A study on the factors affecting the approaches towards independent auditing of small and medium-sized enterprises

ABSTRACT A STUDY ON THE FACTORS AFFECTING THE APPROACHES TOWARDS INDEPENDENT AUDITING OF SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED ENTERPRISES GÜNGÖRMÜŞ, Ali Haydar PhD Dissertation, Department of Management Advisor: Prof. Dr. Hüseyin ERGİN June, 2014, 187 pages The enterprises have been becoming international along with the rapid transformation in the world trade in recent years. It is now mandatory to develop a common language in the field of accounting and auditing for the reason that enterprises are operating in different countries. At the end of this process, it has been implemented a worldwide uniformity with "International Accounting Standards" and "International auditing standards". The relevant changes were made in independent auditing for SMEs under certain criteria in order to adapt uniformity with new Turkish commercial code in our country. While these developments, it is important to know the factors affecting Turkish SMEs 'perspective about independent audit and to manage the process in the light of this information The main objective of our study is to reveal the factors affecting SMEs 'approach towards independent audit. Although the opinions of all involved parties in SMEs are important, our study mainly focuses on the opinions of top executives who give a decision of independent auditing in an enterprise. The factors affecting SMEs' approach towards independent auditing have not been yet studied in Turkey. Our study will be the first in this field. Therefore, this study, in particular, is vital of importance to observe the managers' approach to independent auditing in the recent period. It has also been observed that this issue has not been paid enough attention abroad due the fact that enterprises have conscious choice and take independent auditing naturally. In our study, survey method was used as data gathering system. As the work environment, SMEs in Istanbul have been chosen. The reason to choose Istanbul is that Istanbul reflects nation-wide results. Our research has been limited in scope. This is because of the numerous factors affecting auditing are concerned. The study has been analyzed over four main factors. At the end of our study, four major findings have been discovered. The enterprises with high level of corporate governance, with high level of accounting information system, using effective internal control system and having adopted growth strategy are found to be positive to independent auditing. Keywords: Small And Medium-Sized Enterprises, Independent Auditing, Corporate Governance, Accounting Information Systems.