The Relationship between Auditors’ Moral Disengagement and Audit Quality

Introduction: Audit quality is one of the most important issues in the field of auditing and capital market. In order to know the factors that determine the audit quality, the conducted researches confirm that compliance with ethics by auditors is one of the important and influencing variables on audit quality. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to explore the relationship between auditors' ethical disengagement and audit quality. Material & Methods: According to its nature, the present research is applied research, and in terms of method, it is among descriptive-correlational research. Its statistical population consists of auditors working in audit institutions, and ۱۸۵ people have been selected among them as an in access sample. The data collection tool is a questionnaire. The collected data were summarized by Excel software and analyzed using SPSS software through multivariate regression. Results: The results of this research show that there is moral disengagement among auditors and it has a significant and negative relationship with the auditor's understanding of audit quality. In other words, with the increase of moral disengagement in the auditors, the audit quality also decreases. Conclusion: Audit quality is affected by factors and behavioral characteristics, including auditor's moral disengagement. The rule of ethics in the auditing profession can strengthen individual ethics in auditors, and this ultimately increases the quality of auditing.

Keywords:

Moral disengagement , Auditing quality , Professional ethics of auditors