Chee W. Chow
San Diego State University
Dawn W. Massey
Fairfield University
Linda Thorne
York University
Anne Wu
National Chengchi University
Abstract: We compare the values that guide American and Taiwanese professional judgment. We choose auditors from these two countries because of the similarity in their professional cultures (Ho and Chang, 1994) and the dissimilarity in their national cultures (c.f., Hofstede, 1980). We ask 46 auditors to describe the key ethical issues that they encounter throughout the various phases of the audit process as well as how they attempted to resolve the issues. Our results identify national differences in how auditors interpret and resolve ethical decisions. In particular, we find American and Taiwanese auditors tend to place different emphases on commercial and professional values, and in their definition of clients in their in-group or out-group. Consequently, American and Taiwanese auditors have different philosophies in performing the audit and reconciling client disputes. American auditors tend to characterize the audit on a commercial level as the quest for an unqualified opinion where clients requests are to be accommodated due to the long-term personal nature of their relationship. In contrast, Taiwanese auditors tend to characterize the audit on a professional level as seeking assurance for fair presentation where clients do not make requests of auditors due to the lack of personal relationship. As a result, the Taiwanese auditors are more willing to issue a qualified opinion and to walk away from the client than their American counterparts. Implications of the findings for multi-national audit practice are also discussed.
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