1.

0 Introduction

In a series of financial crises, audit issues have received extensive media

coverage, which has indirectly contributed to a significant decline in public
trust in auditing. In addition, fraud-related news and information are becoming
increasingly prominent. Consequently, a growing number of people are
concerned about the quality of audited financial statements and the audit ethics
and integrity issue. From the auditing perspective, ethics means regulating
various professional and ethical relationships within and outside the audit
profession, and the level of audit professional ethics affects the overall level of
professional ethics in the market economy to a certain extent. Since auditing is
highly dependent on trust and fiduciary duty, ethical judgement is essential to
the profession.

The research conducted in this paper is directed towards a bibliometric review

and a visualization analysis of the relationship between audit and ethics. The
primary purpose is to empirically document knowledge development's
structure, amount, and direction in "audit" and "ethics." In addition, we
utilized the Scopus database, the most extensive database covering the fields
of science, business, economics, and technology, to discover a substantial rise
in the number of "audit" and "ethics" articles published in the last decade,
from 2013 to 2022. The bibliometric analysis indicates the field's most
influential journals, authors, and papers. In addition, we also utilized the
VOSviewer to display the visualized bibliographies, or data sets containing
bibliographic fields, such as title, author, author, journal, etc., which can
indicate the trend, influence, and evolutionary process of a topic's high-
frequency. This study demonstrates that by combining the primary
characteristics of audit and ethics, a new issue can emerge, which can provide
new research possibilities in the vast field of audit and the burgeoning field of
ethics.
2.0 Literature Review
In order to examinate the relationship and connection between audit and
ethics, we have compiled a database of 231 peer-reviewed publications
published from in the last ten years (2013 to 2022) from a vast amount of
literature.

2.1 Co-occurrence

Figure 1: The keyword co-occurrence network map

The direction of the research was to conduct a co-occurrence analysis (Figure

1). The first visualization depicts the clusters in a clustering solution and the
occurrence relationships between these clusters to illustrate the subjects that a
cluster covers. This visualization displays the most prevalent words and their
co-occurrence relationships in the articles that belong to a cluster. This
analysis aims to identify widely researched subjects in the auditing industry
and to highlight the ethical difficulties related with such topics.
A figure showing the co-occurrence of 956 keywords discovered in 231
sample database papers was generated. Twenty-three papers met the threshold,
which was that the keyword must appear at least five times of occurrence in
the body of the research paper. The keyword co-occurrence analysis gives
valuable information on other emerging subjects relevant to the area under
study. As illustrated in Figure 1, the primary component of the keyword co-
occurrence map pertains to the occurrence of keywords based on their
prevalence and the progression of their popularity. According to the preceding
figure, the keywords "Audit" and "Ethics" are associated with every cluster:
 cluster 1, namely term for auditing and ethics
 cluster 2, namely terms for the safeguarding of the company
 cluster 3, namely terms of ethics; 
 cluster 4, namely three basic principles of corporate social
responsibility; 
 cluster 5, namely terms of the auditor
The node size represents the number of occurrences; hence the larger the node,
the greater the number of occurrences. The distribution of nodes is governed
by the notion of similarity, such that comparable nodes are clustered. The
curves connecting the nodes indicate their co-occurrence in the same
publication. The greater the co-occurrence of two terms, the shorter the
distance between two nodes.

The VOSviewer produced five clusters for the keyword occurrence analysis;
There are only 23 items in five clusters, with 84 links and total link strength of
154. The size of the clusters is almost the same; the most prominent cluster
has six items, while the minor clusters contain just three items. The main
keywords in the red cluster are “ethics”, “audit quality”, and “governance”.
The keyword “ethics” is with having links to 20 keywords of five clusters, an
occurrence of 61 times, and 68 total link strength, which has a strong link with
“corporate governance”, “internal audit”, and “audit quality”. “Audit quality”
is another keyword in the red cluster, with an occurrence of 17 and a total link
strength of 8. The keyword “Governance” has an occurrence of 6 and a total
link strength of 13.

The main keywords in the case of the green cluster are “Corporate
Governance”, with an occurrence of 17 and total link strength of 21; “internal
audit”, with an occurrence of 12 and total link strength of 18; “business
ethics”, an occurrence of 11 and total link strength of 6.

In the case of the blue cluster, the keywords are “human”, with an occurrence
of 8 and total link strength of 20 and “humans”, with an occurrence of 7 and
total link strength of 20.

Furthermore, the main keywords in the yellow cluster are “Corporate social
responsibility” and “accountability”. The occurrence of “Corporate social
responsibility” is eight, the total link strength is 10, while the occurrence of
“accountability” is 6, and the total link strength is 12.

In the last cluster, which is the purple cluster, the keywords that stand out are:
“audit”, with have links to 9 keywords of five clusters, occurrence of 10 and
total link strength of 13, which has a strong link with “ethics” and “corporate
governance”; while the keyword of “independence” are the least stands out,
with the occurrence of 5 and total link strength of 6.
 2.2 The trend and development of keywords analysis

Figure 2: Number of research papers with keyword of “ethics” from year 2013
to 2022

Figure 3: Number of research papers with keyword of “auditor independence”

from year 2013 to 2022

There are six items in cluster 1 (Red Cluster), which are “audit fees”, “audit
quality”, “auditing”, “auditor independence”, “ethics”, and “governance”. The
keywords that stand out are “ethics”, which has 158 out of 231 documents
(68.4%), as shown in Figure 2. The research paper in the recent five years has
recorded 95 documents: 2018 recorded 16 out of 95, 2019 recorded out 22 of
95, 2020 recorded 14 out of 95, 2021 recorded 16 out of 95, and 2022
recorded 27 out of 95. This shows a trend in the case of the ethics concept is
more pronounced: in the recent five years, the number of articles which
focused on ethics has slowly increased if we compare the values in 2018 with
2022, we can say that the researchers’ interest in ethics doubled in the year
2022.

Besides that, the keyword with the least number of records is “auditor
independence”, which has 5 out of 231 documents (2.16%), as shown in
Figure 3. Five documents were recorded for the past ten years of the study,
and the years recorded about auditor independence were 2013, 2016, 2018,
2019, and 2020, with one document recorded for each of the above years. This
record shows that relatively few people are doing relevant research and are not
popular in this field.

From the year 2013 to 2022, “audit fees” was recorded in 10 out of 231
documents (4.33%), while the keyword of “audit quality” was recorded in 31
out of 231 documents (13.42%). The keyword “auditing” recorded 63 out of
231 documents (27.27%), and the keyword “governance” recorded 47 out of
231 documents (20.35%).

Cluster 2

Figure 4: Number of researches with keyword of “internal audit” from year

2013 to 2022
Figure 5: Number of researches with keyword of “earnings management” from
year 2013 to 2022

There are six items in cluster 2, which are “audit committee”, “business
ethics”, “corporate governance”, “earnings management”, “internal audit”, and
“risk management”. The keywords that stand out are “internal audit”, which
has 32 out of 231 documents (13.85%), where the recent five years recorded
16 documents: 2018 recorded 5 out of 231, 2019 recorded 7 out of 231, 2020
recorded 3 out of 231, 2021 recorded 0 out of 231, and 2022 recorded 1 out of
231. This shows that a trend in the case of the internal audit concept is more
pronounced: in the recent five years, the number of articles focused on internal
audit has slowly decreased. As if we compare the values in 2018 with 2022,
we can say that the researchers’ interest in internal audits decreased in the last
years, as shown in Figure 4.

On top of this, the keyword with the least number of records is “earnings
management”, which has 4 out of 231 documents (1.73%), as shown in Figure
5. Four documents were recorded for the past ten years of the study, and the
years recorded about “earnings management” were 2014, 2019, 2020, and
2022, with one document recorded for each of the above years. This keyword
has the fewest records, indicating that this type of research is not receiving
much attention, as research on “earnings management” has shown zero in 6 of
the last ten years we reviewed.
From 2013 to the year 2022, the “audit committee” recorded 18 out of 231
documents (7.79%), while the keyword of “business ethics” recorded 17 out of
231 documents (7.36%). The keyword “corporate governance” recorded 23
out of 231 documents (9.96%) and the keyword “risk management” recorded
12 out of 231 documents (2.19%).

Cluster 3

Figure 6: Number of researches with keyword of “accounting” from year 2013

to 2022

Figure 7: Number of researches with keyword of “humans” from year 2013 to

2022

There are five items in cluster 3, which are “accounting”, “fraud”, “human”,
“humans”, and “whistleblowing”. The keywords that stand out are
“accounting”, which has 65 out of 231 documents (28.14%), where the recent
five years recorded 33 documents: 2018 recorded 5 out of 231, 2019 recorded
7 out of 231, 2020 recorded 7 out of 231, 2021 recorded 6 out of 231, and
2022 recorded 8 out of 231. This shows a trend in the case of the accounting
concept is more pronounced: in the recent five years, the number of articles
which focused on accounting has slowly increased if we compare the values in
2018 with 2022, we can say that the researchers’ interest in accounting
increase in the last years as shown in Figure 6.

Furthermore, the keyword with the least number of records is “humans”,

which has 2 out of 231 documents (0.87%), as shown in Figure 7. Two
documents were recorded for the past ten years of the study, and the years
recorded about “humans” were 2019 and 2020, with one document recorded
for each of the above years. This keyword has the fewest records, indicating
that this type of research is not receiving much attention, as research on
“humans” has shown zero for eight years of the last ten years we reviewed.

From 2013 to the year 2022, “fraud” was recorded in 25 out of 231 documents
(10.82%), while the keyword “human” was recorded in 15 out of 231
documents (6.49%). The keyword “whistleblowing” recorded 11 out of 231
documents (4.76%).

Cluster 4

Figure 8: Number of researches with keyword of “accountability” from year

2013 to 2022
 Figure 9: Number of researches with keyword of “sustainable development”
from year 2013 to 2022

There are only three items in cluster 4, which are “accountability”, “corporate
social responsibility”, and “sustainable development”. The keywords that
stand out are “accountability”, which has 10 out of 231 documents (4.33%),
where the recent five years recorded six documents: 2018 recorded 1 out of
231, 2019 recorded 1 out of 231, 2020 recorded 1 out of 231, 2021 recorded 1
out of 231, and 2022 recorded 2 out of 231. This shows a trend in the case of
the accountability concept is more stable: in the recent five years, the number
of articles which focused on accountability was stable, remaining at 1
document; if we compare the values in 2018 with 2022, we can say that the
researchers’ interest in accountability increase in the last years as shown in
Figure 8.

Moreover, the keyword with the least number of records is “sustainable

development”, which has 2 out of 231 documents (0.87%), as shown in Figure
9. Two documents were recorded for the past ten years of the study. The years
recorded about “sustainable development” were 2015 and 2020, with one
document for each of the above years. This record shows that research on
“sustainable development” has not attracted much curiosity and attention,
resulting in only two relevant reports in the last ten years.
From 2013 to 2022, “corporate social responsibility” recorded 7 out of 231
documents (3.03%).

Cluster 5

Figure 10: Number of researches with keyword of “audit” from year 2013 to
2022

Figure 11: Number of researches with keyword of “professional ethics” from

year 2013 to 2022

There are three items in cluster 5, which are “audit”, “independence”, and
“professional ethics”. The keywords that stand out are “audit”, which has 215
out of 231 documents (93.07%), where the recent five years recorded 126
documents: 2018 recorded 19 out of 231, 2019 recorded 26 out of 231, 2020
recorded 20 out of 231, 2021 recorded 21 out of 231, and 2022 recorded 40
out of 231. This shows that a trend in the case of the audit concept is more
pronounced: in the recent five years, the number of articles which focused on
the audit slowly increased. If we compare the values in 2018 with 2022, we
can say that the researchers’ interest in audits increased by around 20
documents in the last years, as shown in Figure 10.

In addition, the keyword with the least number of records is “professional

ethics”, which has 16 out of 231 documents (6.93%), as shown in Figure 11.
Sixteen documents were recorded for the past ten years of the study, two
documents in 2013, 1 document in 2015, 2 documents in 2017, 5 documents in
2019, 2 documents in 2020, 1 document in 2021, and 3 documents in 2022.
This keyword has the fewest records in cluster 5, indicating that it has received
the least public attention among the three keywords. From 2013 to 2022,
“independence” recorded 32 out of 231 documents (13.85%).

3.0 Research Results

3.1 Volume of Published Articles on Audit and Ethics

Figure 12: Comparison of the number researches on “audit” and “ethics”

 Figure 13: The number of published articles having “audit” and “ethics”
respectively, in their titles, in the period 2013-2022

For a better understanding of the literature in the audit and ethical fields
of study, we created two graphs (Figures 12 and 13) depicting the evolution of
the number of research papers related to the two concepts over time.

Given a large number of articles for further analysis, we used other filters to
limit the volume of papers. The first filter was to limit the research to business,
management, accounting and economics, econometrics and finance. The
following limitation was on articles published from 2013 to 2022 inclusively.
The last filter was to interrogate the Scopus database for articles with audit
and ethics in their title. In Figure 13, we present the evolution of the published
articles containing audit and ethics in their titles. We can observe the trend in
the number of published articles.

The graphs' data indicate that audits and ethics are becoming increasingly
significant in specific years, particularly 2019 and 2022. In both instances, the
data and figures imply an increase in published publications. Moreover, in
both cases, there has been a nominal growth in the number of articles
published in the last decade: 215 for audit and 158 for ethics, compared to the
total number of articles published prior to 2000: 111 for audit and 58 for
ethics. Due to the enormous number of articles requiring additional analysis,
we utilized additional filters to reduce the volume of publications. The filter or
limitation is to include all articles published between 2013 and 2022. This
filter was created to browse the VOSviewer system for articles containing
audit and ethics in the title. The evolution of published articles with audit and
ethics in their titles is depicted in Figures 12 and 13. The quantity of articles
varies considerably. In 2022, the audit and ethical case count peaked at 40 and
27, respectively.

Figure 13 shows a curve of the trend or development of research on an audit

from 2013 to 2022. Based on Figure 13, the development of research on audit
in the last decades, namely from 2013-2022, has three times minor
incremental (2014-2016; 2017-2019; and 2020-2022), and there are three
times minor decremental (16 to 15 in the year 2013 to 2014; 20 to 18 in the
year 2016 to 2017; and 26 to 20 in the year 2019 to 2020). This is indicated by
the number of research reports in 2014 as only 15 to 20 in 2016, 18 to 26 from
2017 to 2019, and 20 to 40 from 2020 to 2022. While 2014 recorded the
lowest at 15 within the last decades. While the development of research on
ethics over the last ten years, namely from 2013-2022, also has three times
minor incremental (2013-2015; 2016-2019; 2020-2022), and there is some
minor decremental in the year 2015 to 2016 and 2019 to 2020. This is
indicated by the number of research reports in 2013, as many as 11 only,
which increased to 13 in 2015. Next, 12 to 22 research reports from 2016 to
2019 and 14 to 27 from 2019 to 2022. The number of research reports
decreased from 2015 to 2016, the number of research reports decreased to 12
only, and in 2020 the number of reports containing research on ethics
decreased drastically to 14.

4.0 Methodology
 4.1 Data Collection

Given the goal of this paper and the existence of two primary research
lines, audit and ethics, the first phase of the research was to compile a sample
database of published papers on the two subjects. The sample database was
created by querying the Scopus database, which served as the primary
database. Based on the search terms 'audit' and 'ethics’, The first search
returned 2,090 results for all journal years; however, after applying the criteria
year: 2013–2022, and the subject area: "Business, Management, and
Accounting", and "Economics", "econometrics", and "Finance", the number of
documents was reduced to 231. In these documents, we focus on audit and
ethics-related findings. For each area, a precise number of discovered articles
was calculated. The following tables were created based on the authors,
publication year, and key conclusions of each study.

        4.2 Data Extraction

    The final database including 231 research publications was produced in a
CSV Excel format supported by SCOPUS. In this research, we utilised
VOSviewer for data analysis. The program is freely available to the
bibliometric research community. VOSviewer provides great attention to the
graphic and visual presentation of bibliometric maps, unlike the majority of
bibliometric mapping software products. The functionality of VOSviewer
software is beneficial for displaying large bibliometric maps in an easy-to-
interpret way. The core data extracted from the final database consists of
information on the article's title, authors, keywords, and citations, as well as
the reference lists of all research papers. The downloaded database was
manually examined and manipulated to improve the precision of the research
results. The co-occurrence analysis performed by VOSviewer was dependent
on the uniformity of the format information; for instance, the names of the
journals must have the same keyword and field. Consequently, a significant
portion of the research was devoted to this data standardisation.
      4.3 Data Analysis 

Using CSV Excel data, we developed a set of graphs depicting the evolution
of published audit and ethical research papers across time. VOSviewer was
utilised for the Co-occurrence analysis. There are two basic weight
characteristics applied: the "Links attribute" and the "Total link strength
attribute." In the subsequent phase, we utilised bibliometric analysis. When
dealing with research that gathers data and text and evaluates citations from
other studies, bibliometric review techniques are employed. These strategies
can provide a more complete and extensive study of audit and ethics data
obtained (Appendices 1).

5.0 Discussion and Conclusion