DYSFUNCTIONAL BEHAVIOUR IN THE AUDIT ENVIRONMENT: THE EFFECT OF FRAUD RISK ASSESSMENT AND AUDITORS’ INDUSTRY KNOWLEDGE ON AUDIT QUALITY

Abstract

Studies in Dysfunctional Audit Behaviours (DAB) demonstrate the negative effects on Audit Quality (AQ), particularly Premature Sign-Offs (PMSOs). According to the findings, auditors with a lack of industry knowledge tend to engage in Premature Sign- Offs, which, ultimately, affects their opinion on the financial statement. Furthermore, an audit is considered successful when the auditors are capable of assessing fraud risk and detecting fraud in the financial statement. Thus, this study examines two objectives. It examine the relationship between fraud risk assessment and auditors’ industry knowledge on audit quality in the Jordanian audit firms. It is significant to mention here that no investigation has been done to date that has simultaneously examined audit quality from the perspective of dysfunctional behaviour linked to auditors' industry knowledge and fraud risk assessment. Additionally, most of the relevant literature is derived from developed countries. This study fills the gap in the literature investigating the effect of fraud risk assessment and auditors' industry knowledge from the behaviour perspective – Premature Sign-offs. A quantitative research approach and an experimental study was adopted involving the use of a questionnaire response (gathered from 144 Jordanian external auditors) to collect the data by hand. These participants were currently working in either Big-Four or non-Big Four firms in Jordan. The responses were analysed using IBM-SPSS, ANOVA, and ANCOVA to test the effect of fraud risk assessment and auditors’ industry knowledge on audit quality.