Determinants of auditors’ attitudes towards creative accounting Available to Purchase

Smith (2003) responded to the Sarbanes‐Oxley Act by suggesting that government rules and regulations cannot preserve a profession where people lack integrity. He suggests that leaders in the profession and academe “call individuals to excellence” and “inculcate in practitioners and students ethical behaviour and personal integrity”. This study investigates whether auditors’ attitudes towards creative accounting are associated with ethical judgement, their evaluation of the quality of financial reporting and their perceptions of factors that influence preparers of financial statements to use aggressive accounting techniques. The results of this study reveal a significant relationship between auditors’ assessments of the relevance and reliability (but not ethical judgement) of reported information and their attitudes to creative accounting. Some insight is gained into auditors’ perceptions of the factors that influence preparers to use creative accounting in South Africa.