The Current Status of Professional Ethics and Independence of Private Audit Firms Engaged in Ethiopia and its Overall Impact on Audit Quality
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Date
2015-05
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Professional ethics and independence of an auditor has been considered as one of the main elements
for the auditing environment and auditing professional bodies like the International Federation of
Accountants (IFAC,),. The main objective of this study is to examine the current status of private
audit firms’ professional ethics and independence and its overall impact on the quality of audit service
provided to the public on 20 private audit firms selected based on stratified random sampling
technique. The study used descriptive statistics to analyze the collected primary and secondary data
using SPSS. The results of the research result indicate that most of the private audit firms do not
comply with professional ethics and lack independence from their client. This non-compliance came
from self-interest, self-review and familiarity threats which results from lower audit fee, poor client
assessment before accepting new engagements, having family, financial and personal relationship
with their clients. Moreover inactive and dormant contribution of the regulatory and professional
association respectively also are other factors that contribute for unethical practice, lack of
independence and lower audit quality provided by private audit firm. The study recommend private
audit firms should provide their professional services to the public in compliance with the rules and
regulations stated by the regulatory bodies, Accounting and Auditing Board of Ethiopia should
prepare a well-organized code of professional conduct and ethics that strictly applied by all private
audit, regulatory and professional bodies should set strong audit quality control, high standard audit
practices and enforce all audit and other constructive recommendation stated under researcher paper
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Keywords
Audit quality, Overall impact, Ethiopia, Ethics and independence