Revisionsmedarbetarens moraliska orientering

: En kvantitativ studie om faktorer som påverkar revisionsmedarbetarens moral

Abstract

The moral orientation of the auditing employee is a relevant topic in the modern auditing profession. This statement is based upon that the ethical aspect of auditing and the increased marketing intensity sometimes forces the auditing employee to balance the ideals of the profession and the benefits for the client and the bureau. The moral orientation of the auditing employee has been proven to affect how the auditing professional reacts to dubious behaviour of the client. The purpose of this study is to explain the moral orientation of the auditing employee through factors that influence moral orientation.

The study has a quantitative approach and tests hypotheses about moral orientation of auditing employees through a survey distributed to auditing personnel in Swedish auditing firms. The measurement of moral orientation is based on Forsyth’s (1980) Ethics Positioning Questionnaire, which measures idealism and relativism levels. The factors studied include gender, level of education, age, workplace experience, size of the bureau where the employee is active and the hierarchical position of the employee within the bureau.

The findings of the study indicate that the experience from auditing firms correlates with moral relativism levels in auditing employees. Furthermore, the findings indicate that partners display lower levels of idealism than do other auditing employees. The study also found a slight indication that auditing employees who studied at university for longer than five years display lower levels of idealism. The findings could not fully explain the variance in moral orientation, why more research is needed.