This chapter contributes to the understanding of how change within auditing is initiated and formed through collaboration and negotiation between FAR and other actors within the organisational field of municipal auditing in Sweden. The empirical data is based on documents and interviews with actors within and outside the audit profession. Thus, the data represents different perspectives and interests throughout the change process. The analyses show that it was different partial jolts that made the various actors feel institutional pressure to get involved in the change process. At the end of the change process, an additional partial jolt, initiated by an outside actor, facilitated and accelerated the process as it reinforced the understanding of interdependence between the actors involved.

En serie händelser gjorde att SKR. FAR och Skyrev upplevde ett institutionellt tryck, vilket föranledde att de engagerade sig i arbetet med att ta fram en kommunal revisionsstandard. Att Revisorsinspektionen engagerade sig i frågan blev tungan på vågen.

Vad behöver en revisor kunna och hur erhålls dessa kunskaper? Fyra viktiga aktörer (branschorganisationen, arbetsgivarna, akademin och Revisirsinspektionen) är centrala i arbetet med att utbilda, forma och attrahera framtida revisorer. Samtliga har ett intresse av att det finns en yrkeskår med tillräckligt många kompetenta revisorer och att dessa kan utföra revision med hög kvalitet. I och med att de olika aktörerna påverkar och påverkas av varandra, krävs samarbete och samverkan. Detta kapitel diskuterar frågor relaterade till kompetensförsörjning och vad respektive aktör kan göra för att säkerställa revisorsprofessionens långsiktiga kompetensbehov.

The attractiveness of audit firms as employers appears to have decreased in recent yearsand the audit profession is currently experiencing high employee turnover. A shortage of personnelincreases the risk of long-term stress and illness. This paper therefore proposes audit firmemployees’ well-being as an important research topic and explores the antecedents of well-being ofSwedish audit firm employees in comparison with those of other business professionals. Based ona nationwide survey of members of the Swedish association of business professionals, with a focuson psychological well-being (measured through General Health Questionnaire-12 (GHQ-12)), thestudy shows that the psychological well-being of the professionals in this study generally alignswith the results from similar studies in a Swedish context. However, the findings indicate that auditindustry respondents have the lowest psychological well-being and that employer change, jobsatisfaction, and life satisfaction were the strongest antecedents of their psychological well-being.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to explore how the commercialization of audit firms relates to the subjective well-being (SWB) of auditors. Drawing on the conservation of resources and social identity theories, the authors argue that the commercialization of audit firms enhances auditors’ subjective well-being in its overall happiness and job-related dimensions through two theoretical mechanisms. First, it constitutes a valuable resource for an auditor, and second, it reinforces the auditor’s identification with a firm. The authors subsequently contend that this relation is contingent on whether auditors are used in Big four or non-Big four audit firms. Design/methodology/approach The authors test our hypotheses-based data obtained from a survey of 166 Swedish auditors. The data are explored by means of descriptive statistics, correlation matrixes and linear moderating multiple regression analyzes. Findings The authors show that commercial orientation can have a positive effect on auditors’ SWB. The authors also find that the positive relationship between commercialization and SWB is stronger for auditors employed by one of the Big four firms. Originality/value The results contribute to the ongoing debate about the normalization of commercialization within the audit profession by theorizing on and providing empirical support for the positive consequences of commercialization.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explain how auditors professional and organizational identities are associated with commercialization in audit firms. Unlike previous studies exploring the consequences of commercialization in the firms, the study directs its attention toward the potential driver of commercialization, which the authors argue to be the identities of the auditors. Design/methodology/approach The paper is based on 374 responses to a survey distributed to 3,588 members of FAR, the professional association of accountants, auditors and advisors in Sweden. The study used established measures of organizational and professional identity and introduced market, customer and firm process orientation as aspects of commercialization. The study explored the data through descriptive statistics, principle component analysis and correlation analysis and tested the hypotheses with multiple linear regression analysis. Findings The findings indicated that the organizational identity of auditors has a positive association with three aspects of commercialization: market orientation, customer orientation and firm process orientation. Contrary to the arguments based on prior literature, the study has found that the professional identity of auditors is also a positively associated with commercialization. This indicates a change of the role of professional identity vis-a-vis commercialization of audit firms. The positive association between professional identity and commercial orientation could indicate the development of organizational professionalism. The study also found differences between the association between professional identity and commercialization in Big 4 and non-Big 4 firms. While in Big 4 firms, professional identity is positively associated only with the firms process orientation, in non-Big 4 firms, professional identity has a positive association with all three aspects of commercialization. Originality/value The paper provides insight into how auditors identities have influenced commercialization of audit firms and into the normalizing of commercialization within auditing. The study also developed a new instrument for measuring commercialization, one based on market, customer and firm process orientation concepts. This paper suggests that this instrument is an alternative to the observation through proxies.

This study explores audit employee motivation and especially what motivates the new generation of auditemployees, Generation Y. A survey was distributed amongst Swedish audit employees, and the resultrevealed five categories of motivational drivers; intrinsic, social, material, status and well-being drivers.The results indicate that Generation Y is more motivated by social, material and status drivers incomparison to other generations. However, the results indicate that motivation changes over time,making it hard to distinguish between generational traits and experience.

This paper explores whether and in what way dual learning can develop understanding of the relationship between structure/judgement and explores audit students perceptions of the audit profession. The Work Integrated Learning (WIL) module, serving as a tool of enabling dual learning, represents the context for this exploration. The study is based on a focus group and individual interviews conducted with students performing their WIL. Our data and its analysis indicates that when in a WIL context, students develop awareness of the use of standards and checklists on the one hand, and the importance of discretional judgement on the other. Based on these results, we theorise as to how dual learning manifests itself in students experiences and understanding of the relationship between structure and judgement.

This paper is aimed at explaining how time budget pressure influences audit quality in the Swedish context. A hypothesis is deduced and tested through a survey sent to Swedish auditors. The Swedish context provides a special setting since audit firms and auditors have been facing new pressures due, for example, to the removal of statutory audits for a majority of the companies in Sweden. The findings show that time budget pressure lowers the quality of audits performed by Swedish auditors, but it is not the only explanation. Audit quality is so related to other factors such as gender, position, experience, number of clients, local office size and audit firm. Thus, the model is useful for explaining the factors influencing audit uality and could be used and expanded in future studies. The study also has practical implications showing that when trading-off between audit efforts and available resources and setting time budgets for each audit assignment, audit firms should also consider the personal characteristics of the auditors.