Abstract
The worldwide financial crises have prompted inquiries on the caliber and extent of independent audits. As a response to the prevailing circumstances faced by numerous private banks, including bottlenecks and bankruptcies, and in line with the Central Bank of Iraq's objective to enhance the efficacy of external auditing, the Central Bank mandated the joint audit approach for the examination of private bank accounts pertaining to the fiscal year's final financial statements. The current year is 2016. The primary objective of the present study is to examine the impact of altering the acceptance of joint audit on the relationship between audits quality and earnings management in banks that are listed on the Iraqi Stock Exchange Organization. The research utilized a statistical population consisting of all 44 banks that were admitted to the Iraqi Stock Exchange. From this population, a sample of 15 banks that applied for joint audit was selected for the purposes of this study. The initial hypothesis test findings indicate a lack of statistical significance in the association between earnings management and audit quality. However, when considering the independent variable of auditor expertise as a metric for assessing audit quality, a positive and statistically significant relationship between earnings managementand audit quality is observed. The findings from the second hypothesis test of the study indicate that there is no evidence to support the notion that joint audit plays a moderating effect in the association between audit quality and profit management.
