The Agency Theory: The Main Foundational Base to Explain the Auditing in Portuguese Investor-Oriented Firms

In today's society, theories justifying auditing have to be framed in the social and cultural context in which this branch of knowledge exercises a fundamental and credible role in the dissemination of financial information. Today, the audit is an important control mechanism of any economic system. Therefore, finding a suitable theory to explain its existence, in a context of constant change and within a contradictory debate underlying the various approaches - until now put forward by English-speaking authors - is an academic requirement, an intellectual challenge and an important contribution to a more appropriate and universally accepted conceptual framework. We also carried out an empirical study with Portuguese auditing professionals in order to investigate how they interpret and explain the existence of the audit in society.

Aims: The study aims a framework of agency theory in the justify theory of audit, by testing the following hypothesis: H1 – audit professionals in Portugal interpret the audit based on agency theory; H2 – audit professional in Portugal explain its existence based on information theory.

Study Design: Overview of the different theories that justify audit and their successive integrations.

Place and Duration of Study: Portugal, between 2009 to 2010.

Methodology: Interpretative and a field survey of 1275 enquiries to professionals and higher education auditing teachers.

Results: Response rate was 447 (35%) consisting of 51 (4%) for internal auditors, 25 (2%) for court auditors, 159 (12%) for higher education teachers and 212 (17%) for statutory auditors. Three hypotheses were tested using X2 at 0.95 level of confidence and 0.05 level of significance. X2 indicates that the factors indicated do not influence the answers given. All areas of professional activity have values p<0.05, indicating that these professionals demonstrate a preference for information theory with the exception of auditor’s with connections to international network, who indicate a greater extent agency theory.

Conclusion: The study shows that the credibility theory and agency theory, as an attempt to explain reality, are too reductionist, their approach being too focused on particular or atomized aspects, and therefore do not achieve a reasonable level of general acceptance. In turn, a more in-depth analysis of the content of each explanatory theory, points to the existence of firm connecting links between them, and suggests that agency theory is a deeper, more concrete, rational and suitable explanation in relation to the present economic environment, characterised by a permanent conflict of interests, although in Portugal, the empirical evidence points to information theory.