The Mediating Role of Organizational Commitment and Burnout in the Relationship between Organizational Cynicism and Professional Skepticism.

Financial scandals, have been questioned the quality of auditing. One important means of improving audit quality is to enhance auditors’ professional skepticism. Previous studies have shown that organizational factors and variables related to organizational culture can affect the components of auditor judgment and decision-making, including professional skepticism. The present research explores the relationship between organizational cynicism and professional skepticism, the mediating role of organizational commitment and burnout to help strengthen professional skepticism, enhance audit quality, and increase public trust in the auditing profession. This study is an applied survey, and the statistical sample consists of 449 audit professionals from the member firms of the Iranian Association of Certified Public Accountants (IACPA) and Iran Audit Organization (IAO(. Non-probability sampling was used to select the participants. Data were collected in 2021 using a questionnaire and were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The results show that organizational cynicism has a significant negative effect on professional skepticism. Moreover, organizational commitment and burnout have a mediating role in this relationship. Therefore, it is necessary to build the appropriate organizational culture ; increase organizational Commitment and decrease burnout to improve the performance of audit professionals and increase public trust in the auditing profession.