Traditionally, public-sector auditors are concerned with auditing the legality and regularity of government activities (compliance audits). However, such auditors are increasingly expected to conduct “performance audits” and communicate economic errors due to inefficiency, ineffectiveness, and poor economic decisions to the auditee. This type of role change is often accompanied by role stress. This study explores whether role stress—role conflict and role ambiguity—among local public-sector auditors and their perception of their new business partner role are precursors of their communication of detected economic errors to their auditees. Therefore, survey data from German local public sector auditors (i.e., municipalities and counties) are gathered and analyzed. Our results show that compare to those in other organizations, auditors who work in more formalized public-sector audit organizations are less likely to experience role ambiguity and role conflict and to communicate auditees’ economic errors more actively. Furthermore, we find that auditors who do not experience role ambiguity find it easier to see themselves as a business partner of the auditee and show more active economic error communication. The present study informs the literature on performance auditing by transferring the business partner concept to the context of public-sector auditing and applying a role theory perspective to reveal drivers of economic error communication.

中文翻译：

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公共部门审计师经济错误沟通的前因：来自德国的证据

传统上，公共部门审计师负责审计政府活动的合法性和规律性（合规性审计）。然而，人们越来越期望此类审计师进行“绩效审计”，并向被审计方传达由于效率低下、无效和糟糕的经济决策而导致的经济错误。这种角色转变往往伴随着角色压力。本研究探讨了当地公共部门审计师的角色压力（角色冲突和角色模糊）以及他们对新业务合作伙伴角色的看法是否是他们向受审核方传达发现的经济错误的先兆。因此，收集并分析了德国当地公共部门审计员（即市和县）的调查数据。我们的结果表明，与其他组织的结果相比，在更加正规的公共部门审计组织中工作的审计师不太可能遇到角色模糊和角色冲突，并且更积极地传达受审计方的经济错误。此外，我们发现，没有经历过角色模糊的审计师更容易将自己视为被审计方的业务合作伙伴，并表现出更积极的经济错误沟通。本研究通过将业务伙伴的概念转移到公共部门审计的背景下，并应用角色理论的视角揭示经济错误沟通的驱动因素，为绩效审计的文献提供了信息。我们发现，没有经历过角色模糊的审计师更容易将自己视为被审计方的业务伙伴，并表现出更积极的经济错误沟通。本研究通过将业务伙伴的概念转移到公共部门审计的背景下，并应用角色理论的视角揭示经济错误沟通的驱动因素，为绩效审计的文献提供了信息。我们发现，没有经历过角色模糊的审计师更容易将自己视为被审计方的业务伙伴，并表现出更积极的经济错误沟通。本研究通过将业务伙伴的概念转移到公共部门审计的背景下，并应用角色理论的视角揭示经济错误沟通的驱动因素，为绩效审计的文献提供了信息。