Influence of personality traits in the professional skepticism of auditors
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.1982-6486.rco.2019.158537Keywords:
Professional skepticism, Personality traits, Auditors, Frauds, Audit qualityAbstract
This research aimed to verify the influence of personality traits on auditors' professional skepticism in Brazil. One sample is 321 auditors registered with the Federal Accounting Council, with active profiles on LinkedIn®. Professional skepticism has the following dimensions: questioning mind, suspension of judgment, search for knowledge, interpersonal understanding, self-esteem and autonomy (Hurtt, 2010), and the personality trait is composed by openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism (Gosling et al., 2003). The results demonstrated by the personality traits explain 22% of the auditors’ professional skepticism, and that openness to experience and conscientiousness has a positive relationship with the professional skepticism, while agreeableness shows a negative relationship. The results signal to regulators, auditors and audit firms that the personality traits influence the formation of auditors spetical traits. Because, observing these characteristics can help to understand this behavior during the audit process.
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