The Study of Norm of Reciprocity in the Auditing Profession: Fairness Theory Test

This article investigate and compares the norm of reciprocity between two groups of auditors working in audit organization and private audit firms in according to fairness theory. The statistical sample of this research is consisted of 125 auditors employed in audit organization and 178 auditors employed in private audit firms. Research data are collected by questionnair and hypothesis testing is done by nonparametric statistics. The results of this research show that both male and female auditors believe existence of the reciprocity norm is necessary for social life. But positive and negative reciprocity are different between male and female auditors. Female auditors are more likely to do positive behavior than male auditors. Also, belief in reciprocity is different among auditors working in public and private sectors and in different job ranks of audit profession. This shows that the location of employment and job ranks don’t effect on positive and negative reciprocity .