Effects of Organizational–Professional Conflict and Auditor Burnout on Dysfunctional Audit Behaviour

Auditors are expected to provide a good quality in auditing performance. However, in practice, some conditions may impair the auditors’ professional behaviour. The conflict between professional and organizational values that may occur during the auditing process may become a dilemma for the auditor as a professional. This condition eventually can make the auditor to have a dysfunctional behaviour in performing audit. Some studies showed that the phenomenon of dysfunctional audit behaviour is also correlated to the job burnout the auditor experiences in performing the audit fieldwork. This study, in turn, examined the effects of organizational – professional conflict (OPC) and auditor burnout on dysfunctional audit behaviour. It was hypothesized that both OPC and auditor burnout have the positive effects on dysfunctional audit behaviour. Data collection in this study was performed by distributing the questionnaires through the survey method sent to the respondents, i.e. 79 auditors working in public accounting firm using the convenience sampling technique. The results of this study indicated that job burnout, as hypothesized, had positive effect on dysfunctional audit behaviour; while the OPC had no effect on dysfunctional audit behaviour.