Ethical Values in the Audit Profession: A Simple Descriptive Study from Stakeholders’ Point of View
Ethics plays an important role in improving the audit quality and regaining the stakeholders’ trust, especially after several recent worldwide organizations bankruptcies; that’s why audit firms have their codes of conduct to make sure of having a reference for ethical values that control the audit process and its outputs. This study aims to provide an understanding of the stakeholders’ perceptions about the ethical values adopted by the audit firms and uses descriptive statistics to find the most important ethical value that leads to trust an audit firm from their point of view. The data was collected using an online survey from 112 Yemeni stakeholders, who were asked to give a score from 1, representing the least important, to 10, representing the most important, for 10 ethical values adopted in the Big 4 audit firms. Based on the calculation of the mean and standard deviation, it was found that from the point of view of Yemeni stakeholders, integrity and honesty is the most important ethical value, whereas social responsibility is the least important ethical value that leads to trust an audit firm in the Yemeni business environment, which may differ from any other business environment. This study provides insights to audit firms about the stakeholders’ point of view on the most important ethical value in the audit profession and their expectations about the audit firms’ commitment to ethical values when practicing the audit profession.
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Copyright (c) 2025 Marwan Ghaleb (Author)
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Article Information
- Article Type Articles
- Submitted August 11, 2025
- Accepted November 3, 2025
- Published December 31, 2025
- Issue Vol. 2 No. 1 (2025): Volume 2 - Issue 1 (November 2025)
- Section Articles