Revisorns dilemma : En kvalitativ studie om svårigheterna mellan revisorns rådgivande och granskande roll

Sammanfattning: The standard for the auditing profession is not only to review the client's financial reports, but to also offer advice to clients in the form of independent advisory services. This entails potential risks that may mean that the auditor's independent role is affected. In addition, there are discussions that professionalism and commercialism are found as two contradictory institutional logics in the auditing profession. Others believe that the logics can instead integrate with each other and thus do not have to be contradictory. At the same time, some believe that the audit quality increases when the auditor performs both auditing andi ndependent advisory services to the same client, while others believe that different conflicts can arise between these two roles. Therefore, we have chosen to examine how auditors work to deal with the potential conflict between the auditor's audit and advisory role and also the two logics professionalism, commercialism. The purpose of this study is to create a deeper understanding of the auditor’s approach to the professional, commercial logic and also two roles as independent advisors and auditors. A qualitative method has been used in this study, we have conducted personal interviews with six certified public accountants who are active in the industry as both independent advisors and auditors. A comparison of the empirical data has been made between the auditors opinions to identify different methods that can be applied to maintain auditor independence. After gathering the empirical evidence, we can state that the conflicts the theory describes exist between an auditors two roles as an advisor, auditor and the logics of professionalism, commercialism are not present. Instead, our study shows that both logics can integrate with each other in the auditor's work as an advisor and auditor as Carrington et al. (2013) mean. The auditor can use several methods to maintain independence, for example through the use of the analysis model and by referring the client to another auditor when the auditor has trouble maintaining an independent role.