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2. PHD Thesis / Tesis PHD
3. Graduate School of Business / Pusat Pengajian Siswazah Perniagaan

Title:	Auditors ethical judgment: assessing individual characteristics, ethical sensitivity, organizational ethics and moral intensity effect
Authors:	Aida Hazlin Ismail (ZP00176)
Supervisor:	Takiah Mohd Iskandar, Prof. Dr.
Keywords:	Auditors Ethics Judgement Auditors -- Professional ethics
Issue Date:	11-Aug-2016
Description:	When carrying out an audit, auditors are expected to make judgments involving different types of ethical dilemmas. In recognizing the significance of auditors’ ethical judgments, the International Standard of Quality Control 1 (ISQC 1) has given serious emphasis on the compliance of specified ethical requirements. Despites its importance, evidence shows that auditors make inconsistent ethical judgments.Findings from prior studies show that both personality and situational factors may affect auditors’ ethical judgments. Prior studies focus more on personality variables in auditors’ ethical judgments without much attention given to situational and organizational variables. Hence, a study on organizational environment that may affect auditors’ ethical judgments is limited. Further research combining individual personality organizational environment and situational factors is needed to determine causes that may contribute to the inconsistency for auditors in making ethical judgments. This study has identified work locus of control as personality variable whereas the moral intensity are the situational variables and organizational ethics as the organizational variable. The main objectives of this thesis are (1) to examine the effect of auditors’ personality variable i.e., work locus of control on auditors’ ethical judgments; (2) to determine the impact of moral intensity, ethical sensitivity and organizational ethics on auditors’ ethical judgments and (3) to investigate the effects of interactions between individual personality and moral intensity variables on auditors’ ethical judgments. This study uses field experimental design on 197 auditors from Big 4 and non-Big 4 audit firms. Participants are required to complete a set of booklets containing experimental case materials of ethics scenario on independence, measurements of moral intensity and ethical sensitivity, as well as additional background information. This study uses ANCOVA to test the hypotheses. Consistent with prior studies, results reveal significant effects of organizational ethics which comprises of ethical climate, ethical leadership and ethical training on auditors’ ethical judgments. High ethical climate may support the auditors to form more ethical judgments. The study also posits that moral intensity has positive effects on auditors’ ethical judgments. Work locus of control is not significantly related to auditors’ ethical judgments. A further analysis shows moderation effect of organizational ethics and moral intensity on ethical judgments. In conclusion, auditors make different ethical judgments depending on their personality, organizational ethical environment, intensity of the moral issues and types of the ethical issues. High ethical environment is found to have a contribution in promoting the auditors to form ethical judgments. The results highlight the importance of organizational factors that may influence ethical judgments. The contributions of study in explaining the variation in auditors’ ethical judgments under different level of organizational ethics and moral intensity may assist the auditors in understanding factors that may affect the ethical judgments.,Certification of Master's/Doctoral Thesis" is not available
Pages:	193
Call Number:	HF5627.A433 2016 tesis
Publisher:	UKM, Bangi
Appears in Collections:	Graduate School of Business / Pusat Pengajian Siswazah Perniagaan

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