The Study of Individual Resilience Levels, Auditor Stress and Reducing Audit Quality Practices in Audit Profession

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between auditors' individual resilience and reducing audit quality practices with respect to the stress pattern in the audit profession.

The study is an applied-type survey, that in order to measure the resilience we used Connor and Davidson questionnaire, for reduction practices in audit quality the Otley and Pierce questionnaire, for burnout the Maslach questionnaire, and stress arousal of Smith et al. questionnaire. Relevant data were collected from 201 completed questionnaires among the Iranian Society of Certified Public Accountants and Auditors in Audit Organization in 2018 and structural equation method was used to analyze the findings.

The results of the study show that there is a negative relationship between resilience and stress arousal, burnout and audit quality reduction methods. Since resilience is considered as an attribute for successful and positive compliance with stress and stress factors, the results suggest that if the auditor’s resilience is low in work, the stress is increased by workload. There is also a positive relationship between role conflict with stress arousal and role overload with stress arousal but no significant relationship was found between role ambiguity and stress arousal. There is also a negative relationship between resilience and reduced audit quality practices. If the auditor has resilience and this characteristic is further enhanced, he or she will adhere to the standard time budget for audits, and will perform all necessary procedures in accordance with auditing standards and the audit plan, and thus conduct audits of behaviors that lead to improve the quality of auditing. When the auditor has a large number of tasks and on the other hand does not have the time needed to perform the assigned tasks, his or her stress increases. The degree of conflict between the role and occupation of the auditors is the factor that causes the auditors' stress to be addressed in their audit process. The results also show that there is a positive relationship between burnout and reduced audit quality.

The results show that the resilience issue in the audit profession affects the personal behavior and professional outcomes of auditors. In fact, this factor can reduce the quality of auditor work and create burnout and stress arousal in the lead. However, stress arousal and its negative results do not affect job stress. Although some studies have documented that stress arousal can affect the reduction of audit quality, other studies have documented the effect of stress arousal on reducing audit quality.