Remote audit as a moderator of the relationship between auditor digital competence, IT support, and audit quality

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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.

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    • Figure 1. Structural model (SEM) results
    • Figure 2. Simple slope plot of Auditor Digital Competency (ADC) on Audit Quality at low, mean, and high levels of Remote Audit (RA)
    • Figure 3. Simple slope plot of Information Technology Support (ITS) on Audit Quality at low, mean, and high levels of Remote Audit (RA)
    • Table 1. Respondent demographics
    • Table 2. Cross loadings
    • Table 3. Construct reliability and validity
    • Table 4. HTMT results
    • Table 5. Inner VIF value
    • Table 6. R2, Q2, and f2
    • Table 7. Hypotheses testing
    • Conceptualization
      Oyong Lisa, Riza Bahtiar Sulistyan, Imanita Septian Rusdianti, Umi Muawanah, Djuni Farhan
    • Data curation
      Oyong Lisa, Riza Bahtiar Sulistyan, Imanita Septian Rusdianti, Umi Muawanah
    • Formal Analysis
      Oyong Lisa, Riza Bahtiar Sulistyan, Imanita Septian Rusdianti, Umi Muawanah, Djuni Farhan
    • Methodology
      Oyong Lisa, Riza Bahtiar Sulistyan, Djuni Farhan
    • Resources
      Oyong Lisa, Umi Muawanah, Djuni Farhan
    • Software
      Oyong Lisa, Imanita Septian Rusdianti, Djuni Farhan
    • Supervision
      Oyong Lisa, Imanita Septian Rusdianti
    • Writing – original draft
      Oyong Lisa, Riza Bahtiar Sulistyan, Imanita Septian Rusdianti, Umi Muawanah, Djuni Farhan
    • Writing – review & editing
      Oyong Lisa, Riza Bahtiar Sulistyan, Imanita Septian Rusdianti, Umi Muawanah, Djuni Farhan
    • Validation
      Riza Bahtiar Sulistyan
    • Visualization
      Riza Bahtiar Sulistyan, Umi Muawanah, Djuni Farhan
    • Project administration
      Imanita Septian Rusdianti, Umi Muawanah
    • Funding acquisition
      Umi Muawanah, Djuni Farhan
    • Investigation
      Djuni Farhan
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Accounting and Financial Control
Accounting and Financial Control