The purpose of this study explains the relationship between corporate governance and the auditor's role in Swedish family firms with the definitions micro, small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and how this relationship is affected by the firms strategy. The study is based on a survey sent out to 3000 Swedish SMEs, of which 280 responses from family firms could be used. Our findings showed that the auditor in the family firms didn?t have a specific role or contributed added value to the firm, and that the strategy didn?t affect the outcome. Furthermore, we found correlation between the perceptions of the auditor's role and added value depending on the family firms type of corporate governance.

Several industrial scandals, especially those about Enron and WorldCom, have lead to an intense debate about the independent audit and the independent auditor. A substantial part of the auditor?s income originates from counselling, and therefore the role of the auditor may be seen as double, and the auditor?s objectivity may be questioned. In the year of 2002, a new Auditors Act was legislated in Sweden. In the 21 § of the act, a model based on principles was introduced, to test the auditor independence in every single case.

Auditors have a big role in society. The question of auditor independence has been debated frequently after the financial crisis. Long auditor tenure with clients has both advantages and disadvantages so the question is hard to solve.One of the traits that are encouraged with auditors is professional skepticism. An important part of professional skepticism is the personal skepticism of the auditor. The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate if a high professional skepticism can increase auditor independence by increasing profession identification and decreasing client identification.

Changes in the society engender changes in the practice of the auditor profession. Stricter laws, more detailed recommendations, and demands from the auditor?s clients have increased. The auditor constitutes a profession and therefore it is important that there is a trust since the auditor is the one that certifies the quality of the company?s economical information.

Changes in the society engender changes in the practice of the auditor profession. Stricter laws, more detailed recommendations, and demands from the auditor?s clients have increased. The auditor constitutes a profession and therefore it is important that there is a trust since the auditor is the one that certifies the quality of the company?s economical information.

AbstractThe control of quality standard ISO 9001 has made the internal audit to be experienced as police authority and paragraph control. Because of that, motivation for internal auditors is low. To counteract the experience, there is a possibility to integrate internal audit with improvements in company?s processes. Theory has shown that a qualified and competent auditor can provide information that can help the organization's managements to make the right decisions that will improve product quality and result in new customer contracts.An opportunity to observe an internal and external audit at one of the case companies gave rise to this study.

AbstractThe control of quality standard ISO 9001 has made the internal audit to be experienced as police authority and paragraph control. Because of that, motivation for internal auditors is low. To counteract the experience, there is a possibility to integrate internal audit with improvements in company?s processes. Theory has shown that a qualified and competent auditor can provide information that can help the organization's managements to make the right decisions that will improve product quality and result in new customer contracts.An opportunity to observe an internal and external audit at one of the case companies gave rise to this study.

This study is a semi-­structured, qualitative depth-­interview study investigating Swedish institutional investors' perception of the fact that companies purchase non-­audit services from its signing auditor and if they see this as a threat to auditor independence. The study focuses on independence in appearance rather than independence in fact. The study is based on the current media debate on auditor independence and aims to provide a deeper insight to enlighten legislators how users of audited financial information look at the problem. The study builds on agency theory's notion that there is an information asymmetry between management and shareholders, which the auditor is to reduce. The results show that Swedish institutional investors perceive that there is a threat to auditor independence when companies buy non­-audit services from its signing auditor.

Auditor independence is a subject that has been discussed frequently over the past decade. The meaning of auditor independence is complex and contains both independence of mind and independence in appearance. The environment must perceive the auditor as independent if the audited information is to have any value for the users of the audited statements. The aim of this Master?s thesis is to examine how auditors can manifest their independence.

Auditing has long existed and it was in 1899 that the first Swedish organization for accountants SRS, Swedish Audit Society, was created and in 1923 that FAR, Association of Chartered Accountants, was formed. It was after the Kreuger crash in the 1930s that authorized auditors had their breakthrough. After the crash the accounting profession has endured fierce criticism when the audit was flawed and it was during this period that authorized auditors became more widespread, the concept was developed independently and the importance of auditor independence became evident.We have in our paper therefore chosen to focus on auditor independence and to make that it requires the independence to relate to something. Therefore we have chosen to focus on the interaction between the auditor and the client. To explain what independence means we have used the analysis model, the expectation gap and communication, and explain what the audit entails and what tasks the auditor has.

Aim: Earlier studies have investigated what impact the relationship between the auditor and their clients have on the auditor?s objectivity. There are different opinions about whether a close relationship harms or promote the auditors work. Furthermore there are studies that show what strategies the auditor (and client) tends to use in the negotiation between the two of them. On this basis we have chosen to study if there are any correlation between the nature of the auditor client relationship, the auditor?s negotiation strategy against the client and the auditor?s objectivity.Method: Because of our purpose to study if there is any correlation between the relationship, the negotiation strategies and the auditor´s objectivity we have chosen to implement a quantitative survey.

In today?s larger companies internal auditing is a common concept. For about twenty years ago companies? use of internal auditing took a turn from having been something popular to becoming more notorious. In this thesis we examine what might have caused that turn, We do this by looking at the vision and way of working for about twenty years ago and how the view of the area is today.

Background: Non-profit organizations have a large and significant role in Swedish society and Thunberg (2006) choose to express it like Sweden stops without nonprofit effort. But in several non-profit organizations, and then perhaps especially in sports, there exist problems with the economy. Tate (in Vermeer, Raghunandan & Dana, 2009) explains that the audit of non-profit organizations differs from the audit of for-profit companies as they often have differences in culture, organizational structure, financial requirements, accounting standards, financial reporting, financial statements and the auditor's risk environment. While the audit is different, it should also be noted that in the vast majority of non-profit organizations, there are no statutory requirements for audit, but despite this, 99% of all non-profit organizations have some form of audit regulated by their statute (Lunde?n & Lindblad, 2011).

This is a bachelor essay in business and administration with concentration in accounting. The purpose of the essay is to describe and analyse how an auditor, who has had a close cooperation with a small owner-led company in several years, can obstruct the specific familiarity-threat and if it appears, secure that it does not affect the independence of the auditor.The conclusion of this essay contains two models which intend to describe how an auditor, as a suggestion, can obstruct the specific friendship-threat and if it appears secure the independence of the auditor..

ABSTRACTThe auditor independence is constantly being questioned while discussing whether the auditor is really independent from the client. There are also factors threatening the auditor?s independency and decreasing the legitimacy towards the auditors. One example is the long-term relationship between the auditor and the client.The analysis model is the most useful for the auditor to control his independency. Former studies show that the auditor?s judgments about the threat to independence differed among the auditors.