The Effect of Moral Orientation, Threatto Personal Independence, and Moral Intensityon Ethical Decision-Making Process of Auditors

The purpose of the present study is to review the effect of moral orientation, threat to personal independence, and moral intensity on the ethical decision-making process of auditors. This paper is a practical, descriptive, and survey research which has a semi-experimental plan with two scenarios. The statistical population of the research consisted of senior audits and accounting managers of the accounting companies, registered in the Official Accountants Society and Audit Organization of Iran, serving up until the end of the first half of 2019. The statistical sample included 131 senior audits and accounting managers chosen by convenience sampling. For measuring the research variables, some questionnaires with confirmed validity and reliability were used. The research results showed that moral orientation and threat to personal independence are effective in the process of ethical decision-making, whereas moral intensity does not have any impact in this regard. For the explanation of this result, it can be said that the auditors who have special moral orientation have high awareness of the ethical content of auditing so they always reinforce the process of their ethical decision-making. Such a moral orientation is so useful for auditors because it makes them keep working based on their professional rules. Furthermore, the results convey the significant effect of threat to personal independence on the ethical decision-making process of auditors. Therefore, high threat to the independence of the personal interests leads to an increase in moral sensitivity of auditors which is a procedure in their moral decision-making. What is more, the research findings indicate that moral intensity has no significant effect on the process of ethical decision-making.