Cross-Cultural Influences on Audit Quality: A Comparison of Pacific Rim, European, and North American Audits

Abstract

This chapter elaborates the comparison of Pacific Rim, European, and North American audits and cross-cultural influences on audit quality. As the globalization of the business environment continues to expand, both external, and internal auditors in many countries are finding that audits are taking them to foreign lands more often. As these auditors experience new audit environments, they are discovering additional barriers that limit their ability to perform the level of audit quality desired. The new performance barriers can generally be classified as cross-cultural factors. The results provided through this study imply that careful planning of the audit, and preparation of the audit staff can mitigate many of the commonly encountered cross-cultural problems encountered. For European countries, preaudit review of accounting procedures, and scope used in the auditee country would allow the audit team to anticipate, and become familiar with these cultural differences so that the language barrier can be minimized. It is found that for the Pacific Rim countries included in the study, it would appear that planning of the audit becomes even more critical.