Received: 11 August 2021 Revised: 29 November 2021 Accepted: 15 December 2021

DOI: 10.1111/ijau.12258

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Professional skepticism through audit praxis: An Aristotelian

perspective

Nonna Martinov-Bennie1,2 | Maria Cadiz Dyball3 | Dale Tweedie1

1
Department of Accounting and Corporate
Governance, Macquarie Business School, While professional skepticism (PS) is a critical element of audit practice, academic
Macquarie University, Sydney, New South
and professional discourse offers unclear and sometimes competing narratives of
Wales, Australia
2
Department of Financial Governance, how to maintain or improve it. This study provides a holistic account of how PS
University of South Africa, Pretoria, develops by interpreting interviews of 21 highly experienced auditors. Using a theo-
South Africa
3
retical framework from Aristotle and Alasdair MacIntyre, PS is interpreted as a char-
Discipline of Accounting, The University of
Sydney Business School, The University of  ne
acter virtue of skepticism guided by the intellectual virtue of phro sis. PS is
Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
developed through two distinct stages of auditors' careers: (i) the pre-professional
Correspondence phase, in which an auditor acquires characteristics amenable to developing PS; and
Maria Cadiz Dyball, Discipline of Accounting,
(ii) the professional praxis phase, in which PS is inculcated through a combination of
The University of Sydney Business School, The
University of Sydney, Sydney, New South formal and on-the-job instruction and audit experience. This approach to how PS is
Wales, Australia.
developed suggests that audit firms could focus more explicitly on recruiting novice
Email: maria.dyball@sydney.edu.au
auditors whose pre-professional characteristics make them receptive to acquiring PS,
Funding information
and on blended learning, with formal and on-the job instruction and habituation
Chartered Accountants Australia and
New Zealand (CAANZ), Grant/Award Number: through audit experience.
2014 Research Grant
KEYWORDS
Aristotle, audit engagement, intellectual and character virtues, MacIntyre, on-the-job learning,
professional skepticism

1 | I N T RO DU CT I O N to discuss ways to improve PS in auditors (Doty, 2011, 2012;

Numerous recent audit failures have been attributed to lack of profes-
sional skepticism (Hoos et al., 2019). Both academics and profes-
sionals acknowledge professional skepticism (hereafter PS) as an
essential element of audit practice (Brown-Liburd et al., 2013). PS is
mandated in the audit of financial statements (Carpenter &
Reimers, 2013; Hurtt, 2010; Popova, 2013) and considered a primary
driver of audit quality (Brown-Liburd et al., 2013; Francis, 2011;
Hurtt, 2010; Kadous, 2000; Nelson, 2009). Regulators refer to audi-
tors' lack of PS when making significant judgments about audit evi-
dence (e.g., use of experts, journal entry and internal control testing),
accounting estimates (e.g., fair value measurement) and accounting
treatments (e.g., revenue recognition) (Australian Securities & Invest-
ment Commission (ASIC), 2017; Carmichael & Craig, 1996; Interna-
tional Forum of Independent Audit Regulators (IFIAR), 2017; Public
Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), 2010a, 2010b,
2010c). Given its link to audit quality, there have been repeated calls
Franzel, 2012). However, there is much to learn about PS in individual
auditors and audit communities (Francis, 2011). Crucially, for this
study, researchers have called for additional studies into whether
training or experience can influence PS (Hurtt et al., 2013).
Building on accounting research that interprets PS as a virtue
(Libby & Thorne, 2007), this paper aims to examine whether and how
PS develops by interviewing 21 experienced audit practitioners and
interpreting their perceptions of PS using a theoretical framework
from Aristotle and Alasdair Macintyre. The study has three research
questions. First, how do auditors conceptualise PS—in what respects
do they perceive PS to be an individual auditor character trait
(Hurtt, 2010) relative to a process (Nelson, 2009)? Second, how do
auditors perceive PS—in what respects do they believe it is stable
compared to being cultivated? Prior literature describes PS as both a
trait and a process, and as both stable and malleable, yet no over-
arching narrative distinguishes when and why PS follows each pattern.
Third, our primary research question is: How do auditors perceive PS

Int J Audit. 2022;1–19. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/ijau © 2022 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 1
2 MARTINOV-BENNIE ET AL.
as being developed? Our analysis extends accounting literature that
presumes audits are complex group-learning processes (Dirsmith &
Covaleski, 1985; Humphrey & Moizer, 1990). By clarifying what PS is
and how it may be developed, the paper not only provides a way to
resolve tensions in prior research, but also offers an integrated analy-
sis of the processes firms use, or could use, to train and develop PS in
their auditors.
The study's theoretical framework begins from Aristotle's (1976)
virtue ethics, which we extend to audit contexts using
MacIntyre's (1984) neo-Aristotelianism. Prior accounting studies have
applied these frameworks to, inter alia, declare accounting a virtuous
practice (Francis, 1990; West, 2017), propose solutions to ethical
dilemmas that confront modern accounting practice (Lehman, 2014)
and inform business ethics education (Mintz, 1996, 2006). This study
extends these literatures by using the Aristotelian framework to inter-
pret how senior audit practitioners perceive PS and its development.
The study makes three main contributions. First, the paper's holis-
tic conceptualization of PS can resolve tensions in prior literature
between interpreting PS as either a trait (Hurtt, 2010) or a product of
auditor judgement revealed by skeptical behaviour (Nelson, 2009).
The study extends prior accounting research that views accounting
and/or audit as a ‘virtuous’ practice (e.g., Francis, 1990; Libby &
Thorne, 2007; West, 2016, 2017), by conceptualizing PS as a type of
virtue or ‘excellence’ that requires both character trait and judge-
ment. Second, the empirical insights of the 21 experienced auditors
extend prior accounting research using Aristotle (e.g., Francis, 1990;
Lehman, 2014; Libby & Thorne, 2007) by elucidating how ‘virtues’
develop in audit contexts. We find PS combines instruction (intellec-
tual virtue) and repeated action that habituates PS into a stable dispo-
sition (character virtue). Third, analysing how PS develops through
MacIntyre's ‘communities of practice’ extends the team-based pro-
cess perspectives advanced by scholars such as Anderson-Gough
et al. (2000, 2001), Dirsmith and Covaleski (1985), Fogarty (1992),
Grey (1998) and Power (2003).
The remainder of the paper has five sections. Section 2 reviews
prior literature on PS and the communal nature of audit practice to
propose the paper's research questions. Section 3 develops the theo-
retical framework and Section 4 presents the research method.
Section 5 interprets the study's interview data. Section 6 concludes
and identifies the study's limitations and areas for further research.
2 | P R O F E S S I O N A L S KE P T I C I S M
2.1 | Introduction
Nelson (2009) and Hurtt et al. (2013) provide comprehensive reviews
of academic audit research on PS, and each also provides a PS model.
Nelson's model has two main components: (1) skeptical judgement
(i.e., an auditor recognizes that a potential issue may exist); and
(2) skeptical action (i.e., an auditor changes behaviour based on skepti-
cal judgement), with skeptical judgement a ‘primary driver’ of skepti-
cal action (Nelson, 2009). The model describes how evidential input
combines with an auditor's traits, knowledge, incentives, audit experi-
ence and training to produce skeptical judgement, action and outputs.
Hurtt et al.'s (2013) model expands on Nelson by introducing four
broad categories of antecedents of PS judgement and action: (1) audi-
tor (including traits); (2) evidential; (3) client; and (4) external environ-
ment characteristics with each category incorporating an extensive
list of determinants. However, while standard-setters, regulators
(e.g., Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), 2008)
and academic researchers (e.g., Cohen et al., 2017; Nelson, 2009;
Quadackers et al., 2014) agree PS is essential in audits, PS remains dif-
ficult to define and measure (Hurtt et al., 2013; International Auditing
and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB), 2015; Olsen & Gold, 2018).
This section summarizes PS audit literature most relevant to this
study. Section 2.2 outlines how academic literature and professional
standards define PS. Section 2.3 reviews research into whether or not
PS is relatively stable over time and Section 2.4 discusses how firms
can cultivate PS through audit practice.
2.2 | Professional skepticism definitions
Many researchers define PS as an individual characteristic or person-
ality trait (e.g., Shaub, 1996; Shaub & Lawrence, 1996). Hurtt (2010,
p. 151) defines PS as ‘a multi-dimensional construct that characterizes
the propensity of an individual to defer concluding until evidence pro-
vides sufficient support for one alternative/explanation over others’.
The two most used PS trait measures in auditing studies are the Hurtt
Professional Skepticism Scale (HPSS; Hurtt, 2010) and the Rotter
Interpersonal Trust Scale (RIT; Rotter, 1967).1 Studies utilizing these
scales generally demonstrate that auditors with a higher level of PS
(as measured by the HPSS) or lower level of trust (as measured by, for
example, the RIT) tend to exhibit more skeptical judgments (Hurtt
et al., 2013). Janssen et al.'s (2020) study similarly finds that individual
auditor differences are associated with differential PS trait levels
which are positively associated with effect of attitudes, subjective
norms and perceived behavioural control on auditors' skeptical inten-
tion and action. Recent multi-regression analysis (Khan &
Oczkowski, 2021) across mainly experimental PS studies indicates a
relatively weak positive relationship between PS trait (measured by
HPSS) and skeptical judgement and/or action (i.e., state skepticism).2
Other researchers adopt a process-based definition
(e.g., McMillan & White, 1993). Nelson (2009, p. 1) also defines PS as
a decision-making process, where skepticism is ‘indicated by auditor
judgments and decisions that reflect a heightened assessment of the
risk that an assertion is incorrect, conditional on the information avail-
able to the auditor’. More recently, Nolder and Kadous (2018) have
proposed a dual conceptualization of PS as both mindset (information
processing, in particular critical thinking) and attitude (evaluative
responses that include beliefs and feelings).
While these definitions have different foci—PS as a trait
(Hurtt, 2010) versus PS as a product of auditor judgement revealed by
skeptical behaviour (Nelson, 2009)—both models conceptualize PS as
a product of various inputs/factors, including traits and decision-
MARTINOV-BENNIE ET AL.
making process. Crucially for this study, both see these traits as stable
or ‘fixed by the time an auditor commences audit training and prac-
tice’ (Nelson, 2009, p. 6).
Current International Auditing Standards (ISAs) include many
explicit references to PS and direct auditors to remain skeptical
throughout their engagements. According to the International
Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB), PS in an audit con-
text (refer to definition in ISA 200, para 131) differs from skepticism
as commonly defined in two ways: (1) alertness to sources of potential
misstatement (i.e., application of a questioning mind); and (2) critical
evaluation of whether evidence is as persuasive as it needs to be
(which could prompt an auditor to obtain additional audit evidence)
(IAASB Meeting June 2017, Agenda Item 9). This conceptualization of
PS mirrors the academic literature in recognizing the importance of
skeptical disposition (or trait) applied to evaluation (i.e., judgement)
and action within a specific audit context (i.e., specific situational
variables).
Academic accounting literature also provides strong support for
the IAASB's view of skeptical disposition being influenced by situa-
tional variables (i.e., varying circumstances or contexts) (e.g., Hurtt
et al., 2013; Nelson, 2009; Nolder & Kadous, 2018; Shaub, 1996) such
that auditors with similar levels of PS may exhibit different judgments
and/or behaviours in differing contexts due to variation in state PS
(Robinson et al., 2018). Situational variables researched to date
include incentives, client's relative power, client-auditor quality of
communication, the influence of client characteristics on client trust
(Shaub, 1996), impact of deception risk conditions on auditors' verac-
ity of information judgments (Lee et al., 2013), deliberative versus
implemental mindset (Griffith et al., 2015), type of documentation
instructions (Rasso, 2015), religion (Omer et al., 2018), accountability
in different audit regimes (Hoos et al., 2019), partner's style and audit
team identity salience (Stevens et al., 2019). Hurtt et al.'s (2013) litera-
ture review refers to several other studies that investigated evidential
characteristics (e.g., confirming versus disconfirming evidence, objec-
tivity of source of evidence, integrity of management, complexity and
riskiness of client) and external environmental characteristics
(e.g., auditor accountability to reviewers or regulators).
In summary, ‘scholars are still left with a challenging task of
choosing an appropriate definition and conceptualization of PS in cur-
rent PS models’ (Olsen & Gold, 2018, p. 128). Thus, our initial
research question is:
RQ1. How do auditors conceptualise PS—in what
respects do they perceive PS to be an individual auditor
character trait relative to a process (i.e., judgement or
action)?
2.3 | Stability of professional skepticism over time
Hurtt et al.'s (2013) model describes PS as a relatively stable character
trait, but also highlights how extant literature is uncertain about its
stability. This ambiguity foregrounds a deeper issue about what
3
character traits are and how they develop. In psychology, Chaplin
et al. (1988) state that a trait should satisfy three criteria: (1) temporal
stability; (2) cross-situational consistency, and (3) internal (rather than
external) causation. Temporal stability refers to an enduring tendency,
proclivity, or inclination to behave, think, or respond in certain ways
over time (Buss, 1985). Behaviours with cross-situational consistency
recur across different circumstances (Mischel, 1968), cause internally
by the person, rather than his or her environment (Weiner, 1979).
Hence, Hurtt et al.'s (2013) description of PS as relatively stable is
consistent with psychological definitions of traits as stable across time
and situations, and relatively invulnerable to external changes. For
example, an auditor who characteristically challenges authority will
likely do so in future audits, in each stage of the audit, and retain this
disposition under pressure (e.g., challenge an auditee's aggressive
financial reporting).
While Hurtt's (2010) description of PS as relatively stable is con-
sistent with Chaplin et al.'s (1988) criteria, audit literature—which
draws mainly from cognitive psychology—is inconclusive on whether
conceptualizing PS as a trait actually satisfies these criteria as most
studies of PS are experimental and, therefore, unable to examine the
PS of auditors over time.
Although we found no specific studies examining the cross-
situation consistency of individual auditor's PS, several experimental
studies provide some evidence of PS stability and its internal causa-
tion using the HPSS scale. One study that suggests PS is temporally
stable is by Carpenter and Reimers (2013), which finds that although
an audit partner's emphasis on PS (i.e., incentive) positively influences
skeptical judgement and action, it does not influence auditors'
PS. They conclude PS may be a trait that is fixed by the time an audi-
tor commences audit training and practice. Quadackers et al. (2014)
observe PS (measured by both HPSS and inversed RIT scales) is asso-
ciated with auditors' judgments across different client risk settings.
Peytcheva (2014) finds auditors and students do not differ in their
overall PS score—a result consistent with PS being a relatively stable
trait. However, she also finds PS prompts improved the performance
of students but not auditors. She concludes that experienced auditors,
by virtue of their work, may have already internalized a certain level
of PS, which may diminish the effectiveness of additional prompts to
make skeptical judgments and decisions.
By contrast, the audit profession has a widely shared—although
by no means unanimous—view that training can cultivate PS (i.e., is
malleable), as evident in guidelines published by several national audit
professional and regulatory bodies. For example, the United States'
Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) states: ‘[p]
rofessional skepticism is interrelated with an auditor's training and
experience’ and ‘the supervisory activities performed by the engage-
ment partner and other senior engagement team members are impor-
tant to the application of professional skepticism’ (Public Company
Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), 2012, p. 9 and p. 10, respec-
tively). More recently, the three International Federation of Accoun-
tants (IFAC) standard-setting boards (IAASB, IAESB, IESB) observed
that instilling PS starts at the beginning of auditors' careers, as it forms
‘part of their DNA’ and ‘education and training can raise awareness
4 MARTINOV-BENNIE ET AL.
and develop the needed attitude’ at both the firm and engagement
level (International Federation of Accountants (IFAC), 2017, p. 4).
In summary, there is limited research as to whether PS is rela-
tively stable over time and/or whether PS can be developed through
training. The latter question is particularly important since it is unclear
how a temporally stable trait could be trained (Chaplin et al., 1988).
As Hurtt et al. (2013, p. 53) note, given auditor characteristics such as
PS and experience cannot be easily changed, ‘the question remains as
to whether auditors can be trained to make better skeptical judg-
ments’. Given regulators remain concerned about auditors' lack of PS
in practice (e.g., Australian Securities & Investment Commission
(ASIC), 2017; International Forum of Independent Audit Regulators
(IFIAR), 2016), accompanied by standard-setters' attempts to address
this (e.g., International Federation of Accountants (IFAC), 2017) and
mixed research evidence to date, this study asks:
RQ2. How do auditors perceive PS—in what respects
do they believe it is stable compared to being
cultivated?
2.4 | Development of professional skepticism
through audit practice
Despite uncertainty about whether PS can be developed, extant liter-
ature indicates numerous ways it might be cultivated. These include
the apprenticeship model of developing audit judgement, understand-
ing the negative role of heuristics and biases on judgments, and guid-
ing auditors to understand and alter their thought processes (Hurtt
et al., 2013).
One promising proposal, which PS research raises but is yet to
fully explore, views the audit itself as a learning process. Early
research already highlights how audit is not only an inherently com-
plex activity (Humphrey & Moizer, 1990), but also a practice with
important process components. The studies cited in previous sections
focus on individual auditors' cognitive functions, thereby establishing
the auditor as the expert and main actor in forming audit judgments
(Guénin-Paracini et al., 2015). They tend not to investigate how inter-
actions within the audit team might play a developmental role
(Dirsmith & Covaleski, 1985). In contrast, group-focused perspectives
suggest individual auditors' competence cannot be purely cognitive
(Guénin-Paracini et al., 2015). Not only are auditors' judgments prod-
ucts of auditor characteristics and external cues, they also emerge
from participating in audit teams.
One influential group-based developmental perspective is
Power's (2003) analysis of how repeated group interactions within the
audit team develop an individual auditor's understanding of the audit
process and appropriate professional practice (i.e., learn to be an audi-
tor and ‘act like one’) (cf. Anderson-Gough et al., 2000, 2001;
Dirsmith & Covaleski, 1985; Fogarty, 1992; Grey, 1998). However,
extant research primarily challenges a functional notion of profession-
alism based, among other things, on technical knowledge. These stud-
ies highlight the communal, constructed and political nature of being a
professional in audit firms, with auditors socialized into the ‘rules of
the game’ (Carter & Spence, 2015) by daily events involved in learning
their responsibilities within the firm (Anderson-Gough et al., 2000).
Drawing from Bourdieu (2012), Carter and Spence (2015) claim skilled
auditors will tacitly understand these rules and will have a feel for the
right course of action. Crucially, the ‘rules of the game’ need to be
learned. Power (2003, p. 390) articulates this perspective as follows:
Drawing attention to the communal component of
knowledge need not make such knowledge insecure.
The conclusion is more that auditing researchers
should treat all questions of audit knowledge as social
questions, i.e., as questions about communities, rules
and authority, and that agreement about what is effec-
tive is coextensive with defining a community of prac-
titioners. Auditors appear to, and are able to, engage in
cognitive acts because certain practices have become
accepted, and they have been endowed with authority
to do so.
Applying this position to PS, understanding how auditors develop PS
requires understanding the communal structure and organization of
the audit. This includes how audit juniors and seniors work as part of
a team in the field, how audit seniors supervise juniors
(Hanlon, 1994), and how audit partners and managers review audit
working papers, which is the central quality control mechanism of the
audit (Gibbins & Trotman, 2002). Reviews can take place in real-time
on site with the audit team, resulting in ‘review by interview’
(Pierce & Sweeney, 2005; Rich et al., 1997) with the extent of
questioning tailored to the apparent competency of the preparer of
the working papers, with preparers perceived as weak reviewed in
more detail (Gibbins & Trotman, 2002). Although this strategy may
have both functional and legitimating roles in demonstrating audit
quality (see, e.g., Power, 2003), targeting weak audit team members
for more detailed reviews may also have a critical developmental
function in allocating time and expertise to the auditors who need it
most (Pentland, 1993). According to Westermann et al. (2015,
pp. 864–5) this ‘on-the-job learning’ in audit teams is essentially a
professional ‘apprenticeship’, whereby experienced auditors provide
guidance to less experienced auditors that is ‘gradually withdrawn as
mastery is attained’. Less experienced audit staff need to apply
methods and standards introduced in formal training to client engage-
ments with the guidance of their superiors. The hierarchical structure
allows audit partners to support juniors. The audit team interactions
encourage members to attend to the values of others in the team, get-
ting people to actively do things and create an awareness of ‘commu-
nity’ (see also Macintosh, 1985).
Hence, a characterization of audits as interactive and collabora-
tive processes (Pentland, 1993) aligns with the view that developing
capacity to exercise (skeptical) audit judgement requires more than
just routine application of rules (e.g., auditing standards) and tech-
niques (e.g., audit methodology) (Francis, 1990). Fogarty's (1992) dis-
cussion of role acquisition provides a similar explanation of how
MARTINOV-BENNIE ET AL.
expectations regarding behavioural and affective responses are con-
structed. Seasoned auditors convey to novice auditors the actions
they need to take to acquire (or attenuate) similar attributes to expert
auditors. This literature suggests, therefore—without necessarily stat-
ing explicitly—that newcomers could also internalize cognitive norms
on the job (Willingham & Carmichael, 1968). Yet precisely how new
auditors would internalize PS norms remains unclear.
Group-focused studies of auditors and audit engagements pro-
vide insights into how auditors can be trained to become skeptical, by
highlighting the relevance of the structures and practices of audit
firms. In summary, and echoing Hurtt et al. (2013, p. 72), although
research has begun to address how PS develops, ‘there are many
more questions than answers’. Thus, clarifying auditors' understand-
ing of what PS is (RQ1 and RQ2) enables us to explore our third and
primary research question:
RQ3. How do auditors perceive PS as being
developed?
3 | THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: AN
ARISTOTELIAN AND NEO-ARISTOTELIAN
APPROACH
This section introduces a theoretical framework to address the three
research questions above, which we draw from Aristotle's virtue
ethics and extend to audit using MacIntyre (1984). Section 3.1 intro-
duces Aristotle's (1976) account of how individuals develop generic
human virtues, which elucidates how virtues can be malleable or sta-
ble at different developmental stages (Murphy, 1993). Section 3.2
then uses MacIntyre's (1984) neo-Aristotelianism to show how
Aristotle's account can explain professional virtues like PS. By ana-
lysing how ‘communities of practices’—like professional auditors—can
define and cultivate their own virtues, MacIntyre's analysis suggests
that the quasi-biological process of virtue development Aristotle out-
lines could also explain how more socially constructed virtues like PS
are acquired (RQ1 and RQ2). By theorizing how close-knit communi-
ties develop their distinctive virtues, MacIntyre can also help elucidate
how professional communities guide these processes (RQ3).
Prior research applies Aristotle and MacIntyre to accounting in
general, and auditing in particular, but not to how auditor virtues like
PS develop. Scholars have interpreted accounting as a virtuous prac-
tice (Francis, 1990) and proposed Aristotelian solutions to accounting
ethics dilemmas (Lehman, 2014). Libby and Thorne (2004, 2007)
adapt Aristotle to develop a taxonomy of auditors' virtues, including
PS. Thorne (1998) uses MacIntyre (1984) to define auditors' virtues as
normative qualities that reflect an auditor's tendency to act ethically.
The present study shares Francis' (1990, p.6), Aristotelian construal of
auditors as moral agents, for whom ‘to be human is to be confronted
with choices concerning alternative possibilities for human action’
(e.g., to exercise or not to exercise PS) and ‘[with] weighing the conse-
quences of those choices’ (e.g., impact on audit evidence collected).
Our distinctive focus is how PS develops. So, while Libby and
5
Thorne (2007) categorise PS as an Aristotelian virtue, they do not
explore how auditors acquire PS. By contrast and drawing also on
Francis (1990) and West (2017), we explore Aristotle and MacIntyre's
dynamic narrative of how virtues like PS (fail to) emerge.
3.1 | Aristotle on virtue development
Aristotle (1976) defines virtues as characteristics that enable a person
to achieve eudaimonia, usually translated as happiness or ‘flourishing’
(Aristotle, 1976, Bk I, i).3 Aristotle (1976, Bk II) distinguishes two main
types of virtues, character and intellectual virtues, which interact to
produce ‘right action’ (Sorabji, 1980; Urmson, 1988). A character vir-
tue is ‘a settled disposition to want to act and to act in a way appro-
priate to the situation’ (Urmson, 1988, p. 28). As a disposition to act
appropriately, virtue is not simply following moral rules. Rather, the
virtuous person desires to act ethically, and even takes pleasure in
doing so (Aristotle, 1976; Kosman, 1980). A character virtue also
requires acting as one's context demands, displaying neither too little,
nor too much, of the relevant trait (Francis, 1990). Intellectual virtues
are capacities of ‘intellect’ rather than dispositions (Aristotle, 1976,
nesis,
Bk VI, i). The most important is phro  usually translated as ‘practi-
cal judgement’ or ‘practical wisdom’ (Lehman, 2014; Sorabji, 1980).4
nesis
While character virtues motivate a person to act rightly, phro  dis-
cerns what right action requires. So virtuous action requires both
nesis
character and phro  because the disposition to act well needs
practical wisdom to direct it.5
Aristotle also interprets how character and intellectual virtues
develop. In MacIntyre's (1984, p. 154) summation: ‘intellectual virtues
are acquired through teaching, the virtues of character from habitual
exercise’. Both intellectual and character virtues pass through two
stages: (i) potentiality and (ii) actualization (Aristotle, 1976, Bk II, i;
Murphy, 1993). In stage one, a person is socialized to pay attention to,
and accept, the right initial premises, and thereby acquire potential to
learn what virtue requires. Of the three facets of character
Aristotle (1962) distinguishes, only two can be developed. Natural
capacities (physis) cannot be developed, any more than one could
‘train fire to burn downwards’ (Aristotle, 1976, Bk II, i). However, peo-
ple can become receptive to reason (logos) and habituation (ethos)
through upbringing (Aristotle, 1976, Bk II; Burnyeat, 1980). The first
stage of development, therefore, must equip novices to engage in the
reasoning processes (logos) that develop intellectual virtue, and in the
practices6 (ethos) that develop character.
Stage two actualizes, or realizes, the potential to develop
PS. Virtues of intellect and character are ‘actualized’ in different ways.
Aristotle (1976, Bk II, i) writes: ‘Intellectual virtue owes both its incep-
tion and its growth chiefly to instruction, and for this very reason
needs time and experience’. This implies intellectual virtues are tau-
ght, including by encouraging the learner to reflect on what he/she
has learned (Mintz, 2006). In the second stage, people acquire settled
character virtues by repeatedly taking the corresponding action
(Flynn, 2008; Murphy, 1993). Thus, where the intellectual virtue
requires being told what courage requires, the Greek novice develops
6 MARTINOV-BENNIE ET AL.
the disposition to be courageous by acting as courage demands
(Burnyeat, 1980). By repeatedly taking these actions, the novice inter-
nalizes the relevant disposition.
Aristotle (1976, Bk II, iv) argues virtues become fixed, but only
after a specific process. So, Aristotle describes a fully actualized virtue
as ‘fixed and permanent’. However, virtues become actualized over
time: intellectual virtues by instruction, and character virtues through
repeated action. For Aristotle, therefore, virtues are neither innate nor
indefinitely malleable. Rather, potential virtues are malleable and
become ‘fixed and permanent’ through habituation (ethos) or instruc-
tion (logos). The character-defining role of practice is why Aris-
totle (1976, Bk II, i) stresses the significance of habits to developing
(stable) virtues. By shaping dispositions, habituation sets the bound-
aries of one's capacity for virtuous action. More formally, the right
habits are necessary, albeit not sufficient, to ‘actualize’ the stable dis-
position to act as virtue requires.
3.2 | Extending Aristotle to audit using MacIntyre
While Aristotle interpreted virtues as homogenous and biological,
MacIntyre's (1984) neo-Aristotelian ethics adapts Aristotle's broad
narrative of virtue development to the more socially-constructive vir-
tues that smaller communities of practice establish and sustain. So, for
Aristotle, just one set of virtues enables humans to flourish. However,
while MacIntyre accepts Aristotle's core narrative of how virtues
7
develop through instruction and habituation, he argues that the
range of virtues humans might meaningfully develop are determined
more by communities than biology (Knight, 2008). Consequently,
MacIntyre (1984) enables us to extend Aristotle's teleological narra-
tive of the process of virtue development into professional communi-
ties Aristotle did not address or envisage.
If we accept MacIntyre's argument that communities can define
and reproduce distinctive virtues, Aristotle's (1976) narrative of virtue
development suggests an initial picture of what enacting PS might
entail. First, we can interpret PS as requiring both character and intel-
lectual virtues. PS requires a character virtue to act skeptically
(e.g., questioning client evidence) to serve those specific moral ‘goods’
constitutive of audit communities (i.e., the public interest). This char-
acter virtue (e.g., auditor dispositions or traits) would be guided by
intellectual judgement (e.g., PS judgement) about when and to what
degree the disposition should be enacted in different audit contexts.
These judgments could include assessing which evidence to question,
whom to question and how far. Consistent with Lehman (2014) there-
fore, the ideal auditor—the phronemos—would enact PS in audits
because he or she desires to (character virtue), but also because he or
she judges appropriately how to apply this desire in each particular
set of client circumstances (intellectual virtue).
An Aristotelian analysis also suggests aspiring auditors must be
receptive, for example, to instruction about the objectives and the
scope of the audit and related audit processes if they are to develop
the intellectual virtue of making appropriate PS judgments and
actions. However, instruction means not only classroom teaching, but
also what we might now term training ‘on the job’. So, the experi-
enced auditor might guide novice auditors to exercise PS that is
appropriate to a specific audit context, by alerting novice auditors to
instances when PS is (or is not) being exercised. Through being
repeatedly alerted to these instances on audit engagements, novices
progressively develop their own capacity to judge. Similarly, an aspir-
ing auditor must be receptive to acquiring dispositions such as a
questioning attitude to develop the character virtue PS requires.
Viewed as an account of virtues of a particular community of
practice, Aristotle's (1976) concept of virtues as developed in two
stages (potentiality and actualization) might also be extended to audit
contexts and suggests one precise response to the puzzle of how vir-
tues can be both stable and trained. So as outlined above, Aristotle
represents stable virtues as the outcome of a developmental process
in which the potential to develop particular virtues has been actual-
ized: intellectual virtues by instruction, and character virtues by being
internalized through repeated action. If, with MacIntyre (1984), we
view virtue development in communities of practice as involving simi-
lar development of character and intellectual virtues, PS similarly may
become stable over time, provided the novice has received the right
training and been guided to habituate the right traits through repeated
action.
MacIntyre's (1984) analysis of communities of practice could also
extend our understanding of the role of audit firms and/or the profes-
sion in developing virtues drawn from Aristotle by foregrounding pro-
cesses by which such communities habituate virtues in their members.
According to MacIntyre, communities of practices can help develop
excellences of character by encouraging participants to value the
activity for its intrinsic benefits or ‘internal goods’, rather than for
extrinsic rewards or ‘external goods’. External goods, such as prestige,
status and money, are not unique to any particular practice. Instead,
they are embodied in institutions like professional bodies and audit
firms. Internal goods, in contrast, define the unique value or meaning
a particular practice delivers. Hence, audit can clearly deliver external
goods like money and status, and audit firms can institutionalise such
benefits. However, qua moral practice, audit also aims at internal
goods—such as ensuring public confidence in financial statements—
that are both valued for their own sake and distinctive to this practice.
From MacIntyre's perspective, audit communities of practice cultivate
virtues, like PS, that can realize and sustain these goods. For Mac-
Intyre, the key tension in cultivating virtues is balancing participants'
drive for external goods with the need to sustain those virtues that
internal goods require.
The tension MacIntyre indicates—between external goods and
internal goods—is both evident and problematized in prior research.
West (2016) contends that a focus on increasing revenues and profits
in accounting firms may lead partners to lose sight of the internal
goods associated with the practices they host. In MacIntyre's terms,
this is a conflict between the focus of institutions on external goods
and the focus of communities on virtues. However, Gendron (2002,
p. 681) provides examples of decisions made by partners where both
commercialism (pursuit of external goods) and professionalism (acqui-
sition of internal goods), while conflicting, are paradoxically
MARTINOV-BENNIE ET AL.
complementary, since moderate opposition between goods means
that ‘balance’ is attained in decision-making. This balance—specifi-
cally, in our study, the functional applications of PS—problematizes
MacIntyre's (1984) position that the main role of virtues is to resist
potentially unethical institutional pressures. Nonetheless, the wider
point remains that character development is guided by the shared
norms of a community of practitioners, which are distinct from—if not
necessarily competing with—the values of the firms of which practi-
tioners may be part. This means that developing an excellence of char-
acter is never simply about learning technical skills, because ‘a
practice, in the sense intended, is never just a set of technical skills’
(MacIntyre, 1984, p. 193). Rather, technical skills exist within a set of
shared judgments about what skills and outcomes are valuable in
themselves; or, in MacIntyre's terminology, about what internal goods
(e.g., serving the public interest by ensuring financial statements are
true and fair) are constitutive of the relevant practice (i.e., audit).
4 | RESEARCH METHOD
The paper uses the Aristotelian framework to make sense of partici-
pants' perceptions of what PS is and how it is developed. Mobilising
this framework allows the implicit logic of participants' narratives to
be more explicit and systematic (Ahrens et al., 2008; Chua, 1986;
Loo & Lowe, 2017). The paper draws on 21 semi-structured inter-
views (15 face-to-face and 6 virtual) with audit partners, directors and
managers from large and medium-sized audit firms with offices in
metropolitan Sydney and Melbourne in Australia. The interviewees—
thirteen males and eight females—had an average of 21.2 years of
professional experience; 15 were from Big 4 firms and six from
medium-sized firms, while 15 were partners, three were directors and
three were managers (refer Appendix A).
Semi-structured interviews were chosen because they allow the
researchers to access what PS means to experienced audit practi-
tioners who continually apply it in their work (Pratt, 2009). This type
of interview allows informants to reveal what they think about PS
according to their systems of meaning (Rubin & Rubin, 1995). It is par-
ticularly apt for studying the complexity of audit practices (Cooper &
Morgan, 2008), including the tacit understandings and practices PS
entails.
A purposeful sample is appropriate because the subjects enact PS
in audit engagements and thus provide the most productive sample to
answer our research questions (Marshall, 1996). The study's infor-
mants have considerable audit experience, some from multiple firms
and countries, and provided access to rich insights not only into PS in
particular, but also into the broader ‘communities of practice’ in which
PS emerges (or fails to emerge). Senior audit practitioners likewise
guide less experienced audit staff when applying methods and stan-
dards introduced in formal training to client engagements
(Westermann et al., 2015), hence are able to inform whether PS can
be developed. In asking auditors about PS, the researchers prompted
references to participants' involvement in their current and previous
audit firms, and audit engagements. The variations in how academic
7
and professional literatures conceptualized PS led the researchers to
approach auditors across audit firms instead of a single firm, as this
was particularly useful in generating an interpretation of patterns and
recurrent themes in the way a community of auditors (and not just
individual audit firms) describes and discusses PS (Power &
Gendron, 2015). As research informants who possess the knowledge
and experience on PS, the researchers were able to interview until no
new insights were forthcoming (Malsch & Salterio, 2016). Identifiable
and recurrent themes were unmistakably evident by about the tenth
interview. Data saturation (Morse, 1995) was reached after 15 inter-
views, as new themes and explanations were no longer emerging
(Seidman, 1998) nor were there anomalous observations noted
(Malsch & Salterio, 2016). However, given the ‘controversy’
(Charmaz, 2012) with PS because of the challenge in defining it, and a
question amongst academics and regulatory bodies as to whether it
can be developed, an additional 6 interviews were undertaken. These
final 6 interviews were undertaken in 2020 and due to Covid-19
restrictions were conducted virtually. One interviewee in this cohort
pointed out that virtual interactions with clients during the Covid-19
pandemic were different from previous face-to-face interactions
because an auditor is ‘still missing that personal element of reading
someone's body language’ (Auditor 21).
Each interview began by explaining the study's objective to
understand PS from an audit practitioner's perspective (see,
e.g., Gendron & Bedard, 2006). An interview guide ensured inter-
viewees reflected on a number of factors, as illustrated in the follow-
ing question prompts.
• What is your understanding of PS?
• Do you expect that there will be audit team members who would
be more skeptical than other members?
• How do audit partners/managers influence how PS is applied in an
audit engagement?
The first question allowed participants to talk about PS in some
depth without interruption by the researchers. The prompt questions
posed did not hint at particular definitions and conceptualizations of
PS in the academic and professional literatures. The researchers also
did not provide guidance to the participants as to what to include or
exclude when discussing PS. This interview protocol facilitated access
to the informants' lived perceptions of PS (Malsch & Salterio, 2016).
Two researchers conducted the interviews, which lasted for an aver-
age of 50 min each. Multiple investigators allow robust interpretation
of observations, thus enhancing readers' confidence in the trustwor-
thiness of identified themes (Voss et al., 2002). All interviews were
audio-recorded, and confidentiality and anonymity were assured to all
participants. Copies of the interview transcripts were offered to all
interviewees. After each interview, the investigators discussed the
responses to the prompt questions and additional comments.
The researchers compared responses from other interviewees
(starting from the second interview) and findings on PS from prior
research, and highlighted observations that seemed inconsistent with
prior research. The interviews were later transcribed verbatim and
8 MARTINOV-BENNIE ET AL.
further analysed, including open-coding into broad themes. Verbatim
quotations were compiled around the themes to provide evidence for
our interpretations. We then selected a few quotations as illustrations
in Section 5. This meant that while interviewees had similar responses
to the question prompts, not all of the interviewees had quotations
cited in Section 5.
A relatively early finding was that initial themes closely over-
lapped with the Aristotelian motifs. From this point, the analysis
developed with an iterative discussion among researchers, interview
themes and theory to interrogate in what respects, and to what
extent, Aristotelian themes can elucidate the explicit or implicit logic
or processes practitioners described. Thereafter, the researchers con-
tinually revisited and challenged both the themes and theoretical (re)
interpretations.
While the analyses centred on Aristotelian themes, prior interpre-
tive research stresses that analysing interview responses inherently
involves a complex interplay between theorizing and observing per-
ceived patterns. Researchers are in a constant dialogue with the views
of the actors in the field and their own frames and interpretations as
analysts (Ahrens & Chapman, 2006), irrespective of whether these
interpretative frames are explicit, as in the Aristotelian framework, or
implicit. The Aristotelian theoretical anchors solidified from this dia-
logue, and from the interpretive standpoint the paper adopts, are pri-
marily justified by their capacity to make sense of how interviewees
narrate their experiences of PS, as well as understanding aspects of
PS and its development unclear or inchoate in prior research.
5 | D E V E LO P I N G P R O F E S S I O N A L
SKEPTICISM: AUDIT PRACTITIONERS'
EXPERIENCES
This section interprets informants' perceptions of PS and PS
development, in terms of stage one (Section 5.1) and stage two
(Section 5.2) of Aristotle's developmental narrative. Our analysis
shows how an Aristotelian framework can explain our participants'
views and help resolve ambiguities and tensions within and between
their narratives.
5.1 | Stage one: Pre-professional phase
Similar to academic debates in Section 2, one tension in our cohort's
narrative was to what extent skepticism was innate versus developed.
Our cohort of senior auditors recognized that novice auditors needed
natural or innate characteristics prior to entering the firm to develop
into seasoned auditors. Yet there was not a unanimous view on the
relative importance of innate versus acquired characteristics. For
example, three auditors (Auditor 1, Auditor 18, Auditor 19) stated that
one either has PS or not, and Auditor 9 similarly said that: ‘There are
certainly people who are natural born auditors that are better at it
than others’. On the other hand, while Auditor 16 and Auditor
17 noted a natural skepticism in ‘good auditors’, they also stressed
that it would be very hard to be professionally skeptical without sig-
nificant amount of experience. Other auditors' remarks were more
ambiguous. For instance, Auditor 5 suggests innate traits provide the
starting point for PS, but without outlining their specific role or rela-
tive importance:
I think to some degree therefore there has to be some
inbuilt traits that are going to indicate stronger audi-
tors from the off and the get-go.
While these remarks are not contradictory, the differing emphases
raise the question of the relative role of innate characteristics versus
experience or training in acquiring PS.
An Aristotelian framework offers a way to clarify these views
by distinguishing two elements of PS that might be either innate or
acquired: (i) capacities to be skeptical given by nature (physis); and
(ii) the capacities auditors need to be receptive to professional edu-
cation. Auditor 9's reference to ‘natural born auditors’, and refer-
ences to having PS or not, relate only to the first of these elements.
However, Auditor 5's remark that some traits indicate ‘stronger
auditors’ implies the second element; namely, that some pre-
professional characteristics indicate potential for novices to develop
into ‘strong auditors’ by being more receptive to professional devel-
opment programs. This latter meaning was particularly evident in,
and elaborated by, auditors' discussions of how PS characteristics
could become second nature (Urmson, 1988). To illustrate, Auditor
11 said:
Theory and the technical stuff we can teach. Personal-
ity traits is [sic] little hard to mould, once you have a
21-year-old in your firm (emphasis added).
These quotes can mean that while one always has potential to learn,
there are limited opportunities to change a person's character, and/or
the extent to which you can develop PS without being receptive to it,
at 21 years old, when aspiring auditors typically enter the profession.
Implicit in this remark, however, is that there were previously opportu-
nities to mould auditors' character at an earlier developmental stage.
Therefore, Auditor 11 refers, in Aristotle's terms, to the potential to
develop character virtues through ethos, rather than to an innate and
fixed nature (i.e., physis).
Interviewees provided more detailed accounts of specific charac-
teristics novice auditors need to acquire prior to entering the firm in
order to be receptive to developing PS:
I think that curiosity helps drive your professional
skepticism, because you are presented with something,
and you do not just accept it on face value. (Auditor 12)
Being introverted just makes it difficult. They need to
have strong social skills because you need to go up to
people who you have not met before and have a con-
versation. (Auditor 2)
MARTINOV-BENNIE ET AL.
… to be able to challenge, to be able to question, to be
able to look at one set of data and compare it to
another…, and to stand back a little bit, to see the
wood from the trees… (Auditor 18)
These quotes describe virtues of character rather than intellect,
because they describe dispositions to act (e.g., the desire to inquire,
challenge, and critique) rather than judgments about when or how to
apply these dispositions in audit practice. They suggest that acquiring
PS could be a staged process that scaffolds the characteristics novice
auditors acquired before entering the firm. In combination, the quotes
suggest several scaffolding characteristics, including social skills, curi-
osity, an inquiring mind, extroversion and confidence. These charac-
teristics closely mirror Hurtt's (2010, p. 151) list of ‘six characteristics
that comprise professional scepticism: questioning mind, a suspension
of judgment, a search for knowledge, interpersonal understanding,
self-esteem and autonomy’. Nelson (2009) also refers to similar audi-
tor traits (i.e., characteristics rather than knowledge), including intelli-
gence, tendency to doubt, self-confidence, and problem-solving
ability. Interviewee 17 extends this idea by emphasising the interplay
between intelligence and character:
First of all, you have got to have the smarts to deal
with people, so it's kind of a given, but it's really impor-
tant. But the second thing is to have the personality
that allows you to.
In this case, the character to challenge a client is what Foot (1978) ter-
med an enabling virtue, which allows one's intellectual judgements to
be implemented in practice.
Auditor 13 summarizes both how skepticism develops and the
key pre-professional characteristics novice auditors require:
We look for things like ability to think for themselves
and be independent of thought, an ability to be asser-
tive and stand their ground, analytical capabilities.
These are all building blocks that you need that ulti-
mately translate into that broader package of profes-
sional skepticism (emphasis added).
While nominally discussing intellectual processes, Auditor 13's
remarks stress character virtues insofar as thinking for oneself is a dis-
position rather than a judgement (although analytical capacities could
function as a building block for practical judgement). The above
quotes also provide support for both Nelson's (2009) and Hurtt
et al.'s (2013) models of PS in that auditors' traits, such as an ethical
predisposition, affect the degree to which auditors employ PS (Omer
et al., 2018).
Experienced auditors' reflections on how they and others develop
PS also provide insight into the period or window in aspiring auditors'
development in which they might become more (or less) receptive to
acquiring PS. This window appears relatively early in people's
9
upbringing—at home, school, and university, where they learn to be
receptive (or not) to the dispositions that enable them to eventually
acquire PS. Consider the following comments:
The reason why I think I've got a skeptical mind is I
learnt it from my mother. (Auditor 2)
What is their family background? Like, are they
business-orientated? (Auditor 8)
In Russia, because we [the audit firm] grew so quickly,
we had to employ kids so we took them initially from
Moscow State University and they came from all sorts
of different disciplines and practices, and they were
terrific auditors … They were challenging and asking all
the time. (Auditor 5)
Auditors 2 and 8 highlight how people can be raised to be more or
less receptive to developing PS. Auditor 5 foregrounds education's
crucial role in receptivity to PS, with his apparently paradoxical obser-
vation that auditors recruited from outside the accounting discipline
are especially suited to acquiring PS. Our Aristotelian framework can
help resolve this paradox, by proposing that the primary function of
pre-professional education is not to develop practice-specific charac-
teristics but to develop the characteristics that make one receptive to
professional training. If—as the interviews suggest—an inquiring mind,
questioning, and confidence make one receptive to developing the
character virtue of skepticism, there is no a priori reason to believe
accounting education is the only, or the most effective, means to this
end in the pre-professional phase.
In addition to family and education, several auditors also com-
mented on how socio-cultural factors influenced pre-professional
development:
Some people have been raised so that they do not
question … so if you came from a country with a totali-
tarian regime, then you'd be a lot less skeptical about
things than you would otherwise … You just do what
you are told. (Auditor 9)
If we take extreme sort of examples, sort of your more
Asian cultures where the boss is always right … [com-
pared to a] more liberal sort of Western European way
of saying, well everybody can question and there's no
right answer. (Auditor 6)
Indeed, Auditor 10 wondered:
[A]re there certain cultures that are always going to
struggle with this and if so, what do we do about that?
Are there generations that are going to struggle differ-
ently with this, if so, what do we do about that?
10
The role of cultural background is contentious, not least because
senior audit practitioners' own cultural lens is likely to shape their
view of how other cultures influence novice auditors. However, the
point is not to critique particular cultures but to highlight how experi-
enced auditors interpreted socio-cultural background as one develop-
mental process that structures an individual's receptiveness to
developing PS. If we accept that pre-professional receptivity affects
development, it follows that training programs that simply roll out the
same approach to cultivating PS across socio-cultural backgrounds is
unlikely to achieve the same results, because how individuals respond
to training is a product of this background.
Auditors' acknowledgement that novice auditors may have char-
acteristics that enable them to develop PS indicates that PS is actual-
ized in situ in audit firms. It is not surprising, therefore, that none of
the audit firms in this study systematically screened for PS:
When I think of the people that I've recruited, it wasn't
foremost in my mind – will this person be able to exer-
cise professional skepticism? I know that when they
come on board and we provide our training and we
then have on the job training, that comes through.
(Auditor 14)
Look, we do not have any interviewing questions that
deal with that. We have tried to focus more on cultural
fit within the organization, so will they get along with
people, because everything is team-based. (Auditor 8)
By contrast, while not screening specifically for PS, Auditor 20 views
the interview process as an opportunity to gauge potential to cultivate
a skeptical outlook:
… asking the right questions at a recruitment stage in
an interview around skepticism and the sorts of behav-
iors actually sows those seeds in somebody's mind that
this is important.
There are at least two possible readings of these quotes. One inter-
pretation of the lack of screening for PS is that, although the audit
firms the research informants worked for did not explicitly screen
for the capacity to develop PS, several characteristics auditors select
for mirror the factors that enable PS as described above. A second
interpretation is that the other attributes Auditor 8 articulates refer
to MacIntyre's (1984) notion of a community of practice. Although
cultural fit and ‘getting along with others’ are not virtues as such,
they align with MacIntyre's idea that sustaining a community of
practice requires practitioners who can work together in pursuit of
shared internal goods. In this way, being able to fit into a team
could indicate receptivity to values that are partly constitutive of an
audit community. Auditor 8's comments thus resonate with
Grey's (1998, p. 581) notion that being a professional auditor is
‘inextricably bound up with the culture of the firm, and ‘the firm’
arrogates to itself a certain conception of what being a professional
MARTINOV-BENNIE ET AL.
means’. This latter reading is also consistent with Auditor 20's
approach, which reflects less an attempt at screening so much as a
nascent effort to cultivate the professional values the firm endorses.
In this case, the firm literally houses the community of auditors,
even though—according to MacIntyre—the values of an institution
(e.g., commercial values) can challenge those virtues a community of
practice seeks to sustain. Indeed, Auditor 18 states that ‘the diffi-
culty is the tension between the commercial and the professional’, a
point that we return to in Section 5.2.1.
5.2 | Stage two: Professional praxis phase
While auditors highlighted that developing PS required pre-
professional innate characteristics (e.g., a questioning mind, inter-
personal understanding, autonomy, and self-esteem, cf. Hurtt
et al. (2013) and Nelson (2009)), they also emphasized strongly
that PS was learned after auditors joined audit firms. The study's
seasoned audit practitioners stressed the importance of
experience ‘on the job’, that is, as part of the audit engagement
team:
[U]ntil you are actually out there, I think it's really the
on-the-job training. (Auditor 6)
A lot of it is on the job and getting better at your job
and being exposed to those discussions in an audit.
(Auditor 1)
These quotes illustrate both the intellectual and character virtues
involved in exercise of PS and the developmental processes (potenti-
ality/receptivity and actualization) in the Aristotelian interpretative
framework. First, Auditor 6 stresses the generic importance of on-the-
job training, which can encompass systematic training (logos) and
habituation (ethos). Second, within this broad dichotomy, Auditor
1 draws attention to discussions among team members in an audit
engagement, where systematic training and the development of rea-
son (logos) could occur.
The following descriptions of practical learning processes rein-
force the importance of a relevant person mentoring, or having over-
sight of, novice auditors' activities in this way:
[I]t's only once they are in the firm and they have got a
few years of experience and they have had some time
in the field, they have had lots of on the job coaching,
good mentorship and guidance, that it starts to come
together for them. (Auditor 13)
A bit like learning to walk and experience certain things
– it'll become part of your curiosity and you will be
curious … I think that it's really – if you have got good
mentoring … you'll learn a lot more because it's
highlighted. (Auditor 7)
MARTINOV-BENNIE ET AL.
Auditor 13 stresses the community's role in both logos and ethos.
Auditor 7 highlights a key part of the developmental process, which is
to enable novice auditors to fully realize the potential of characteris-
tics that are already nascent from their pre-professional phase. In this
case, senior auditors encourage the pre-professional characteristic of
curiosity to grow and refocus itself into a more professionally orien-
tated disposition to (appropriately) critique and question. This process
is also reflected in the International Education Standards Board's
(IAESB's) recent revision of International Education Standards (IESs)
focused on enhancing PS, whereby: ‘… initial professional develop-
ment (IPD) includes learning and development activities that ade-
quately address the professional skills and ethical behaviors necessary
for all aspiring professional accountants to have the ability to apply
professional skepticism. The attitudes, skills and behaviors contribut-
ing to professional skepticism are further developed following IPD
through continuing professional development’ (IAESB June 2019,
Agenda Item 2–2, pages 3 and 6 of 7 re IES4, Paragraph A15).
The quotes above also support the IAASB's conceptualization of
PS by differentiating it from the common meaning of skepticism as a
mere disposition to question and require evidence in any setting,
including professional settings. The IAASB's definition of PS is very
specific to the audit context and requires auditors to be alert to
potential misstatement due to error or fraud, and to critically assess
audit evidence (ISA 200). This conceptualization suggests that for
novice auditors to develop PS specific to the audit context
(i.e., become ‘seasoned practitioners’ or phronemos), they need to
undertake the developmental process described in the practitioner
quotes above by participating in an audit community of practice.
In the following subsections, we elucidate key components of
stage two evident in interviewees' discussions—namely, the respective
nesis
roles of logos, ethos and phro  (5.2.1) and communities of practice
(5.2.2).
5.2.1 |  ne
Logos, ethos and phro sis
… professional skepticism in an audit sense really
needs to be driven in at training and taught. You really
have to reinforce with junior staff members that they
are not to just accept representations at face value …
You'll be explaining it's okay to be curious not that it's
not allowed to be curious. (Auditor 7)
… only when you are practically trying to do it and
somebody is coaching you or reviewing that work and
pointing out where it is that you need to add additional
information or document your thought process, that
that's when you learn the most. (Auditor 12)
So that's where you really learn, outside, because you
really get to apply whatever it is you have learnt, and
you can see where the differences are, and you can
make judgments. (Auditor 2)
11
The quotes indicate not only the importance of systematic instruction
(logos), but also how systematic instruction of auditors in PS practical
nesis)
judgement (phro  can interact with the character virtue PS habitu-
ation produces. Consistent with Mintz (2006), interviewees stressed
the importance of training and encouraging novice auditors to reflect
on what has been learned. In particular, auditors instructed novices on
the boundaries and application of the character traits habituation is
meant to encourage, including: when it is acceptable to be curious; to
what extent curiosity is appropriate (e.g., when documentation is
required); and how to make judgments about when the demands of
PS are met. By instructing novices on such matters, senior audit prac-
titioners implicitly aim to develop the intellectual virtue (phr 
onesis)
that enables auditors to make rational judgments and choices in apply-
ing the appropriate (i.e., neither excessive nor deficient) amount of PS
(see Mintz, 1996).
Interviewees also emphasized how learning occurred through
experience, which is to say, in our Aristotelian vocabulary, through
habituation (ethos):
I certainly learnt it over time … [A] lot of it comes with
experience … as you get experienced and … you get
more senior; you see more of the bigger picture, and it
all starts to make much more sense to you. That's
where the pennies start to drop. I think that's when
this whole concept of skepticism really starts to embed
and take off (Auditor 9).
Auditor 1 likewise highlighted both the repetitive (ethos) and expert-
nesis)
guided process of discernment (phro  of when and ‘how much’
PS is to be applied:
[The junior staff member] would go question the client.
They would come back and say “Oh, they told me
this.” You'd be like, “Well, did you ask them this?” Or
“Does that make sense? Maybe you should go back
and ask a couple more questions.”
You cannot overlay it later after you have heard the
answer. It's something that you are doing as you are
listening to what they are telling you, with it there. If
they say, “Well revenue's gone up because of this, this
and this,” then you have got to be there thinking “Well
yeah, okay, that might be right, but this has happened
as well” … You're almost then learning it by getting que-
ried and saying no go back, go back, go back (Auditor
1, emphasis added).
This quote—especially the last line—highlights how an auditor who is
yet to develop PS can nonetheless act as a sufficiently skeptical audi-
tor and thereby eventually internalize the relevant character virtue PS
requires. While the novice auditor is not sufficiently professionally
skeptical to, say, ask the right exploratory questions in his or her initial
discussions, the experienced auditor guides the novice to repeatedly
12
return and ask these questions. It is precisely this repetitive guided
action that prompts the auditor to become ‘naturally’ disposed to ask
the right questions as part of his or her professional (second) nature.
Given senior audit practitioners' emphasis on praxis, it is unsur-
prising that all interviewees underscored how classroom instruction is
necessary, but not sufficient, to develop an (eventually) stable PS
character virtue:
It's not something you'd get out of a textbook. (Audi-
tor 4)
I think the classroom training only takes you so far.
(Auditor 6)
Applying the Aristotelian interpretative framework enables a differen-
tiated analysis of three respects in which classroom instruction alone
is insufficient. First, classroom instruction can only describe how the
intellectual virtue of PS is applied; it does not develop the disposition
(i.e., PS characteristics/trait) required to apply this virtue in practice.
Second, to develop the intellectual virtue that PS requires
nesis),
(i.e., phro  auditors need ‘time and experience’ on the job, includ-
ing systematic instruction in appropriate PS judgments and actions
(i.e., PS process). Third, the character virtue component of PS
develops through habituation, which is inherently a product of action
rather than classroom instruction. PS develops through the interplay
of both these intellectual and character virtues.
To illustrate how auditors are trained in professional skepticism,
the following quotes were typical and identify formal and informal or
on-the-job training:
It was more of a blended learning. So, we had a video
with various scenarios that were real life examples.
They could watch those. They then came to the class-
room, and we talked about the actual examples, what
went wrong and how they should be aware of that.
Then they go on the job. (Auditor 1)
There is formal training, which involves sessions
around scepticism. The partners do the same audit
training as the rest of the team. It's at a higher level
but it's the same program. (Auditor 5)
The informal on the job – So, courses again to help
people with coaching skills. So again, classroom train-
ing is one part of how you can be a coach but mostly
you learn by seeing how others do it. (Auditor 9)
While these quotes do not distinguish the precise mechanisms by
which different types of training develop PS, the mix of practices
reported are consistent with the model of PS as developing via multi-
ple intellectual (videos and classroom sessions) and character (‘on-
the-job’ and ‘seeing how others do it’) practices.
MARTINOV-BENNIE ET AL.
5.2.2 | Community of practice
MacIntyre's (1984) analysis implies PS develops in communities of
practice, where novices are initiated into a community that is consti-
tuted, inter alia, by shared professional norms. This dynamic was also
evident in our interviews:
They need to hear from the firm's leadership, from the
partner on their job, from their manager. All of these
messages need to be aligned. (Auditor 9)
You sort of cannot talk skepticism, you sort of have to
live it and demonstrate it through your actions. So, I
guess leading from the front, your staff will pick up on
that. (Auditor 11)
I think the better partners usually when they review
are out on a job and they review in the room with the
whole team, and they'll ask the individual what they
think. When it's as open as that and you are talking to
the manager and the supervisor then you bring others
into the same conversation, they are going to feel
much more comfortable expressing a view or saying
actually, I did not understand this or I thought this was
strange, or why is it like that. (Auditor 2)
The comments indicate that what is learned, and how one thinks and
knows, come from a socially and culturally-structured world of audit
practice (see, e.g., Power, 2003). Novice auditors become seasoned
auditors by participating in the social process of audit engagements;
that is, by gaining legitimate access to a community of practice. The
quality of guidance is thus particularly critical to habituation, as Audi-
tor 6 reflected:
… it's mostly who you were taught by, who is responsi-
ble for your development, and that if you work for a
partner that never applies it [PS] for most of your jobs
for five years, how are you ever going to learn that?
It's very hard as well to train for it.
These quotes again emphasize several elements of how a community
of practice (e.g., the audit team) recreates commitment to shared vir-
tues (i.e., PS). First, in describing PS as something you live rather than
explain, Auditor 11 highlights how commitment to PS cannot be
reduced to a set of requirements or techniques but, instead, is part of
the commitments that structure how accounting and auditing exper-
tise are exercised. This is consistent with MacIntyre's interpretation of
virtues as derived from the practices of particular communities. Sec-
ond, as Auditor 9 emphasizes, in a cohesive community of practice
these shared commitments are extended through shared practice,
rather than being concentrated in one location or person. Third, a key
way people acquire these shared commitments is by being initiated
MARTINOV-BENNIE ET AL.
into the collective conversations that reinforce and enact these
values.
Supporting this view is MacIntyre's (1984) analysis of how com-
munities of practice recreate shared commitments by instilling internal
goods. Numerous interviewees valued PS for its own sake, rather than
for the external rewards it might bring:
To me, being skeptical – I mean that's almost what an
auditor is. (Auditor 13)
So, you have to keep building into people desire to dig
as deep as you need to dig regardless of all the other
pressures. So that is when we look at lot at how to set
the right tone at the top and what are those messages
that keeping cascading down to teams so that … they
[are] fully energized by it, like I can really make a differ-
ence here and this is our role in capital markets, and
this is what we are here to do. (Auditor 9)
For these highly experienced auditors at least, exercising PS enables
internal goods because it is constitutive of good audit practice,
rather than a means to an external goal. As MacIntyre (1984) high-
lights, internal and external goods reflect very different motivational
structures. The comment by Auditor 9 encapsulates how PS is
developed in audit staff. It reflects how PS is specified in terms of
the audit itself, and can only be specified and recognized by the
experience of senior audit practitioners who have participated in
the exercise of PS over a considerable number of audits (see,
e.g., Francis, 1990). If a practice is pursued only for external goods,
on the other hand, then there is every incentive to cheat or aban-
don one's principles when a particular practice no longer delivers
those benefits, or where cheating delivers greater benefits than act-
ing according to professional principles.
The practice of peer review to ensure quality, both internally in
the audit firm and externally by a regulator, could reinforce exercise
of PS as part of realizing internal goods:
So, a staff member above about senior, they'll have at
least two or three of their audit files a year subject to
peer review, and that is an area that is judged. Have
they applied appropriate skepticism in the conduct of
this audit? (Auditor 11)
A premise of the peer review, in this sense, is that norms and stan-
dards of an ‘excellent’ application of PS are not embodied by one par-
ticular person but, rather, by a community of seasoned practitioners.
This suggests there is a tacit element to PS that an audit firm's meth-
odology cannot capture (see, e.g., Francis, 1990):
It's not a checklist type of a process that you go
through, because it's very specific to whatever audit
process you are going through. It's challenging. (Audi-
tor 12)
13
… when you just tick boxes it's hard to do professional
skepticism because professional skepticism is about
thinking and challenging. (Auditor 19)
The development and application of PS is thus a way of conceptualiz-
ing PS in which the above comments are consistent with
MacIntyre's (1984) view that a practice such as auditing is never sim-
ply a technical activity but, rather, requires that new auditors develop
nesis
the capacity to judge accordingly—that is, to demonstrate phro 
(also see Dirsmith & Covaleski, 1985). Importantly, an effective appli-
cation of PS in an audit—that is, an application that is not
dysfunctional—sits between the two extremes of excess or deficiency,
which is coextensive with what a community of practitioners define
and accept:
I can sit there and wait and make sure that I'm 100 per
cent certain. The nature of audit is that you are never
going to be 100 per cent certain. So, which point on
that line is it at 10 per cent, 20 per cent, 50 per cent,
80 per cent, do you make that call? (Auditor 10)
Skepticism is about the application of judgment, my
judgment over or our team's judgment over our client's
– primarily their estimates and judgments, but over
their financial records. (Auditor 6)
Auditor 6 foregrounds the intellectual component of PS (i.e., audit
judgement). The analysis above, and the following quotes, suggests
there is no inherent contradiction in defining PS as judgement and
character, or as a trait and process, or indeed as stable and malleable:
If you are going to make a judgement you have to have
a healthy dose of enquiring mind to see things from
both sides, to exercise that judgement. (Auditor 2)
The attitude and the state of mind, and then applying
that scepticism and the questioning and the rigor, you
have to exercise judgement as to what you'll accept
and what you will not accept. (Auditor 7)
Rather, an Aristotelian framework can provide a precise interpretation
of how PS can display all these attributes at different stages of audi-
tors' development.
Finally, some interviewees recognized the type of conflicts
between the values of the community of practice and the values of
institutions that MacIntyre suggests are endemic to cultures that are
at once professional and commercial. The following quotes identify
pressures from having to meet budgets, providing non-audit services
and meeting deadlines:
All the firms are their own worst enemies because they
are constantly undercutting each other every time they
bid. Management is constantly pushing to drive all
14
costs down, of which audit is one. That's one of the
challenges, they want more value, but they do not
want to pay for anything. (Auditor 5)
You can be efficient … and you have achieved your
budget and away you go, right? There's always that
tension that exists there. (Auditor 18)
We were generalists, we often did the audit and we'd
also be involved in accounts preparation and personal
matters, like investment trusts and accounting for
those. I have seen that people can blur that skeptical
part of their mindset, because they sort of transition
from auditor to advisor. (Auditor 11)
Auditor 17 states that the hardest thing for staff generally is dealing
‘with aggressive timetables because by definition, if you're going to
be skeptical, you get asked more questions’. However, recognizing
how time pressure can make it difficult to develop skepticism in junior
auditors, Auditor 20 declares:
… if you have to have time to demonstrate your skepti-
cism, we do not want anybody being rushed into that.
We're here. We've got your backs. It's creating that
environment.
Insofar as time pressures are driven by firm budgets, these quotes
indicate precisely the types of tensions between professional virtues
like PS and institutional demands, in this case to audit on budget. Pre-
senting a different view from MacIntyre, Dermarkar and Hazgui (2020)
claim that professionalism and commercialism are in a symbiotic rela-
tionship and that auditors' strong sense of commercialism does not
necessarily compromise their professionalism (also see Malsch &
Gendron, 2013). In our case, the assertion that senior audit practi-
tioners ‘have the backs’ of junior auditors shows the capacity of
senior staff to resist commercial pressures, not only for themselves,
but also by creating the institutional space that junior staff need to
develop the character trait PS requires.
6 | C O N CL U S I O N
While PS is critical to the audit process, our literature review showed
that how PS develops is not well understood. This study analysed
interviews of 21 senior audit practitioners to ascertain how PS is
developed. It mobilized Aristotelian virtue ethics and MacIntyre's neo-
Aristotelianism to answer three interrelated research questions. RQ1
asked how auditors conceptualize PS, in what respects do they per-
ceive PS to be an individual auditor character trait relative to a pro-
cess (i.e., judgement or action)? On an Aristotelian interpretation of
auditors' experiences, PS has two parts: a character virtue of PS
(i.e., auditor disposition or trait) and an intellectual virtue of practical
nesis)
wisdom (phro  to apply this virtue appropriately (i.e., PS process
MARTINOV-BENNIE ET AL.
of skeptical judgement and action) in specific professional audit con-
texts. The Aristotelian framework provides a holistic concept of PS as
both a trait (Hurtt, 2010) and a product of auditor judgement revealed
by skeptical behaviour (Nelson, 2009) as represented by existing
models of PS in academic literature (Hurtt et al., 2013; Nelson, 2009;
Nolder & Kadous, 2018). The framework is also consistent with the
IAASB's definition of PS and how it is exercised in specific audit con-
texts and extends Libby and Thorne's (2007) typology of audit virtues
to trace how these virtues (fail to) emerge.
RQ2 asked in what respects do auditors perceive PS to be stable
compared to being cultivated. Despite the importance to audit prac-
tice, prior research has not specifically investigated whether PS is rela-
tively stable over time, and/or whether PS can be developed through
training. This paper finds that experienced auditors perceive PS to be
malleable only under specific circumstances. PS can only be developed
by repeated exposure to different audit situations (ethos) under the
guidance of senior practitioners (logos). Different audit contexts pro-
vide a variety of situations through which auditors learn to judge and
enact the requisite PS. PS develops as both an intellectual and a char-
acter virtue, mutually reinforcing each other through a process of
instruction, learning and experience in situ within a community of
practitioners. Thus, the character virtue of PS becomes ‘stable’ over
time through ethos, while the intellectual virtue becomes stable
through logos. This finding is consistent with prior Aristotelian theory
of how virtues develop (West, 2017) but provides novel empirical sup-
port for PS in audit contexts.
Addressing RQ1 and RQ2 enables us to answer RQ3: How do
auditors perceive PS as being developed? A major focus of prior
auditing literature is exploring impacts of various specific auditor and
situational variables on skeptical judgments (e.g., Carpenter &
Reimers, 2013; Quadackers et al., 2014). However, building on the
group-based developmental perspective (Power, 2003) and character-
ization of audits as interactive and collaborative processes
(Pentland, 1993), together with the Aristotelian framework of how vir-
tues develop (see also West, 2017), this study's contribution to the
accounting literature is its granular over-arching framework that ties
these variables together into a broader interpretation of PS (i.e., PS
trait and process) and a systematic account of how PS can be devel-
oped through training and experience. In this framework, the charac-
ter virtue of skepticism and the intellectual virtue of practical wisdom
(phr  in professional audit contexts are developed through two-
onesis)
stages. The first stage occurs prior to aspiring auditors joining audit
firms. In the pre-professional phase, novice auditors become receptive
to developing the character virtue of PS by acquiring relevant charac-
teristics, including confidence and an inquiring and analytical mind. In
the second stage, experienced audit practitioners guide novices to
develop the right dispositions by modelling, and leading them through,
the actions PS requires. Novices become seasoned auditors through
repeated explanations of, and exposure to, these actions, which habit-
uate the dispositions to act as PS demands. At the same time, they
learn when and ‘how much’ PS is to be applied—the intellectual virtue
of judgement—through ‘on-the-job training’ in a range of audit situa-
tions. This includes experienced auditors drawing novices' attention
MARTINOV-BENNIE ET AL.
to specific audit engagement circumstances from which to infer more
general principles.
The proposed narrative of PS as comprising two virtues, each of
which is developed through two stages, offers practical implications
for how audit firms could ensure that auditors develop PS. Audit
firms could formally recognize and focus on selecting novice auditors
with characteristics that make them receptive to developing PS
(in stage two). They could also train auditors in PS using blended
learning composed of formal and on-the-job learning. The role that
seasoned auditors play in developing novices' PS is critical as they
instruct, clarify, demonstrate and reinforce the exercise of PS in
various audit contexts. Audit firms already recognize that a blend of
formal instruction and on-the-job training is critical to ensure
novices realize their potential to develop PS. For senior recruitments,
it may be that audit experience has already largely shaped their
characteristics, including PS (Peytcheva, 2014), and therefore
ensuring that they have already developed appropriate PS (i.e., both
character and intellectual virtues) potentially becomes an important
aspect of the selection process.
This study has several limitations. First, the interviews are based
on experienced audit practitioners' perceptions of how PS develops
over time, rather than on direct observation or testing. Future
research capturing junior auditors' perceptions of PS, how they learn
to exercise PS including any tensions and difficulties they experience
in this process would be valuable. Second, since the study was con-
ducted mainly with Australian auditors in large and medium-sized
firms, it may not reflect the experiences of auditors in other contexts.
Future research within different geographic and cultural contexts
could provide further important insights on PS. Third, while not within
the scope of the study, auditors are members of a broader audit ‘com-
munity of practice’ that comprises the audit team, the audit firm, and
the profession and professional bodies, including national and interna-
tional standard-setters. Each of these levels of the community has a
role in the shared norms of PS. Further research might examine how
these different layers of the community interact to develop
PS. Studies providing evidence on effectiveness of different types of
instruction and ‘on-the-job’ training strategies, including auditee–
auditor relationships and their impact on skeptical judgement and
action, would also benefit practice and academia. Future research
investigating the concept of ‘appropriate’ perspective or ‘optimal’
level of PS, and how it can be determined and embedded into auditing
standards, audit methodologies, and training, could also inform the
more nuanced and consistent understanding of PS for which aca-
demics and standard setters have persistently called. Finally, our
study, which was conducted pre- and during the Covid-19 pandemic,
captured a glimpse of virtual auditor and client interactions and how
they could impact on auditors' PS. More broadly, a future study on
‘audit from a distance’ and its implications on PS would be of interest
to academia, practitioners and regulators.8
ACKNOWLEDGEMEN T
This study was funded by Chartered Accountants Australia and
New Zealand.
15
CONFLIC T OF INT ER E ST
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
ET HICS S TAT E MENT
All procedures performed in our study involving human participants
were in accordance with the ethical standards of Macquarie Univer-
sity (Reference number: 5201200206).
AUTHOR CONTRIBU TIONS
The first two authors secured and conducted the interviews. The
three authors equally contributed to the analysis of the interviews
and the development of the manuscript.
DATA AVAILABILITY STAT EMEN T
The research data that support the study's findings are not shared. The
data are not publicly available due to privacy and ethical restrictions.
OR CID
Maria Cadiz Dyball https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6196-0142
ENDNOTES
1
Current literature and auditing standards are inconsistent in which of
the two different prevailing perspectives of PS they adopt – ‘neutral’ or
‘presumptive doubt’ – and debate remains as to which one of these con-
ceptualizations of PS is optimal (Nobes, 2018; Quadackers et al., 2014).
The HPSS is an auditing-focused PS trait scale which adopts a ‘neutral
perspective’ and is based on six characteristics: (1) questioning mind;
(2) suspension of judgement; (3) search for knowledge; (4) interpersonal
understanding; (5) autonomy; and (6) self-esteem (Hurtt, 2010). The RIT
scale, in contrast, is a ‘presumptive doubt perspective’ interpersonal
trust scale (Rotter, 1980), adopted by auditing researchers to measure
PS by equating a lower trust score with PS.
2
Robinson et al. (2018) developed a state PS measure based on a modi-
fied Hurtt (2010) trait PS scale. Following Churchill's (1979) process of
scale development and Kluemper et al.'s (2009) methodology of modify-
ing trait optimism scale to measure state optimism, they selected and
modified questions from Hurtt PS trait scale (HPSS) by including phrases
such as ‘in this case’ and ‘while working on this case’ at the start of the
questions. This rephrasing is based on prior research that asserts that
traits relate to general, less specific characteristics, while states are mal-
leable and context specific (Peterson, 2000).
3
As widely observed (e.g., Barnes, 1976; MacIntyre, 1984), it is difficult to
accurately translate eudaimonia into English, and neither ‘happiness’ nor
‘flourishing’ captures its exact meaning. MacIntyre (1984, p. 148)
describes eudaimonia as ‘doing well and being well in doing well’, and
Shields (2014, p. 369) writes that eudaimonia ‘might better be rendered
as “flourishing” or “living well” or “living successfully”’.
4
Other intellectual virtues include theoretical intelligence and capacity for
contemplation. However, as MacIntyre (1984) observes, practical judge-
ment is what links intellectual and character virtues into virtuous action,
and is most relevant to what enables auditors to enact PS.
5
There is a long-running and complicated dispute in Aristotelian scholar-
ship about the exact relation between character and intellect
(Moss, 2011; Smith, 1996; Sorabji, 1980). However, both sides of this
dispute agree virtuous action requires both character and intellectual
virtues.
6
Thomson's rendering of Aristotle (1976) translates ethos as ‘customs’.
However, a practice is closer to contemporary usages, especially to Mac-
Intyre's neo-Aristotelian reading on which our later analysis draws.
16
7
For example, MacIntyre (1984, p. 197) writes that his account of the vir-
tues ‘requires a cogent elaboration of just those distinctions and con-
cepts which Aristotle's requires’. This includes the ‘distinction between
the intellectual virtues and the virtues of character, [and] the relationship
of both to natural ability…’, and MacIntyre adds that ‘On every one of
these topics something like Aristotle's view has to be defended’.
8
We would like to thank one of the reviewers for this insight.
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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES
Nonna Martinov-Bennie (FCA) is an Honorary Professor in the
Department of Accounting and Corporate Governance at Mac-
quarie University, Sydney, and a Professor Extraordinarius,
Department of Financial Governance, College of Accounting Sci-
ences, University of South Africa. Her research focus is on bridg-
ing the gap between academia and the profession in the areas of
external and internal financial and non-financial assurance includ-
ing audit judgment, audit methodology, auditor independence,
ethics, and corporate governance. Nonna has published in leading
international journals including Auditing: A Journal of Practice and
Theory, Journal of Business Ethics, International Journal of
Auditing, and Managerial Auditing Journal.
Dr. Maria Cadiz Dyball is an Associate Professor in the Discipline
of Accounting at The University of Sydney, Australia. Maria's
research is in the areas of accounting professionalization and
management controls. Her research has been published at leading
journals such as Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal,
Accounting & Finance, Asia-Pacific Journal of Management, Cor-
porate Governance: An International Review, Critical Perspectives
on Accounting, Financial Accountability & Management, and
International Journal of Auditing and Journal of Business Ethics.
MARTINOV-BENNIE ET AL. 19

Dr Dale Tweedie is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of How to cite this article: Martinov-Bennie, N., Dyball, M. C., &
Accounting and Corporate Governance at Macquarie University, Tweedie, D. (2022). Professional skepticism through audit
Sydney. He researches in two main areas: business ethics and praxis: An Aristotelian perspective. International Journal of
accountability, and workplace organization and governance. Dale Auditing, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijau.12258
has published in leading international journals in the fields of
accounting, management and sociology, including Human Rela-
tions, Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, Journal of
Business Ethics, Critical Perspectives on Accounting, and Work,
Employment and Society.

APPENDIX A

See Table A1.

TABLE A1 Profile of interviewees

Experience in audit firms

Number of countries
Interviewee Position Size/number (including Australia) Years
1 Director Large—2 1 20
2 Director Large—2 medium—1 2 14
3 Director Large—2 1 27
4 Senior manager Large—2 2 15
5 Partner Large—3 3 48
6 Partner Large—2 1 8
7 Partner Medium—2 1 24
8 Partner Small—1 medium—1 1 16
9 Partner Large—1 1 15
10 Partner Medium—1 large—4 3 25
11 Partner Medium—1 1 13
12 Partner Large—1 2 16
13 Partner Large—1 1 19
14 Partner Large—1 2 20
15 Manager Large—1 1 12
16 Partner Medium—1 large—1 3 29
17 Partner Large—1 3 25
18 Partner Medium—1 1 30
19 Partner Large—1 3 21
20 Partner Large—1 7 31
21 Partner Large—1 2 17