The Relationship between Ethical Theories and Ethical Behavior in Auditors' Judgments

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between ethical theories and ethical behavior in auditors' judgments. Ethical behavior is an important and vital issue for the auditing profession, without which public trust in the profession will be damaged and harmful effects will be felt on the profession. This research is an applied and descriptive-correlational study and its population include various auditors in the country, 164 of whom were selected using simple random sampling. Structural equation analysis and Smart PLS software were used to test the hypotheses. The general findings of the study show that there is a significant relationship between the theories under review and ethical behavior in auditors at the level of 77%. Also, the findings showed that other theories of altruism (22%), justice (29%), benevolence (58%), and virtue (21%) have a positive and significant relationship with ethical behavior in auditors. Also, there was no significant relationship between theories of conscientiousness and utilitarianism with ethical behavior in auditors. Examination of control variables also showed that there is no significant relationship between age and gender and the ethical behavior of auditors. Given the importance of professional ethics in auditing and the importance of philosophy of ethics and ethical theories to promote professional ethics, it is necessary to pay more attention to this issue to increase the level of professional ethics in the future.