Revisorns resonemang i moraliska termer kring oberoendefrågor

ABSTRACT The auditor independence is constantly being questioned while discussing whether the auditor is really independent from the client. There are also factors threatening the auditor’s independency and decreasing the legitimacy towards the auditors. One example is the long-term relationship between the auditor and the client. The analysis model is the most useful for the auditor to control his independency. Former studies show that the auditor’s judgments about the threat to independence differed among the auditors. The arguments or judgments based on the auditor’s interpretation, valuation and experience might cause problems. These can occur due to the fact that all auditors do not have the same opinion about what ethics and moral stands for. Purpose: The purpose of this essay is to enlighten how auditors argue in moral terms in the question of independence. Method: As our method we chose interviews, in order to receive more qualitative results to get analysed. We interviewed eight chartered auditors. As they wanted to stay anonymous, we chose not to mention their names. Conclusion: Some auditors argue on the basis of past experience and personal qualities. This affects the auditor´s idea of what they choose to see as important information and how they judge a situation. This study has proved that the judgment of each person decides the results. It has been shown that the way the auditors argue depends on different moral teachings, which means that the auditor is either a deontologist, an egoist, an utilitarian or a virtue ethicist. Due to this our results are ambiguous