The mediating role of work Engagement on the relationship between professional and organizational identity and audit quality

Abstract The purpose of this study is to investigate the mediating role of work Engagement on the relationship between professional and organizational identity and audit quality. This is a descriptive-survey study and the statistical population is the auditors who are members of Certified Public Accountants in Iran. The sample group is 135 people. To collecting data was used Rich & Crawford (2010) Job Engagement Questionnaire with three dimensions of Physical, Emotional and Cognitive engagement. Professional and organizational identity and audit quality measured using the Mael & Ashforth (1992), Svanberg & Öhman (2015), and Sulaiman (2011) questionnaires, respectively. In the present study, 10 hypotheses were developed and they were tested using OLS regression and Sobel test. The results of this study showed a significant and positive effect of professional and organizational identity on audit quality. Other results confirm the mediating role of physical, cognitive, and emotional engagement on the relationship between professional identity and audit quality. But organizational identity influenced audit quality only through emotional engagement. The results can have significant implications for audit firms to pay more attention to organizational factors and provide an appropriate context in this regard.