The shift from professionalism to commercialism in the auditing profession : “Everything in our society is commercialized”

Abstract: Background: The auditing profession is in constant change and marketing activities such as advertising has gone from being prohibited to become a legal activity within the profession. The Swedish auditing profession has for a long time been protected by laws and regulations. With the increased use of marketing activities in the profession, researchers claim that the profession has shifted from professionalism to commercialism. Research has argued the positive and negative outcomes of increased marketing activities within the profession where the auditors have had mixed perceptions regarding this increase. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis was to examine Swedish auditors' perceptions toward the shift from professionalism toward commercialism within the auditing profession. Method: By using a qualitative research methodology six (6) semi-structured interviews with active auditors in Sweden were conducted. In-depth empirics were collected where an inductive approach was adopted to approach the data collected. Conclusion: Seven themes of perceptions were identified: (1) Marketing as a tool in a more competitive market, (2) Marketing should be used for brand awareness, (3) Marketing is not my responsibility, (4) Auditing is a trust profession, (5) The most important marketing tool is the word of mouth, (6) Seeing clients is not marketing, and (7) Marketing activities do not affect the professionalism. It was found that marketing activities had been perceived to become more positively accepted overtime where the auditors implied that duality between professionalism and commercialism should be applied.