Audit professional commitment and audit success: an empirical examination of certified public accountants in Thailand.

• Author: Chaikambang, Chairung
• Position: Report

1. INTRODUCTION

   The importance of auditors has played a significant role in improving the quality of report. Their roles have been examined in several perspectives, professional commitment refers to improved work performance (Lee et al., 2000), negative affects personal turnover intentions, and greater satisfaction at professional levels (Harrell et al., 1986; Meixener and Bline, 1989; Bline et al., 1991; Bline et al., 1992). More recently, the decline of Enron and WorldCom led to believe that what has occurred was due to a crisis in accounting. That is, auditors are expected to perform their duties as effectively as possible. They can help investigate the advantages and benefits of firms' financial information in all activities by auditing any business transaction through the implementation of accounting and auditing standards, and other related regulations, rules, and laws. Then, auditors' professional practices are performed through audit professional commitment to maintain a sustainable audit success.

   Professional commitment has significant implications to maintain of audit professional and successful auditors. It is the attachment that individuals from to their profession (Elias, 2008) and is important to a variety of outcomes currently of the interest of accounting research and practices. Given that, more committed professionals are less likely to leave their profession. A committed professional believes and accepts the goals of the profession and is willing to exert significant effort on its behalf. Lee et al. (2000) emphasized the need to study professional commitment because a person's career is a major part of his/her life's and professional commitment has implications at the individual and organization. While a number of studies examine the professional commitment of accountants (Aranya and Ferris, 1984; Aranya, Pollock and Amemic, 1981; Meixner and Bline, 1989), yet only a few have made an attempt have to integrate the professionalism literature with ethical reasoning research. In addition, professional commitment has been linked to positive outcomes such as improved work performance (Miexner and Bline, 1989). It is formed as creating a specialized code of ethics that circumscribes the profession and its community concerning with the profession' credibility, marketability, and effectiveness.

   In the review of previous studies, professional commitment may be a factor in influencing an individual's behavior which has a compliance and duty on professional practice (Struweg et al., 2008). Researcher has found a positive relationship between auditor responsiveness and professional commitment (Lachman and Aranya, 1986). Then, in this research, professional commitment is defined as auditors' behavior that has a compliance and duty on audit professional practices that indicate they perform in audit process by their beliefs, acceptance and goal to maintain clients which have been linked to significant outcome son audit performance (Hiltion and Souhgate, 2007). Thus, professional commitment likely has a positive relationship with audit ethics awareness, audit report quality and best audit practice that affect on audit success.

   For the objectives of this study are as follows: (1) to empirically investigate the three dimensions of audit professional commitment that influence audit ethics awareness, audit report quality and best audit practice of certified public accountants (CPAs) in Thailand, (2) to study the effect of audit ethics awareness, audit report quality and best audit practice effect on audit success of certified public accountants (CPAs) in Thailand, (3) to examine audit knowledge that moderates audit professional commitment-audit ethics awareness relationships, audit professional commitment-audit report quality relationships and audit professional commitment- best audit practice relationships, (4) to study professional competition that moderates audit professional commitment-audit success relationships, audit ethics awareness-audit success relationships, audit report quality- audit success and best audit practice-audit success relationships. The key research questions in the current study are: (1) How do three dimensions of professional commitment have a positive association with audit ethics awareness, audit report quality and best audit practice of certified public accountants (CPAs) in Thailand?, (2) How do ethics awareness, audit report quality and best audit practice affect audit success of certified public accountants(CPAs) in Thailand?, (3) How does audit knowledge moderate professional commitment-audit ethics awareness relationships, audit professional commitment-audit report quality relationships and audit professional commitment- best audit practice relationships?, and (4) How do professional competition moderate audit professional commitment-audit success relationships, audit ethics awareness-audit success relationships, audit report quality-audit success relationships and best audit practice- audit success relationships?.

   This study is outlined as follows. The first section reviews existing significant literature in the areas and streams of audit professional commitment, audit ethical awareness, audit report quality, audit best practice, and audit success, links between the concepts of the aforementioned variables, and develops the key research hypotheses of those relationships. The second explicitly details research methods, including data collection, measurements, and statistics. The third gives the results of the analysis and the corresponding discussion. The final summarizes the findings of the study, points out both theoretical and managerial contributions, and presents suggestions for further research.

2. AUDIT PROFESSIONAL COMMITMENT AND AUDIT SUCCESS

   Audit professional commitment is important for the treatment of professional auditor. Audit professional commitment is defined in terms of identification with the profession. It is respected as a strong belief and acceptance of the profession's goals and values, a willingness to exert considerable effort on behalf of the profession, and a strong desire to maintain membership in the profession (Aranya et al., 1981). Also, professional commitment is defined as the attachment that individuals form to their profession (Elias, 2008). This construct consists of three dimensions: professional identity, professional resilience and professional planning. The conceptual, linkage, and research model presents the associations between audit professional commitment and audit success as shown in Figure 1.

   2.1 Audit professional identity

   Professional identity is the first dimension of audit professional commitment. The directional component of commitment embodying one's emotion has been employed to professional commitment (Morrow and Wirth, 1989).It refers to emotional attachment to a profession establishing a close emotional association with one's professional ways which professional identity assumes that it is positively related to audit ethics awareness, audit report quality and audit best practice(Carson and Bedeian, 1994). Thus, auditors with higher professional identity tend to obtain greater characteristics of audit ethics awareness, audit report quality and audit best practice. Therefore, it leads to the hypotheses proposed as follows:

   Hypothesis 1a: The greater the professional identity is, the more likely that firms will achieve higher audit ethics awareness.

   Hypothesis 1b: The greater the professional identity is, the more likely that firms will achieve higher audit report quality.

   Hypothesis 1c: The greater the professional identity is, the more likely that firms will achieve higher best audit practice.

   2.2 Professional resilience

   Professional resilience is the second dimension of audit professional commitment. It refers to persistence in the face of adversity in professional (Carson and Bedeian, 1994) that is resisting professional disruption in the face of adversity and perform in audit process by their beliefs, acceptance, goal, and to maintain clients. Thus, professional resilience assumes that it is positively related to audit ethics awareness, audit report quality and audit best practice. Hence auditors with higher professional resilience will have grater audit ethics awareness, audit report quality and audit best practice. Therefore, it leads to the hypotheses proposed as follows:

   Hypothesis 2a: The greater the professional resilience is, the more likely that firms will achieve higher audit ethics awareness.

   Hypothesis 2b: The greater the professional resilience is, the more likely that firms will achieve higher audit report quality.

   Hypothesis 2c: The greater the professional resilience is, the more likely that firms will achieve higher best audit practice.

   2.3 Professional planning

   Professional planning is the third dimension of audit professional commitment. It refers to professional skill development and goal setting actions (Carson and Bedeian, 1994).Auditors with more professional planning are likely to produce the benefits and advantages for themselves and their professional institutes. Thus, professional planning assumes that it is positively related to audit ethics awareness, audit report quality and audit best practice. Therefore, it leads to the hypotheses proposed as follows:

   Hypothesis 3a: The greater the professional planning is, the more likely that firms will achieve higher audit ethics awareness.

   Hypothesis 3b: The greater the professional planning is, the more likely that firms will achieve higher...