Title: Ethical leadership and auditors' premature signoff: mediating role of employee resilience and moderating role of cognitive cultural intelligence

Authors: Khalid Hussain; Ishfaq Ahmed; Muhammad Aamir

Addresses: Hailey College of Commerce, University of the Punjab, Government College University, Lahore, Punjab 54000, Pakistan ' Hailey College of Commerce, University of the Punjab, Government College University, Lahore, Punjab 54000, Pakistan ' Hailey College of Commerce, University of the Punjab, Government College University, Lahore, Punjab 54000, Pakistan

Abstract: Considering the audit failures as one of the most crucial reason of accounting scandals, the current study discusses the role of audit engagement partners' ethical leadership to control audit team leaders' premature signoff. Moreover, this study investigates intervening role of audit team leaders' resilience and moderating role of audit team leaders' cognitive cultural intelligence. The study collected data from 369 audit team leaders conducting external audit of public limited companies of Pakistan for the fiscal year 2020-2021. Results suggested that audit engagement partners' ethical leadership significantly impedes audit team leaders' acceptance of premature signoff. Audit team leaders' resilience partially mediates the link between ethical leadership and premature signoff. Furthermore, the cognitive intelligence strengthens the impact of ethical leadership on employee resilience. This study brings novelty by restricting the data collection from the audit team leaders. Research implications and limitations are also provided.

Keywords: ethical leadership; dysfunctional audit behaviour; premature signoff; employee resilience; cognitive cultural intelligence.

DOI: 10.1504/MEJM.2023.129430

Middle East Journal of Management, 2023 Vol.10 No.2, pp.163 - 185

Received: 21 Oct 2021
Accepted: 01 Nov 2021
Published online: 09 Mar 2023 *

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