Auditor Personal Characteristics and Fraud Detection Skills: The Mediating Role of Professional Scepticism

Abstract

Corporate scandals have made stakeholders question the display of professional scepticism by auditors. This has prompted stakeholders to reassess the trust they place in the audit opinion. Research into professional scepticism has, therefore, caught the attention of practitioners and academia. There is a belief that: to win back the increasingly eroding trust of stakeholders, there is a need to understand the nature of the display of professional scepticism. The study, therefore, examines the relationship between personal characteristics and professional scepticism displayed by auditors. Also, the study examines the mediating role of professional scepticism between personal characteristics and fraud detection skills. To achieve this aim, the quantitative research approach is employed. A questionnaire was employed to gather data from 305 auditors while PLS-SEM was used for the analysis of data. The results revealed that there is a significant positive relationship between intrinsic motivation, and positive mood, as predictors, and professional scepticism. Also, the results show that persons that are less trusting are generally more sceptical. Furthermore, professional scepticism mediated the relationship between personal characteristics of auditors and their fraud detection skills. The results consequently recommend that practitioners should be aware of personal characteristics of auditors and should inform their hiring, training and appraisal practitioners. Government Audit Agencies should also find the recommendation relevant.