Date of Award

2011

Document Type

Thesis

Publisher

Edith Cowan University

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

School

School of Accounting, Finance and Economics

Faculty

Faculty of Business and Law

First Supervisor

Professor Malcolm Smith

Second Supervisor

Dr Zubaidah Ismail

Abstract

Research on Reduced Audit Quality Practices (RAQP) has consistently shown serious negative consequences in the auditing profession. It has found that under certain pressure levels, auditors tend to engage in RAQP. However, most of the previous studies that had investigated RAQP failed to examine RAQP from a stress model perspective which incorporates stressors, stress measures and stress consequences into the model and to measure the interactions among these constructs. Previous research has mainly focused on the direct effect of stressors (e.g., time budget pressure, leadership styles, individual personality etc.) on RAQP; there is no single investigation that has simultaneously examined RAQP from a stress model perspective. In addition, research in RAQP is relatively scarce in emerging and newly industrialised countries, and most of the relevant literature is derived from developed countries. This study, therefore, addresses this void by investigating how job stress and stressors in the auditors’ workplace affect RAQP, thus enhancing the explanatory power of stressors on outcome variables. The premise for this investigation is that the auditing workplace has been acknowledged as a high stress environment and studies in job stress provide support for negative consequences on auditors’ job outcomes. This study examined the impact of eight stressors (workload, budget attainability, budget emphasis, role ambiguity, role conflict, type A behaviour pattern, considerate and structure leadership) along with job stress, on outcome variables (job performance and RAQP). The stressors were chosen based on the previous studies in RAQP and stress in the accounting environment. The RAQP examined in this study were premature sign-off, reduction of standards of work below levels considered reasonable, failure to research an accounting principle, superficial review of documents and acceptance of weak client explanations. This study assesses the extent to which job stress and job performance are associated with key stressors and RAQP among auditors in Malaysia.

Included in

Accounting Commons

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