Measuring the Auditor’s Organisational Thinking and its Impact on the Process of Audit Planning, and its Reflection on the Quality of Financial Statements

A thesis submitted to the Board of the College of Administration and Economics – the University of Kerbala, which is part of the Requirements for the Degree of Master in Since of Accounting

Submitted by 

Sanaa Manfi Deyab

Supervised by
Prof. Dr. Assad Mohammed Ali Wahhab

abstract

The auditing profession in Iraq has faced significant obstacles for nearly two decades. In Iraq, the highest oversight bodies, represented by the Federal Board of Supreme Audit (FBSA), the Auditing and Oversight Profession Council, the Iraqi Society of Certified Public Accountants (ICPA), and the Accountants and Auditors Syndicate, have sought to identify shortcomings in auditor practices, both within audit firms and among public auditors. One of the crucial decisions taken by the FBSA was to require auditors of Iraqi audit firms to apply international auditing standards without a local standard. It is important to emphasize that there is no local auditing standard for audit planning; therefore, Iraqi auditors use the International Accounting Standard 300. However, many concerns arise regarding audit failure and the emergence of new fraudulent practices that auditors cannot adequately detect and prepare for. The current study aims to measure the level of organizational thinking among Iraqi auditors in the public and private sectors and how it impacts the audit planning process. A questionnaire was developed for this purpose, consisting of three axes to achieve the study’s objectives. The first axis was devoted to demographic information, while the second axis was devoted to organizational thinking, which includes eight dimensions: analysis and evaluation, risk management, critical thinking, time pressure, strategic thinking, collaboration and communication, creative thinking, and learning and development. Four questions were developed for each of these dimensions. The third axis was devoted to planning the audit process, which included 14 questions adopted from the International Standard on Auditing 300. The fourth axis was dedicated to measuring the quality of financial statements and included 24 questions based on the qualitative characteristics of accounting information. The questions were divided into six axes: relevance, materiality, faithful expression, comparability, verifiability, and timeliness. Each of the six axes contained four questions, for 24 questions per axis. SPSS was used to analyse the data, which utilised factor analysis and split-half analysis to establish the validity and reliability of the questionnaire.

In contrast, simple linear regression was used to test the research hypotheses. A significant correlation of 98.9% was found between organizational thinking and audit planning. The relationship between auditors’ organizational thinking and financial statement quality was also measured using the mediating variable of audit planning. The results showed a strong correlation of 98%. This correlation varies when measuring each dimension of organizational thinking during audit planning. The results also indicated that organizational thinking helps auditors critically analyze and evaluate an organization’s operations and strive to improve its efficiency and effectiveness by examining various systems and processes to identify areas for improvement in internal control systems and reduce fraud.