An Investigation of Auditors’ Responsibility for Fraud Detection in Taiwan

Abstract

Purpose – Corporate fraud is an issue that has become increasingly prevalent in the western countries and Taiwan as well. As a result, external auditors in these countries continually face widespread mistrust and criticism. It is premised, that this is a manifestation of the audit expectation gap—the gap between the users’ expectations of auditors and their role in detecting corporate fraud, as perhaps evidenced in audited financial statements. This study investigates how auditors and users perceive the auditors’ responsibility for fraud detection in Taiwan. Design/methodology/approach – A total 964 respondents were surveyed regarding their perceptions on fraud, using quantitative analysis approach. Findings – The findings indicate that gap exist on auditors’ responsibility to detect corporate fraud. The auditors strongly disagreed that they were responsible for detecting the material fraud during an audit, compared with the non-auditor groups’ strongly views that they should be responsible. However, there was a general consensus by the surveyed groups that auditor should work to detect fraud that materially affects the true and fair view of financial statement, or for fraud detecting only when the audit was specifically designed for such detection. Originality/value – The findings have important implications for auditors and the users in Taiwan, especially the company’s directors and managers, the financial analysts, investors and banker. This paper fills a void in research in this area and makes an interesting contribution to our understanding of fraud in Taiwan.

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