Auditors’ professional commitment, time budget pressure, independence, and audit quality

The Audit Board of the Republic of Indonesia Experience

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the effect of auditors’ professional commitment and audit time budget pressure on audit quality mediated by auditors’ independence at the Republic of Indonesia Supreme Audit Agency (BPK RI). This study applies explanatory research with a questionnaire method. The survey was conducted in mid-2020. The questionnaire was distributed to the head office and representative offices of BPK RI in 34 provinces. The samples of this study were 132 auditors of BPK RI throughout Indonesia. Data analysis used the Partial Least Square test to examine the influence of the variables of auditors’ professional commitment, audit time budget pressure, auditors’ independence, and audit quality. The results of this study conclude that audit quality can be influenced by auditors’ professional commitment either directly or indirectly through auditors’ independence, while audit time budget pressure only indirectly affects audit quality through auditors’ independence. These findings indicate that the majority of BPK RI auditors have conducted quality audits because the majority of BPK RI auditors are parties with high professional commitment and parties who can work professionally under audit time budget pressure in every audit assignment by maintaining their independence. This is evidenced by the majority of BPK RI auditors who cannot be influenced by personal interference or closeness with the audited entity to produce quality audit reports (LHP).