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.

Audit Committee and Auditor Independence: Some Evidence from Malaysia

This paper investigate the impact of five issues on audit committee such as active audit committee, compulsory audit committee reports, audit committee approves audit fees, audit committee reviews audit fees, audit committee comprised of majority independent and non-executive directors, to auditor independence. To achieve the research objective, this study was undertaken in two stages: the first stage involved the use of a postal questionnaire survey and the second stage employed interview survey. The population selected for this study consists of auditors, loan officers and senior managers of Malaysian public listed companies. The questionnaire survey revealed that the majority of the respondents agreed that auditor independence would be safeguarded by the presence of an active audit committee, if it was compulsory to include an audit committee report in the annual report, if the audit committee was responsible for approving and reviewing audit fees, and if the majority of audit committee members were independent and non-executive. It is found that the interview survey confirmed the questionnaire survey's findings. This indicates that the respondents have faith in the existence of audit committees in the Malaysian capital market, which would enhance communication between auditors and management