AUDITORS' PROFESSIONAL ETHICS AND FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH DISCIPLINARY CASES AGAINST AUDITORS

The main purpose of this project is to develop and test hypotheses concerning different auditor, client and environmental characteristics perceived to be significantly related to the likelihood of raising disciplinary cases against auditors who are accused of violations of their code of professional conduct. Finnish disciplinary case documents between 1980 and 1997 and a variety of other, public as well as private, information sources are studied and the hypotheses are empirically tested by means of both univariate analyses and multivariate logit and/or probit regression analyses. The aim is to identify factors and circumstances which most often are associated with these disciplinary cases and, therefore, significantly increase or decrease auditors' risk for becoming accused of ethical violations, regardless of the final outcome of the case, i.e., acquittal or some sanction. The objective is achieved by comparing a treatment group of auditors involved in disciplinary cases to a control group of auditors whose client firms' industries are as close as possible to those of the treatment group, i.e., matched. However, from the individual auditor's point of view it is naturally of utmost importance whether he is acquitted from violating the code of professional conduct or receives some sanction. In other words, it is important for the individual auditor to know which factors and circumstances, if any, increase the risk that he is found guilty of violating the code of professional conduct, i.e., receives some sanction. Consequently, another significant objective of the empirical part of this research study is to identify the factors and circumstances which most often are associated with those disciplinary cases where an auditor receives some sanction. This is done by conducting an additional logit and/or probit analysis where the treatment group consists of those auditors who received some sanction and the control group of those auditors who were acquitted.