Impact of Audit Engagement Issues on Statutory Auditors’ Professional Judgment: An Empirical Analysis

Abstract

Statutory auditors are required to exercise their professional judgement while auditing company’s Financial Statements. But in recent cases of corporate failures, statutory auditors failed to perform quality audit with required professional judgement.  The study identifies 13 significant issues that influence positively or negatively professional judgment of statutory auditors. Opinion of respondents from 6 different occupations is collected on these issues and professional judgement of statutory auditors. Exploratory factor analysis is conducted on the collected data to extract underlying factors governing statutory auditors’ professional judgement. Impact of extracted factors on statutory auditors’ professional judgement is analysed using Multiple Linear Regression Analysis. Statistical significance of each extracted factors are analysed using t test. Strength of association between extracted factors and professional judgement is measured using Coefficient of Multiple Determinations. Finally, fitness of the regression model is tested using one way Analysis of Variance. Keywords: Statutory Auditors, Professional Judgement, Audit Engagement, Exploratory Factor Analysis, Multiple Linear Regression Analysis JEL Classification Code: M420, M48