Riza Bahtiar Sulistyan

Type of the article: Research Article

The rapid shift toward remote auditing since the COVID-19 pandemic has made auditor digital competence and organizational information technology (IT) support decisive factors for sustaining audit quality, yet empirical evidence on how remote audit conditions shape these relationships remains limited. This study aims to examine the effects of auditor digital competence and IT support on audit quality and to test whether remote audit moderates these two relationships. A quantitative explanatory approach was used, applying Partial Least Squares – Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) with SmartPLS on data from 160 external auditors working at Big Four-affiliated public accounting firms operating in Malang City, Indonesia, selected through purposive sampling. The results show that auditor digital competence (β = 0.267; t = 3.374; p = 0.001) and IT support (β = 0.889; t = 3.134; p = 0.002) both have a positive and significant effect on audit quality (R2 = 0.414). Remote audit significantly strengthens the effect of auditor digital competence on audit quality (β = 0.148; t = 2.020; p = 0.045), but does not significantly moderate the effect of IT support on audit quality (β = 0.061; t = 0.925; p = 0.357). These findings indicate that auditor digital competence becomes increasingly critical for audit quality as audits move to remote settings, while the contribution of IT support remains consistently strong regardless of audit mode, offering practical implications for digital audit training and IT infrastructure policy in public accounting firms.

Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of facilities and infrastructure from the LPPM Universitas Gajayana during the research process. We also extend our appreciation to the Faculty of Economics and Business, Universitas Gajayana, for the institutional support and facilities that facilitated the completion of this research.