Preliminary Study On The Moral Dilemma Of Chinese Internal Auditors

Through the reviewing of existing academic literature，we found that the research on moraldilemmas of internal auditors probably began in the1980s, and mostly concentrated in foreigncountries. But there is no direct related paper appear in china.From the historical point of view, internal audit began to be an profession in the1940s,IIA’s establishment and Victor.Z.Brink’s publication of <Internal Audit-the nature of theprogram, functions and methods> made internal audit became more and more professional.Before1970s,the internal audit are concentrated to the financial audit, which is relativelysimple. Moreover, the financial audit workflow is relatively fixed, mature, the supervision isrelatively consummately.After1970s, the scope of internal audit had an unprecedented expansion.Like performanceaudit, economic responsibility audit, environmental audit etc..The content of internal audit variesfrom financial supervision to operational efficiency, and even the operation of the businessconsulting activities. The activities of operational efficiency and consultant services can not bemeasured by some certain KPIs and to be quantified.Therefore, the possibility of adverseselection and moral dilemmas generated by the internal auditors greatly increased.As professional as internal audit is, The supervision of organization has paid more attentionto internal audit,the influence of organization’s internal audit also is slowly increased. With theenhanced influence, internal auditor’s adverse selection and moral choice "chips" will be moreattractive.Therefore, the probability of internal auditors caught in an ethical dilemma is greatlyincreased.In summary, There is no difficult to understand the appearance of related researches ofinternal auditor’s ethical dilemmas began from the1980s among the developed countries.This paper is based on the analyzing of the concept of moral and ethical dilemma, is toclarify the research’s objectives of scholars now. On this basis, the paper reviews the research ofinternal auditors moral dilemma including causes/influencing factors/solution etc. Thus,concerning the existing factors, we chose random sample questionnaires, and made data analysisto find the factors influencing moral dilemma of chinese internal auditors in practice. Finally,based on current research, we made a number of recommendations for the study of a new phase,in order to save internal auditors who is tortured in ethical dilemma.