Error Culture, Auditors’ Error Communication, and the Performance of the Auditee: A Study Among German Local Public Sector Auditors

David Lindermüller (), Irina Lindermüller, Christian Nitzl and Bernhard Hirsch
Additional contact information
David Lindermüller: University of the Bundeswehr Munich
Irina Lindermüller: Carinthia University of Applied Sciences
Christian Nitzl: University of the Bundeswehr Munich
Bernhard Hirsch: University of the Bundeswehr Munich

Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, 2024, vol. 76, issue 2, 245-266

Abstract: Abstract In the course of financial and value for money audits, public sector auditors are facing different types of errors: accounting and economic errors, respectively. This study examines the relations between error culture in public sector audit organizations, auditors’ communication of accounting and economic errors, and performance of the auditee. The analyses of survey data from German local public sector auditors show that a strong error culture within the audit organization positively affect the auditors’ communication of errors to the auditee, regardless of the error type. Additionally, a strong error culture positively mediates the performance of the audited institution through the auditors’ communication of economic errors. This implies that it is important for public sector audit organizations to build a strong error culture. In addition to its practical contrition, the study provides novel theoretical insights as it demonstrates that the error management of one organization (audit entity) matters for the performance of another organization (audited entity).

Keywords: Error communication; Financial audits; Partial least squares-structural equation modeling; Value for money audits (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s41471-024-00179-1 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sjobre:v:76:y:2024:i:2:d:10.1007_s41471-024-00179-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.springer.com/journal/41471

DOI: 10.1007/s41471-024-00179-1

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().