An Analysis of Auditors Capability on Fraud Detection Using the Planned Behavior Theory Perspective: the Impact of Auditors Experience and Personality Type with Respect to the Role of Professional Skepticism

The purpose of this study was to investigate to an analysis of auditors capability on fraud detection using the planned behavior theory perspective and the impact of auditors experience and personality type with respect to the mediating role of professional skepticism in Iran by referring to opinion of professional accounting including auditors working in the auditing organization and auditing firms that are members of the Iranian Society of Certified Public Accountants. The impacts of auditors experience and personality type were obtained through a questionnaire on a five-option Likert scale. The designed questionnaire was distributed among 333 members of ICPA  of which 302 were suitable for use in this study. Structural equation method (SEM) was used to investigate the effects of specific variables, and partial least squares (PLS) approach was used to analyze the model. The results showed that the types of auditors' personality types,auditors experience, and professional skepticism, have a positive and significant relationship directly on the auditors' ability to detect financial statements fraud. Also, personality type and auditors experience have an indirect and positive relationship with respect to the mediating role of professional skepticism on the detection of fraud in financial statements. According to the research findings, Auditors increase the ability to detect fraud by identifying and eliminating the constraints caused by the factors that lead to fraud  regarding the effective role of occupational experience and personality type with respect to the mediatating role of professional skeptic. the more professional skeptics auditors are during the audit, the more willing they are to seek information about the signs of fraud and hence the greater their ability to detect fraud.