審計執行的評估是一個過程其對像為一個人、組織、系統、流程、公司或產品。在會計,審計是指行為確定信息的有效性和可靠性,并提供評估公司的內部控制制度。今天的審計的主要目的是驗證財務報表(奧喬,2006),這是表達一個觀點“主題”審計,完成工作的基礎上使用相關的方法示例計劃、選擇和評價(托馬斯等人,2002)提供合理的保證材料來進行相關的說明。

傳統上,審計主要是進行評估公司的財務信息,并提供合理的保證公司的內部控制制度。這個服務被稱為財務審計,它具有一定的強制性，每年為每個注冊公司進行財務審計。(CCH公司法編輯,2008)。

Audit is a process of evaluation performed to a person, organization, system, process, company or product. In accounting term, audit refers to an act to ascertain the validity and reliability of the information given, and to provide an assessment of the company’s internal control system. The primary aim of the audit today is the verification of financial statements (Ojo, 2006), that is to express an opinion on the ‘subject’ audited, based on the work done on using nonstatistical methods for sample planning, selection and evaluation (Thomas et al, 2002) as to provide reasonable assurance that the statements are free from material error.

Traditionally, audit is mainly carried out to assess a company’s financial information and to provide a reasonable assurance on the company’s internal control system. This service is called financial audit and it is a mandatory for every registered company to perform financial audit annually under the Company Act 1965 (CCH Company Law Editors, 2008). Auditors act as a third party to provide independent verification and credibility to the financial statement (Ojo, 2006). An auditor whom performed financial audit is called a General External Auditor. However, the word ‘audit’ is not confined to financial audit only. As the audit industry evolved, non-traditional areas are developed, such as audit on the company’s information system, company’s management performance and environmental concerns (Arrunada, 1999). As a result, there are now new audit professionals who specialize in security audits, information systems audits and also the environmental audits.

Charted accounting firms (or also terms as audit firms in our context), which range from one to two person offices to international firms employing thousands of professional members, are generally the primary providers of audit services (Fisher, 2001) it is observed that the audit industry is dominated by an oligopoly of the four largest international companies, which also commonly refers as the Big Four in the market (Beattie et al, 2003). The members of Big Four are Ernst & Young, KPMG, Deloitte and PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers) (Francis and Yu, 2009), and they have branches and offices that located all over the world. In the United Kingdom, the Big Four dominates the audit of the Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE) companies and reportedly held 90% of the market measured by audit fees in year 2002 (Beattie et al, 2003).#p#分頁標題#e#

large-scale audit firms, namely BDO and Crowe Horwath (Oh, 2011). These firms collectively audited 73% of the public interest entities (PIEs) in Malaysia, while their listed clients accounted for 93% of the total market capitalisation of the companies on Bursa Malaysia (Oh, 2011). PIEs include listed companies, banking and financial institutions (including Islamic banks and development financial institutions), insurance companies and takaful operators, and holders of Capital Market Services Licences (such as securities and futures trading firms, and fund management companies).

Audit, being one of the service industry is naturally labor intensive (Hsieh et al, 2009). In other words, the key success factor of an audit firm relies on its manpower which measured by the level of staffs’ competency. Henceforth, the attitude and behavior of employees are paramount as it represents a company’s image. The importance of human resource is also highlighted in the Audit Oversight Board (AOB) report that recently released on 31st March 2011 at Kuala Lumpur, which reported that human resource was an important factor in ensuring high quality audit, and so it is crucial to ensure appropriate workload of partners and other members of the audit team, as well as attracting new talent through a conducive work environment (Oh, 2011).

To maintain the staffs’ competitiveness, audit firms frequent conduct technical training and also workshop targeted to improve the employees’ soft skill. Hiltebeitel et al (2000) noted that large accounting firms normally incur a substantial amount in recruitment and traning costs. Large audit firms also provide a better remuneration package as compared to other small-scale audit firms, such as higher salary, provision for tuition fees and provision for professional membership fees, to name a few. Despite the lucratic package offered by the large audit firms, the staff turnover rate remains high (Hsieh et al, 2009). Therefore, it is a nightmare for an auditor to leave an audit firm especially for the Big Four, due to the unrecoverable training cost (William, 1993) and negative influence on the entire business operation (Hsieh et al, 2009) in terms of efficiency losses (Law, 2005). Thus, it is essentially important to recognize the factors that lead to the auditors’ turnover in order to preserve the company’s long-term growth. In relation to this, this study is designed to examine the relationship of role stress, job satisfaction and organizational commitment towards turnover intentions amongst auditors in Sabah.

The profession of public accounting has traditionally documented having exceptionally high turnover rates (Nelson and Sutton, 1990; Robertson et al, 1990; Connor et al, 1999). It is reported that the turnover intentions are the highest among staff with two to four year experience (Bullen and Martin, 1987). As cited by William (1991) from Grossman (1967) study, most national accounting firms retain less than 25 percent of their employees for four years; Capin (1969) elaborated that the retention rate was 85% after one year, and decline to 38% after five years and only 18% after ten years (cited by Wiliam, 1993).#p#分頁標題#e#

High employees’ turnover rate has become a serious problem among the big players in the audit industry as it translates into unrecoverable substantial professional training expenses (Hiltebeitel et al, 2000), undesirable higher costs and efficiency loss (Law, 2005) that might results in poor audit quality (Hill et al, 1994; Sanusi and Iskandar, 2007) which affects the public confidence with the accounting profession. The impact of a staff leaving a large audit firm is observed to be greater as compared to the small-scale audit firm due to the two reasons. Firstly, large audit firm especially the Big Four spends heavily on employees’ trainings (Hiltebeitel et al, 2000) as compared to the small-scale audit firms. Secondly, big corporate is normally audited by large audit firms due to their expertise and availability of resources. Henceforth, the departure of an auditor from a large audit firm would translate into efficiency loss due to insufficient manpower and might affect the audit quality (Hill et al, 1994), that ultimately bring down the company’s image.
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From the past research, high turnover rate in the audit firms is commonly relates to a number of factors such as job stress (Law, 2010; Hasin and Omar, 2007), low job satisfaction (Udo et al, 1997; Hasin and Omar, 2007; Hsieh et al, 2009) and leadership style (Hsieh et al, 2009). Most of the accounting literature that focuses on turnover intentions were studied in countries like the United States (Reed at al, 1994; Viator, 2001; Law, 2005; Tiamiyu, 2009), Hong Kong (Liu et al, 2001; Law, 2010), and Taiwan (Hsieh et al, 2009), to name a few. Despite substantial contribution of pervious research on turnover intentions amongst auditors, few extant studies have attempted to examine the relationship of role stress and job satisfaction on turnover intentions, with organizational commitment as mediator, especially in the Malaysia context. The present study attempts to develop and empirically examine the relationship of role stress, job satisfaction and organizational commitment towards turnover intentions amongst auditors in Sabah. The next section presents the research questions and objectives.

This study attempts to address the following research questions:
What is the relationship between role stress on the turnover intentions amongst the auditors in Sabah?
What is the relationship between job satisfaction on the turnover intentions amongst the auditors in Sabah?
Does organizational commitment mediate the relationships between role stress and job satisfaction on turnover intentions amongst the auditors in Sabah?

In an attempt to solve the problem as highlighted above, the research objectives are further defined as below:-#p#分頁標題#e#
To determine the relationship between role stress on the turnover intentions amongst auditors in Sabah.
To determine the relationship between job satisfaction on the turnover intentions amongst auditors in Sabah.
To examine the moderating effect of organizational commitment on the relationships between role stress and job satisfaction on the turnover intentions amongst the auditors in Sabah.

The scope of this study is being limited to the external auditors work in Sabah, Malaysia. Specifically, the samples are draw from external auditors who currently employed by four large audit firms in Sabah, namely Ernst & Yong, KPMG Peat Marwicks, Deloitte Kassim Chan and Crowe Howarth. All level of auditors is included: the associate (junior staff), senior auditor, audit manager, senior audit manager and audit partner; except for the interns and trainees as their leaving is guaranteed upon the completion of the training course. Audit firms are mainly located at the big cites or developed towns. Kota Kinabalu city, Sandakan town and Tawau town are identified as the places that have the majority number of auditors due to their big population and centralized business base. This study will focus on auditors work in Kota Kinabalu city, Sandakan town and Tawau town as the representative of the population.

Turnover can be categorized as voluntary or involuntary leaving. This study will focus on the voluntary turnover intentions only. The early research work carried out by Bullen and Flamholtz (1987) found that there were three general categories of determinants for voluntary turnover, which are (1) External determinants such as the state of economy and employment perceptions; (2) Organizational commitments such as job autonomy and responsibility, role clarity and job satisfaction; and (3) Individual determinants such as age, tenure, gender and personality. These three factors can be translated into (1) external environment, (2) organizational and (3) individual factors. Within this area, the factors related to the organizational will be examined under this scope of study due to its importance and contribution to the study of organizational behavior. Focusing on the organizational factors, researchers noted that role stress forms part of the job stress among the accounting professionals (Smith, 1990) and suggested that role stress is negatively related with turnover intentions (Fisher, 2001; Viator, 2001). Another significant organizational factor that considered an effective predictor of turnover intention is job satisfaction (Dole and Schroeder, 2001; Hasin and Omar, 2007; Muliawan et al, 2009; Hsieh et al, 2009). Studies also found that organization commitment has a pervasive effect on intention to leave in the public accounting sector (Stallwoth, 2003; Ketchand and Strawser, 1998). This study is thus undertaken to examine the relationship between role stress and job satisfaction on turnover intentions amongst auditors in Sabah, and further investigate the moderating effect of organizational commitment between the variables.#p#分頁標題#e#
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Significance of Study
The empirical literature on studying turnover intention in Western countries is well established. However, little research had been focus at different geographical area, for example: in Kota Kinabalu. The study of auditors’ turnover intentions in Malaysia is limited in scope, which is mainly concentrated on job stress and job performance. Past research on accounting literatures on turnover intentions carried out in the United States, Taiwan and Hong Kong focus on variables such as job stress, job satisfaction and personality trait, but less was found using organizational commitment as mediator. Organizational commitment has consistently been viewed as an important determinant to employee retention among engineers (Chang, 2006) and information system auditors (Muliawan et al, 2009). Research has shown that employees with high commitment level tend to be emotionally attached to the organization and they will feel an obligation to serve the company well. Therefore, it appears to be a gap in understanding how the role stress and job satisfaction can relates to turnover intention, and having organizational commitment as mediator. Research on relating the role stress, job satisfaction and organizational commitment on turnover intentions is thus needed. The research findings would help to bridge the gap in literatures study in the audit industry. It is also contribute to the existing knowledge to the service industry.

By conducting this study, the research findings are useful for the employers especially in the large audit firms to improve their employees’ retention scheme. The Audit Oversight Board (AOB) executive chairman Nik Mohd Hasyudeen Yusoff stressed the importance of human resource to ensure high quality audit (Oh, 2011). Thus, it is important for the management to be aware of how to retain the existing workforce and enhance the employees’ commitment level at the same time. Therefore, this study would provides an insight for the management to understand the relationship of role stress, job satisfaction, organizational commitment on turnover intention in order to develop high committed employees within the organization.

1.6 Operational Definitions of Key Variables In This Study
1.6.1 Turnover Intentions
1.6.2 Role Stress
1.6.2.1 Role Ambiguity
1.6.2.2 Role Conflict
1.6.3 Job Satisfaction
1.6.4 Organizational Commitment
1.7 Organization of the Report
The report is organized into five chapters, which is Introduction, Literature Review, Research Methodology, Analysis of Findings, and Discussion and Conclusion respectively.

Modern risk-based audit refers to the CPA risk by Pishendanwei professional judgment, evaluation Beishendanwei risk control, to determine the residual risk, execute additional audit procedures will reduce the residual risk to an acceptable level. Applied to coal companies that internal auditors in the internal controls of the auditee to fully understand and evaluate on the basis of analysis to determine the degree of risk and risk where Pishendanwei, the audit resources on high-risk audit areas, risk factors for different conditions, the degree of take appropriate audit strategy to strengthen the high-risk point of substantive testing, the internal audit residual risk to a minimum.#p#分頁標題#e#

Risk-based audit is based on the audited accounts and systems-oriented oriented audit on the basis of evolved. Accounts oriented audit is the initial audit methodology relations, mainly focusing on troubleshooting a variety. Applicable to audit early economic business is not very complex small-scale enterprises. Institutional infrastructure-oriented audit will mainly focus on the audit of internal control systems control all aspects of the review. In this audit mode, first by the auditor of the audited entity's internal control system tests to determine their trustworthiness, and then based on the results of further testing of internal controls of the audited entity's financial statements and other accounting data audit procedures.

With the modern market economy, business scale modern enterprise is growing, becoming more complex and diverse business activities. In this case, if only focusing on the audited entity's internal control review, it may mistakenly identify priority areas of audit, is not conducive to audit quality; may also make audit risk control. Thus, the risk-based audit emerged in bridging the audit expectation gap widening social factors.

Grasp audit risk from the macro. Risk-based audit work centers to achieve the transition from internal testing to risk assessment, the results of the risk assessment determines the auditors need to focus on high-risk audit areas and key audit projects, allocation of audit resources, the nature and quantity of audit evidence. In the process of risk assessment, and risk-based audit more emphasis on macroeconomic factors, such as: the audited entity's industry conditions, legal environment and regulatory environment, and other external factors that are, by the nature of the target of the audited entity's audit unit, strategies and related business risks.
Extensive use of analytical procedures. Risk assessment from risk-oriented audit to determine the final audit findings may apply analytical procedures. When using analytical procedures more effective than the details of the test will identify the level of checks can be received when the level of risk to analyze the program can be used as substantive procedures. Analysis program can be used in studies of the relationship between the financial data can also be used in the study of the relationship between financial data and non-financial data.

Enlarge the connotation of audit evidence, pay attention to the external evidence. Audit evidence includes understanding the auditees and environment to obtain evidence, including being audited financial statements on the basis of the information contained in the accounting records and other information. Other information from internal or external audit for the accounting records of information; Auditors by questioning, the audit procedures such as observation and check the information as well as its establishment or obtain information through reasonable inference conclusion. These are to expand the connotation of audit evidence. The auditor needs to obtain evidence from outside, to prove the appropriateness of the risk assessment results. In addition, the auditors expect management to provide evidence to prove that the fraud is obviously unrealistic, with the enterprise's employees, suppliers and distributors of general communication, external evidence acquired is an important way to obtain clues.#p#分頁標題#e#

The risk-oriented audit to adapt to the demands of the modern market economy environment. The high degree of uncertainty of the market economy makes people's expectations of the audit, the risk guidance auditing is adapted to the public demand for auditing expectation constantly improve and developed, would reduce audit risk to an acceptable level, to meet the demand of the public.
The risk-oriented audit conform to the requirements of modern audit target diversification. Risk-oriented audit will be audit unit in a larger economic environment, with the theories of stereoscopic observation to determine the various factors affecting enterprise management risk, from the enterprise of the industry status, the regulatory environment, business objectives, strategic planning to the mode of operation, business processes, such as internal and external aspects to analyze the evaluation of audit risk, the management risk of the auditees implanted into his own risk assessment, and throughout the course of the audit, thus in the process of auditing put emphasis on the evaluation of audit risk, and through the audit procedures to reduce audit risk to the auditor to acceptable levels.

Risk-oriented audit is audit resources reallocation of the original. By using the audit risk model, an analysis of the system of audit risk evaluation, to make the corresponding audit strategy, risk assessment and audit program closely linked, and on the basis of the audit resources properly allocated to high risk areas, improve the audit quality and efficiency.

Audit improve and perfect the legal system constantly has paved the way for the application of risk-oriented audit. The law of the law of the People's Republic of China on certified public accountants, accounting standards and guidelines for the implementation of the Chinese professional auditing standards system is constructed.

Audit the development of human resources provides the risk-oriented audit personnel guarantee. Formal institutions audit professional degree education, on-the-job auditor training, examination system and so on certified public accountants and auditors. All these measures for our country audit risk-oriented auditing profession application provides talent guarantee and technical support.