Investigating the Effect of Auditor Role Transparency on Audit Quality, Unethical Decisions and Audit Performance

The role played by a person can become a problem in some cases. Role stress is the pressure an individual experiences due to work environment factors that may lead to unclear audit planning, lack of communication, turnover of team members and inter-team tension, and audit errors. The reduction in audit quality can be intentional due to the auditor's dishonest action to present a false image of the compliance of financial statements with accounting standards in presentation to shareholders, or it can be caused unintentionally through the effects of the auditors' surrounding environment, such as excess workload or lack of organizational commitment. The current research was carried out with the aim of investigating the effect of the transparency of the auditor's role on audit quality, unethical decisions and audit performance. In this regard, this research is one of the applied researches in terms of its purpose, according to the research objectives. From the point of view of data collection, this research is included in the collection of survey researches. The statistical population of this research includes all official accountants who were members of the official accountants society of Iran in 2023, according to the minimum sample required in the structural equation method, 342 questionnaires were collected and analyzed with PLS software. The results show that role transparency has a significant positive effect on audit quality, a significant positive effect on deductive behaviors of auditors' unethical decisions, and finally a significant positive effect on audit performance. The findings of this research are useful for shareholders (to prevent the share price from falling due to the ambiguity of the auditor's role), audit firms (to avoid reducing the reputation of the institution), managers of audit firms (appropriate audit report), other stakeholders (in using appropriate audit reports in making decisions for investment or loan payment, etc.).