Antecedents Of Burnout And Its Relationship To Internal Audit Quality

Abstract

Numerous studies in the internal audit literature show that Audit Quality (AQ) can be negatively affected by Dysfunctional Audit Behaviours (DAB), especially Premature Sign-Off (PMSO), which in turn violates professional standards. Pertaining to newly industrialised countries’ context, there are still limited insights on interactive effects of stressors and Job Burnout (JB), Job Satisfaction (JS) on Premature Sign-Off, which in turn influence Internal Audit Quality (IAQ).This study fills the research gap by investigating the mediating effect of Job Burnout and Job Satisfaction on the relationship between stressors in the internal auditors’ Premature Sign-Off, in order to enhancing the explanatory power of stressors on outcome variables. The premise of this investigation is that the internal auditing workplace has been acknowledged as a high stress environment and studies in Job Burnout and dissatisfaction provide support for negative consequences on auditors’ job outcomes. Quality of audit work can be captured by behavioural perspective, therefore this study employed Premature Sign-Off as a mediator between Job Burnout, Job Satisfaction and Internal Audit Quality. This study examined the inter-relationships between nine stressors (ethical tension, role ambiguity, role conflict, role overload, time pressure, considerate and structure leadership, neuroticism and conscientiousness personality) along with Job Burnout, on outcome variables (Job Satisfaction, Premature Sign-Off and Internal Audit Quality).