and provide consistent results. In the test results Hypothesis gives results that reject Ho and accept the hypothesis of research Ha, so that the auditor experience and audit quality together provide a significant effect on going concern opinion. Partial experience does not affect the giving of going concern opinion while the quality of audit partially affect the giving of going concern opinion.Penelitian telah dilakukan di wilayah kota Malang Raya dengan auditor sebagai populasinya sedangkan sampel dengan menggunaan pursposive sampling sedangkan analisis data yang digunakan adalah menggunakan uji variable dengan skala linkert dan menggunakan uji statitisk SPPS. Dalam penelitian ini yang dilakukan pada Kantor Akuntan Publik di Malang, menunjukkan bahwa dengan menggunakan uji validitas, reliabilitas, asumsi Heterokedastisitas, uji asumsi multikolinieritas, pengujian hipotesis secara simultan dan parsial serta uji autokorelasi menunjukkan bahwa kuesioner yang dipergunakan oleh peneliti layak sebagai alat ukur untuk analisis pada penelitian ini dan memberikan hasil yang konsisten. Pada hasil pengujian Hipotesis memberikan hasil bahwa menolak H 0 dan menerima hipotesis penelitian H a , sehingga pengalaman auditor dan kualitas audit secara bersama-sama memberikan pengaruh yang signifikan terhadap opini going concern. Pengalaman secara parsial tidak berpengaruh terhadap pemberian opini going concern sedangkan Kualitas Audit secara parsial berpengaruh terhadap pemberian opini going concern

A New Prototype for Intelligent Visual Fraud Detection in Agent-Based Auditing Framework

While US. Sarbanes Oxley act has been viewed by most as an onerous and expensive requirement; it is having a positive impact on driving appropriate levels of investment in IT security, controls, and transactional systems. This paper introduces a new secure solution for auditing and accounting based on artificial intelligence technology. These days, security is a big issue among regulatory firms. Big companies are concerned about their data to be disseminated to their competitors; this high risk prevents them to provide full information to the regulatory firms. This solution not only significantly reduces the risk of unauthorized access to the company’s information but also facilitate a framework for controlling the flow of disseminating information in a risk free method. Managing security is performed by a network of mobile agents in a pyramid structure among regulatory organization like securities and exchanges commissions, stock exchanges in top of this pyramid to the companies in the button. Because of security considerations, our strategy is to delegate all fraud detection algorithms to Intelligent Mobile Auditing Agent and web service undertake all inter communicational activity. Web services can follow auditing actives in predefined framework and they can act based on permitted security allowance to auditors. The current solution is designed based on Java-based mobile agents. Such design reaps strong mobility and security benefits. This new prototyped solution could be a framework for strengthening security for future development in this area. An insider trading case study is used to demonstrate and evaluate the approach

OPINION ANALYSIS GOING CONCERN THROUGH AUDITOR QUALITY AND AUDITOR EXPERIENCE

The research was conducted in Malang City area with auditor as the population while the sample with pursposive sampling while the data analysis used is variable test with linkert scale and using SPPS statitisk test. In this study conducted at the Public Accounting Firm in Malang, showed that by using validity test, reliability, assumption Heterokedastisitas, multicolinierity assumption test, hypothesis testing simultaneously and partial and autocorrelation test showed that the questionnaire used by the researchers is feasible as a measuring tool for analysis in this study and provide consistent results. In the test results Hypothesis gives results that reject Ho and accept the hypothesis of research Ha, so that the auditor experience and audit quality together provide a significant effect on going concern opinion. Partial experience does not affect the giving of going concern opinion while the quality of audit partially affect the giving of going concern opinion.Penelitian telah dilakukan di wilayah kota Malang Raya dengan auditor sebagai populasinya sedangkan sampel dengan menggunaan pursposive sampling sedangkan analisis data yang digunakan adalah menggunakan uji variable dengan skala linkert dan menggunakan uji statitisk SPPS. Dalam penelitian ini yang dilakukan pada Kantor Akuntan Publik di Malang, menunjukkan bahwa dengan menggunakan uji validitas, reliabilitas, asumsi Heterokedastisitas, uji asumsi multikolinieritas, pengujian hipotesis secara simultan dan parsial serta uji autokorelasi menunjukkan bahwa kuesioner yang dipergunakan oleh peneliti layak sebagai alat ukur untuk analisis pada penelitian ini dan memberikan hasil yang konsisten. Pada hasil pengujian Hipotesis memberikan hasil bahwa menolak H 0 dan menerima hipotesis penelitian H a , sehingga pengalaman auditor dan kualitas audit secara bersama-sama memberikan pengaruh yang signifikan terhadap opini going concern. Pengalaman secara parsial tidak berpengaruh terhadap pemberian opini going concern sedangkan Kualitas Audit secara parsial berpengaruh terhadap pemberian opini going concern

Understanding the Auditor's Ethical Behaviour in the Professional Environment

[ES] Esta tesis ofrece una contribución significativa al campo de la ética de la auditoría a través de cinco estudios interconectados. El primer estudio (Capítulo dos) analiza cuarenta años de literatura académica, contemplando 114 artículos publicados en revistas prestigiosas de contabilidad y ética empresarial. La investigación, que abarca enfoques bibliométricos, de redes sociales y de contenido, descubre diversas brechas y oportunidades para investigaciones futuras. Resulta relevante destacar que, si bien la ética de la auditoría es un campo emergente, su foco principal ha sido en los países desarrollados, creando un vacío en los países en desarrollo. Además, se ha dado énfasis a los factores individuales de los auditores, minimizando la atención a los aspectos organizacionales. En un entorno empresarial en constante evolución, la tesis enfatiza la necesidad de orientar la investigación hacia implicaciones prácticas, para así mitigar errores previos y prevenir riesgos futuros. El segundo estudio (Capítulo tres) aborda una laguna en la literatura mediante un análisis de las actitudes de los auditores frente a distintos tipos de comportamientos corruptos en un contexto poco explorado, como es Palestina. Los resultados indican diferencias en la percepción de corrupción y sugieren que ciertos factores individuales de los auditores, como la edad y la posición, influyen en la aceptación de la corrupción. Este estudio brinda información valiosa para aquellos que buscan reducir la corrupción. El tercer estudio (Capítulo cuatro) emplea el Modelado de Ecuaciones Estructurales para examinar los factores que inciden en el Conflicto Ético (EC) y su impacto en la Intención de Rotación (TI). Se investiga el papel del Clima Ético (EtC) en la EC y su relación con los resultados laborales, así como el papel mediador de la EC entre el fracaso ético percibido del auditor y la TI, y entre la carga laboral y la TI. El cuarto estudio (Capítulo cinco) es pionero en la aplicación del marco de Demandas-Recursos del trabajo para investigar el impacto de varios factores en los resultados laborales de los auditores. Los hallazgos respaldan el marco JD-R, mostrando que el Conflicto Ético está asociado con resultados laborales adversos, especialmente la Intención de Rotación. Se enfatiza la necesidad de examinar los matices de los recursos laborales en la profesión de auditoría. El estudio puede ayudar a las empresas auditoras a mitigar los posibles efectos adversos del Empowerment en EC, ofreciendo pautas claras para la toma de decisiones y formación. Así, las firmas de auditoría pueden garantizar que los auditores cuenten con los recursos necesarios para manejar eficazmente las demandas laborales, lo que conduce a resultados laborales positivos y una profesión de auditoría más productiva y ética. En general, el estudio resalta la importancia de las demandas y recursos laborales para moldear los resultados laborales de los auditores y ofrece información relevante para informar políticas y prácticas en la profesión de auditoría.[CA] Aquesta tesi, dividida en cinc articles interrelacionats, aporta llum i novetat a l'àmbit de l'ètica de l'auditoria, abordant lacunes de la literatura existent. En primer lloc, es realitza un anàlisi exhaustiu de la literatura existent dels últims 40 anys, evidenciant l'ètica de l'auditoria com un camp emergent amb moltes oportunitats de recerca. Es remarca que la majoria d'estudis preexistents es centren en països desenvolupats, deixant a un costat els països en desenvolupament. També es denota una falta d'investigació respecte a la percepció de l'ètica entre auditors professionals. A més, malgrat que la presa de decisions ètiques i el raonament moral són temes recurrents, s'observa un desequilibri cap als factors individuals en lloc dels organitzatius. Finalment, s'assenyala la necessitat d'implicacions pràctiques per a la mitigació d'errors i riscos en l'entorn empresarial que evoluciona ràpidament. El segon article proporciona una nova visió de les actituds dels auditors cap a diferents comportaments corruptes, concretament a Palestina. Els resultats suggereixen que l'acceptació de la corrupció varia segons el tipus de comportament, amb una major acceptació envers el rol de polític, de treballador privat i de buròcrata. Es detecta una associació negativa entre l'acceptació de la corrupció i l'edat, així com diferències significatives en la percepció de la corrupció segons el gènere, la posició de l'auditor i l'educació. El tercer article investiga els factors que influeixen en el conflicte ètic i l'impacte d'aquest en la intenció de rotació. S'examina el paper moderador del Clima Ètic i la seva relació amb la intenció de rotació. A més, es considera el paper mediador del conflicte ètic entre el fracàs ètic de l'auditor percebut i la intenció de rotació, així com entre la càrrega de treball i la intenció de rotació. El quart article aplica per primera vegada el marc Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) per explorar l'impacte de diversos factors en els resultats laborals dels auditors. Les conclusions suporten el marc JD-R, amb el conflicte ètic associat positivament a resultats laborals adversos, especialment la intenció de rotació. Els recursos laborals, com el Clima Ètic i la Realització de la Carrera, tenen un efecte significatiu en les demandes laborals i els resultats, reduint tant el conflicte ètic com la intenció de rotació. De forma inesperada, es troba una associació positiva entre l'empoderament i el conflicte ètic. En resum, aquesta tesi ressalta la importància de les demandes laborals i els recursos en la determinació dels resultats laborals dels auditors. Proposa la necessitat de desenvolupar estratègies per afrontar els possibles efectes negatius de l'empoderament sobre el conflicte ètic, subratllant la necessitat de suportar les habilitats de presa de decisions dels auditors. Amb aquest objectiu, es suggereix que les empreses d'auditoria proporcionen als auditors els recursos necessaris per afrontar les demandes laborals de manera eficaç, la qual cosa conduiria a resultats laborals positius i a una professió d'auditoria més productiva i ètica. La recerca subratlla l'importància de considerar tant els efectes positius com els negatius dels recursos laborals per a desenvolupar estratègies orientades a fomentar el benestar dels auditors i el rendiment laboral. En conclusió, aquest estudi subratlla la importància de les demandes i recursos laborals en la conformació dels resultats laborals dels auditors i proporciona informació útil per a informar la política i la pràctica en la professió d'auditoria.[EN] This thesis contributes novel insights to the understudied field of auditing ethics through four linked studies. Chapter two offers a detailed review of literature over 40 years, amalgamating Bibliometric, Social Network and Content Analysis to scrutinize 114 articles from accounting and business ethics journals on the Web of Science database from 1980-2021. Through a thematic clustering of this literature, gaps are identified and potential research trajectories suggested. While auditing ethics is emerging as a field, most existing studies focus on developed countries, with a scarcity of work on developing nations and the ethical perceptions of professional auditors. Although individual auditors' ethical decision-making and moral reasoning have been widely studied, organizational factors received less attention. Recognizing the need for research to reflect the rapidly evolving business environment, this thesis posits more emphasis on practical applications of auditing ethics. Insights derived from this analysis provide the basis for the following three papers within this thesis. Chapter three of this thesis offers a unique exploration of auditors' attitudes towards different forms of corruption, with a specific focus on an under-studied context - Palestine. Utilizing ordinal regression and the Mann-Whitney U Test, an original survey of Palestinian auditors is analyzed. The findings indicate variability in auditors' perceptions of corruption, with corrupt behaviors linked to political, private, and bureaucratic jobs perceived as more acceptable than illicit receiving and giving practices. Acceptance of corruption was found to decrease with age across most corrupt behaviors surveyed. Gender differences also emerged, with female auditors exhibiting a higher tolerance towards various forms of corruption. The auditor's position and external education were also found to influence attitudes towards corruption. These findings have valuable implications for regulators and professional bodies looking to curb corruption, providing actionable insights to inform anti-corruption strategies. The fourth Chapter analyses an original survey of auditors using Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM). to examine possible factors affecting Ethical Conflict (EC) and the impact of EC on Turnover Intention (TI). It investigates the moderating role of Ethical Climate (EtC) and its relationship with EC and job-related outcomes. It also examines the mediating role of EC between Perceived Auditor Ethical Failure (PAEF) and TI and also between Workload (WL) and TI. In the final chapter of this thesis, we pioneer the application of the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) framework in assessing factors impacting auditors' work outcomes, utilizing Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) technique. We find that ethical conflict (EC) is positively associated with adverse work outcomes, notably turnover intention (TI), validating the JD-R framework. Vital job resources, such as ethical climate (EtC) and career fulfilment (CF), markedly influence job demands and work outcomes, thus mitigating both EC and TI. Intriguingly, the study identifies a positive relationship between Empowerment (EM) and EC, arising when auditors with perceived empowerment lack actual decision-making authority, a finding which challenges the JD-R framework and underscores the necessity of scrutinizing the subtleties of job resources within the audit profession. Recognizing both positive and negative effects of job resources is key in devising strategies that enhance auditor welfare and job performance. The findings have implications for auditing firms, aiding in the mitigation of potential EM's negative impact on EC, and promoting decision-making capacity in auditors. Consequently, these firms can equip auditors with essential resources to effectively manage job demands, fostering positive work outcomes and an ethical audit profession.Dwekat, ZMM. (2023). Understanding the Auditor's Ethical Behaviour in the Professional Environment [Tesis doctoral]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/19656

Using Semantic-Based User Profile Modeling for Context-Aware Personalised Place Recommendations

Place Recommendation Systems (PRS's) are used to recommend places to visit to World Wide Web users. Existing PRS's are still limited by several problems, some of which are the problem of recommending similar set of places to different users (Lack of Personalization) and no diversity in the set of recommended items (Content Overspecialization). One of the main objectives in the PRS's or Contextual suggestion systems is to fill the semantic gap among the queries and suggestions and going beyond keywords matching. To address these issues, in this study we attempt to build a personalized context-aware place recommender system using semantic-based user profile modeling to address the limitations of current user profile building techniques and to improve the retrieval performance of personalized place recommender system. This approach consists of building a place ontology based on the Open Directory Project (ODP), a hierarchical ontology scheme for organizing websites. We model a semantic user profile from the place concepts extracted from place ontology and weighted according to their semantic relatedness to user interests. The semantic user profile is then exploited to devise a personalized recommendation by re-ranking process of initial search results for improving retrieval performance. We evaluate this approach on dataset obtained using Google Paces API. Results show that our proposed approach significantly improves the retrieval performance compare to classic keyword-based place recommendation model

Storage and Analysis of Big Data Tools for Sessionized Data

The Oracle database currently used to mine data at PEGGY is approaching end-of-life and a new infrastructure overhaul is required. It has also been identified that a critical business requirement is the need to load and store very large historical data sets. These data sets contain raw electronic consumer events and interactions from a website such as page views, clicks, downloads, return visits, length of time spent on pages, and how they got to the site / originated. This project will be focused on finding a tool to analyze and measure sessionized data, which is a unit of measurement in web analytics that captures either a user\u27s actions within a particular time period, or the process of segmenting user activity of each user into sessions, each representing a single visit to the site. This sessionized data can be used as the input for a variety of data mining tasks such as clustering, association rule mining, sequence mining etc (Ansari. 2011) This sessionized data must be delivered in a reorganized and readable format timely enough to make informed go-to-market decisions as it relates to the current and existing industry trends. It is also pertinent to understand any development work required and the burden on the resources. Legacy on-premise data warehouse solutions are becoming more expensive, less efficient, less dynamic, and unscalable when compared to current Cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) that offer real time, on-demand, pay-as-you-go solutions . Therefore, this study will examine the total cost of ownership (TCO) by considering, researching, and analyzing the following factors against a system wide upgrade of the current on-premise Oracle Real Application Cluster (RAC) System: High performance: real-time (or as close to as possible) query speed against sessionized data SQL compliance Cloud based or, at least a hybrid (read: on-premise paired with cloud) Security: encryption preferred Cost structure: cost-effective pay-as-you-go pricing model and resources required for the migration and operations. These technologies analyzed against the current Oracle database are: Amazon Redshift Google Bigquery Hadoop Hadoop + Hive The cost of building an on-premise data warehouse is substantial. The project will determine the performance capabilities and affordability of Amazon Redshift, when compared to other emerging highly ranked solutions, for running e-commerce standard analytics queries on terabytes of sessionized data. Rather than redesigning, upgrading, or over purchasing infrastructure at a high cost for an on-premise data warehouse, this project considers data warehousing solutions through cloud based infrastructure as a service (IaaS) solutions. The proposed objective of this project is to determine the most cost-effective high performer between Amazon Redshift, Apache Hadoop, and Google BigQuery when running e-commerce standard analytics queries on terabytes of sessionized data

An electronic financial system adviser for investors: the case of Saudi Arabia

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University LondonFinancial markets, particularly capital and stock markets, play an important role in mobilizing and canalising the idle savings of individuals and institutions to the investment options where they are really required for productive purposes. The prediction of stock prices and returns is carried out in order to enhance the quality of investment decisions in stock markets, but it is considered to be tricky and complicates tasks as these prices behave in a random fashion and vary with time. Owing to the potential of returns and inherent risk factors in stock market returns. Various stock market prediction models and decision support systems such as Capital asset pricing model, the arbitrage pricing theory of Ross, the inter-temporal capital asset pricing model of Merton ,Fama and French five-factor model, and zero beta model to provide investors with an optimal forecast of stock prices and returns. In this research thesis, a stock market prediction model consisting of two parts is presented and discussed. The first is the three factors of the Fama and French model (FF) at the micro level to forecast the return of the portfolios on the Saudi Arabian Stock Exchange (SASE) and the second is a Value Based Management (VBM) model of decision-making. The latter is based on the expectations of shareholders and portfolio investors about taking investment decisions, and on the behaviour of stock prices using an accurate modern nonlinear technique in forecasting, known as Artificial Neural Networks (ANN). This study examined monthly data relating to common stocks from the listed companies of the Saudi Arabian Stock Exchange from January 2007 to December 2011. The stock returns were predicted using the linear form of asset pricing models (capital asset pricing model as well as Fama and French three factor model). In addition, non-linear models were also estimated by using various artificial neural network techniques, and adaptive neural fuzzy inference systems. Six portfolios of stock predictors are combined using: average, weighted average, and genetic algorithm optimized weighted average. Moreover, value-based management models were applied to the investment decision-making process in combination with stock prediction model results for both the shareholders’ perspective and the share prices’ perspective. The results from this study indicate that the ANN technique can be used to predict stock portfolio returns; the investment decisions and the behaviour of stock prices, optimized by the genetic algorithm weighted average, provided better results in terms of error and prediction accuracy compared to the simple linear form of stock price prediction models. The Fama and French model of stock prediction is better suited to Saudi Arabian Stock Exchange investment activities in comparison to the conventional capital assets pricing model. Moreover, the multi-stage type1 model, which is a combination of Fama and French predicted stock returns and a value-based management model, gives more accurate results for the stock market decision-making process for investment or divestment decisions, as well as for observing variation in and the behaviour of stock prices on the Saudi stock market. Furthermore, the study also designed a graphic user interface in order to simplify the decision-making process based upon Fama and French and value-based management, which might help Saudi investors to make investment decisions quickly and with greater precision. Finally, the study also gives some practical implications for investors and regulators, along with proposing future research in this area