A Qualitative Look into Going Concern Reports : From the Auditor's Perspective

Abstract: This research considered the perspective of the auditor regarding going-concern reports in light of previous research questions and prior study categorizations. A deeper goal of the study was to find out if a qualitative method would produce a deeper understanding than the quantitative studies of previous research. Interviews were conducted on six Swedish auditors as respondents to learn about their perspectives on going-concern reports. To relate the auditors’ perspectives to previous research, the previous research inspired questions which the respondents answered in their interviews. The previous research inspired questions were then compared and contrasted with the current study’s responses from interviews. This demonstrated differences in obtained information from quantitative researches and a qualitative one. The previous research also offered categorization of the influential factors on auditors. Auditor responses were analyzed according to these categories to demonstrate differences between expected outcomes and the actual outcomes. Agent Theory was utilized in consideration of the auditor as an agent and used the situations and responses of respondent to its fullest without overstepping privacy boundaries.   The research query about auditor perspectives is answered in Results wherein their main concerns are given as raw as possible with rewording only as necessary. Commonalities amongst most respondents included perspectives related to the following: liquidity, cash, financial distress indicators, communications and trust of those communications, experience, changes to key staff or customer figures, auditing standards, regulations, litigations, and mitigating information. The auditors showed behaviors akin to an agent of Agency Theory by utilizing trust risk reduction such as behavioral analysis, corporate culture analysis, and redundancy to check accuracy of data.  The aim to study a qualitative method versus a quantitative method displayed a need for both of the same population to achieve a complete understanding of the perspectives an auditor has for a going-concern report.