Professional Ethics of Auditing in Iran: Content Analysis

This study is aimed to investigate the status of auditing ethics in Iran in the light of the published literature in this field. The statistical population includes all related articles published in research and non-research and non-accounting journals of Iran since the beginning of their operation until the end of summer 2016. At first, related articles were found by the archival approach, and then by "content analysis" and using quadruple structures of "sustainable development model of professional ethics of accounting" (Namazi et al. 2017), the priority of researcher’s topics was identified. Findings showed that in the field of professional ethics of auditing, 40 articles were only published in Iran’s publications until the end of September 2016. In that, 12 articles were published in the scientific research and accounting and financial journals, 15 articles in other accounting journals, and also 13 articles in non-accounting and financial journals. Content analysis of the articles also showed that there are 20 articles regarding individual ethics structure, 13 articles in social ethics structure, and 7 articles in organizational-economic ethics structure. So far, no article has been published in relation to auditing ethics in environmental ethics. The statistical findings of the independent T-test in comparison to the number of ethics articles published in the research journals and other accounting journals, and the comparison of the number of articles of audit ethics published in the research journals of accounting and other financial and accounting journals, did not confirm a significant difference. However, the chi-square test, which was used to examine the difference in the content of the four constituents of professional ethics of auditing, showed a significant difference. Findings of this study also showed revealed that ethics in auditing is not at a high priority by the researchers, and a little attention has been paid to it. Hence, this negligence can be an alarm for professional and academic society; therefore; this weakness should be compensated and managed appropriately in the future.