A responsabilidade ética do auditor: um estudo exploratório sobre a percepção dos auditores independentes

Abstract

The objective of this study is to verify through the perception of independent auditors and educators in Brazilian universities which work or worked as independent auditor, the main factors that affect the auditor s ethical responsibility, based on the national and international auditor profession codes of conduct/ethical guidelines. Taking the stand of the factors that contributed to the recent financial/accounting scandals and even frauds in the world business scenario, it is imperative that the independent auditor s professional activities be performed in a more adequate manner. Therefore, the auditor should observe and maintain an ethical position and should be in compliance with the professional audit codes of conduct/ethical guidelines, therefore, mitigating audited entity s risk and protecting their image. This position also aims to prevent audit firms from embarrassment and a negative impact that generate loss of credibility and litigations, including folding up their activities as it happened to one of the biggest independent audit companies in this era, Arthur Andersen. Therefore, to guide this study, the research question is: what are the main factors that impact the auditor's ethical responsibility in the perception of independent auditors and educators? The studied population consisted of independent auditors (semi-senior/senior/supervising) from the Big Four audit firms (PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, Ernst & Young Terco and KPMG) in São Paulo Brazil, and educators in Brazilian universities which work or worked as an independent auditor. In this context, a qualitative analysis was performed, looking for characteristics that contribute to validate the objectives and the research question. The research revealed there are thirteen factors that could impact the auditor s ethic responsibility that are related to integrity, independence, technical competence, professional care and confidentiality. From these identified factors, seven are related to the independent auditors perception, two are related to the educators perception and the other four are common in both perceptions. In this context, it is suggested a deeper look into these factors for future researches, and this should go in line with deductive studies in order to ascertain the correlation between them. Furthermore, it is important to check the point of tangency between the question of ethics and technical competence of the independent auditors, since in the perceptions of the independent auditors and educators, some factors do not impact their ethical responsibility. However, evidences show that this could be related to unlikely mapping of accounting / financial problems occurred in the business scenario. And these are factors involving for instance, the adequateness of the methodology, quality of training to improvement and maintenance of professional skills and effectiveness of continuing education, which are not always the direct responsibility of a junior/assistant independent auditor.