Investigating the Effect of Ethical Ideology on Auditors' Self-Efficacy

Ethics is a part of the audit process, which is essential as a basic criterion for providing a fair opinion for auditors. For this purpose, ethical ideology includes a system of ethical values for ethical judgments that provide guidelines for resolving ethical behavior and professional judgment. On the other hand, the auditor's self-efficacy, which is defined as the auditor's expectation of himself to perform professional duties, can be influenced by ethical ideology. Because auditors seek to increase the quality of auditing in order to maintain their professional credibility, and for this reason, it is necessary to examine the ethical components affecting the performance of auditors. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of auditors' ethical ideology on their self-efficacy. working in auditing firms, members of the Society of Certified Public Accountants of Iran, and the Auditing Organization in 2022, who were selected by an available sampling method. The research method is a descriptive survey, and the instrument used in the research is a standard questionnaire. In order to test the hypotheses, structural equation modeling was used using LISREL software. The research results show that ethical ideology, according to Forsyth's model, has a positive and significant effect on auditors' self-efficacy. Also, the ethical ideology of idealism has a positive and significant effect and the ethical ideology of relativism has a negative and significant effect on auditors' self-efficacy.