The effect of work load of independent auditors on their work performances and quality of audit

Globalization has made remarkable changes in different aspects of life but especially in economy. Although countries have preserved their political frontiers, there is no more economic borders now. This situation has increased the level of competition and the number of competitive companies. So now companies have to organize a more efficient financial framework within company. A more efficient financial framework can be designed only if global investors provide the company with enough funds. To reach these funds, a company should have transparent, objective and accurate financial tables. Independent audit is the necessary condition to maintain objectivity, transparency and accuracy in financial tables. However, after the successive bankruptcies due to the accounting scandals in 2000s, quality in independent audit has become more important today. In 21st century although working hours and responsibilities has declined, workloads of employers has increased due to time-constrained activities. According to the recent studies, the higher the workload, the higher the turnover rate is. Higher turnover rates bring about less qualified person in these areas of business. This problem is also a major concern among independent audits. In our country, companies demand from auditors to fulfill their reports starting from end of the year, until the compulsory general meeting in March which is almost three months. This time limit increases the workload of independent auditors. Surprisingly, any research has been made in Turkey about workload of independent auditors and its effect on auditors. However, in USA and Europe there are a lot of studies on this issue. In these studies direct effect of workload on quality of audit has been determined. So this thesis will be the first study on this area in Turkey. In the first section of the thesis, I defined the terms workload and job performance and then I tried to explain the workload and the job performance of an independent auditor theoretically. In addition I informed about factors that constitutes the workload of an independent auditor. In the second section of the thesis, first I defined the terms about independent audit (independent audit, types of audit, independent auditor, types of independent auditor, quality of independent audit, standards of independent audit and quality standards of independent audit) and then I shed light on the effect of the workload of independent auditor on the quality of audit. In the last section of the thesis, I put the results of the survey data analysis (frequency analysis, factor analysis, regression analysis, significance test and structural equation analysis) and made a discussion on these results. This section ended with a conclusion and suggestions part.