Professional scepticizm in the audit profession in the Republic of Macedonia- students versus external auditors
Professional scepticizm in the audit profession in the Republic of Macedonia- students versus external auditors

Summary/Abstract: In terms of global financial crises and financial scandals of big corporations worldwide, the public awareness of the responsibility of audits in detecting and preventing fraud is increasing. The interest focuses on the important role of professional scepticism and its proper application when auditing financial statements. Occurring concerns over insufficient and inadequate application of professional scepticism in audits led to development of many debates about the role of professional scepticism and suggestions on how to improve its application in the audit practice. Despite the importance of professional scepticism, in audit literature there is no consensus and empirical data for measuring the scepticism and how it affects the behavior of auditors. This paper makes an effort to define, conceptualize and measure professional scepticism. It also identifies threats to the concept and potential opportunities, i.e., measures and activities to promote the application of professional scepticism throughout the audit of financial statements, in order to improve audit quality. In order to answer the question whether the possession of a certain individual level of scepticism among auditors affects their behavior towards fraud indicators during audit engagements, an experimental research, in which students and external auditors in the Republic of Macedonia were taken as target groups, is conducted.

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