A Meta-Analysis on Locus of Control and Ethical Compliance among Professional Auditors in Nigeria

This study meta-analytically pooled and synthesized thirty studies related to ethical compliance and locus of control in the light of auditors’ independence and public and professional commitment. This was informed by the increasing corporate and audit failures recorded in the early 2000s despite existing professional ethics. Qualitative information were obtained from synthesized related studies and coded into quantitative data for analysis. The translated data were tested using OLS with the E-view 9 software for correlation and regression analyses. The regression analysis revealed a strong positive relationship between locus of control and ethical compliance, hence, the only hypothesis in the study was rejected, and the conclusion of the study is that, “ethical compliance is a function of an individual accountant or auditor’s locus of control”. Consequently, the study recommends that professional bodies and institutions should consider personality factors in the setting and implementation of professional ethics.


Introduction
The corporate world is inundated with several instances of corporate scandals, with cascading multiplier effect. The enormity of these phenomena has continued to attract concerted efforts from multiple stake holders. This much is evidenced in its landmark presence globally. Interestingly, the bigger economies have witnessed more of this narrative in their private sector domain than even the smaller economies resulting in various corporate reform programmes being initiated at addressing this ugly phenomenon. However, it continues to defy and undermine the espoused measures.
As recognized in the extant literature, at the hearth of this problem is the human factor. This is evidenced in the tail of culpabilities associated with the various reported and celebrated cases of the corporate giants that were mauled down by this overwhelming human creation. A look at the documented literature on corporate scandals details various corporate giants that became casualties of its devastating effect. For instance, the global financial meltdown that rocked the world in 2008 was a fall out of its manifestation. Also, the Too Big to Fail (TBTF) policy initiated in the United States of America was a fallout of public measures aimed at containing the catastrophic multiplier effects of giant corporate failures. This is indicative of the global nature of this problem.
Against the foregoing background, international or global, national governments, regulatory agencies and investors, etc. have continued to search for the antidote or insulin required to tame this monster. The reforms by way of regulatory controls, reporting requirements, corporate governance measures, etc. geared towards quarantining of this virus have not yielded the required result. What this scenario indicates, is the obvious fact that it is a human problem, as history has taught us over time the fact that human cravings can undermine even the best of laws and compromise the most efficient system. If this were not the case, there would have been no need for prisons and correctional facilities. Also, crime as clearly prohibited by various laws would have been eliminated from the human race. We appear to be in a circus. History keeps repeating itself, as if we are so configured to err.
However, premised on the fraud triangle theory, it is indicative that fraudulent conduct as a human problem is more of a function of individual rational domain and subsequent behavioural dispositioned. The behavioural disposition is the physical objectification of the rationalized mind set. Thus, an individual's behavioural disposition is always grounded in the individual's mind set. Psychologists have observed that even under peer group influence, the individual cognitive frame plays a significant role. This probably accounts for the fact that not all persons working in the corporate world or other settings are involved in unethical conducts. If it were so, no human entity that is not commonly owned would have survived. The concept of separation of ownership of business from control as espoused in the accounting template would have been irrelevant. Furthermore, as recognized by every world of human professional conduct, ethics is considered as a major defining plank of each profession. A cursory look at the various codes of ethics governing the various professional practices clearly throws out the human problem. Thus, ethics is a human problem (O'Bryan & Donnelly, 2011;Asni, Dali, Dharmawaty, & Syafitri, 2018;Sahla & Iryanie, 2018).
While, compliance is demanded with the threat of reprimand, self-regulation is often the preferred model. This much is emphasized by the numerous professional ethics compliance demand templates. It is in this regard that the current  Uyar & Güngörmüş (2013) found in their study that, "auditing is the most and only course in which ethics should be taught". This perhaps is due to the importance of objectivity and independence which the public and professional ethics are daily advocating for (Bakar, Rahman, & Rashid, 2005). Generally, auditors' independence is the joint probability that, in compliance with professional ethics and competence, auditors will find and report misstatements in financial statements presented before them (DeAngelo, 1981

Professional Ethics and Compliance
Generally, ethics can be described as a code of conduct that applies to everyday life (Alnasser, Shaban, & Al-Zubi, 2014). Ethics in the accounting parlance is a body of predetermined codes which guide the conduct of accountants towards reliability, accuracy and objectivity in discharging their duties (Enofe, Nakpodia, & Moruku, 2014). It is a desired and expected moral and legal type of behaviour from an accounting professional (Nwakpa, 2010). These codes are developed, written and issued by the International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants (IESBA).
Ethical considerations and compliance is drawing attention by the day (Nathan, 2015; Cameron & O'Leary, 2015). This is due to the complex nature of data processing and reporting in the 21 st century, which has made financial reporting and auditing susceptible to professional manipulations (Jones & Abraham, 2007  tions. This seems to suggest a relationship between ethics and locus of control.

Locus of Control
Locus of control is an important factor in the explanation of human behaviour in organisations (Spector, 1982). It emanated from the Social Learning Theory propounded by Rotter in 1954. Locus of control is the extent to which individuals believe that they can control events which affect them (Hurrell Jr., Levi, & Murphy, 2011). It is a personality trait that reflects the generalised belief that events in life are either controlled by one's own action or by external influences (Fagbola & Popoola, 2015). Locus of control can be internal or external (Fagbola & Popoola, 2015). However, internal locus of control has a much bigger impact on individuals than external locus of control (Igbeneghua & Popoola, 2011). Against this background, Neaves (1989) opined that internal locus of control and individual decision-making are significantly and statistically related. The projections above seem to associate behavioural actions which professional ethics seek to guide with locus of control. On this premise, the null hypothesis of this study is: H o : Ethical compliance is not a function of an individual's locus of control.

Related Empirical Studies
A meta-analysis of articles on professional ethics and locus of control in the light of independent, objective, reliable and effective judgement and decision-making, which is the core of auditing, and of course, the expectation of the public is necessary.

Methodology
This is a mixed study designed to obtain and convert desirable qualitative informa-  Table 1 is generated from the summarised findings and conclusions of 30 related articles studies in Table 2. The synthesized (qualitative) information in Table 2 are coded into quantitative data. This is achieved by introducing an alternate hy-   Source: Author's computation from synthesized studies in Table 2.

Data Presentation and Analysis
From the descriptive statistics in Table 3, the Jarque-Bera Chi Squares of ETC (9.84) and LOC (9.62) are both higher than the descriptive probability values (0.01 and 0.01). This implies that the result portrays a goodness of fit.

Hypothesis Testing and Findings
The correlation analysis result in Table 4 above shows that the dependent variable, ETC is strongly and positively related to the independent variable, LOC. Specifically, the correlation between ETC and LOC is approximately 99%. This implies a strong positive relationship. Open Journal of Accounting Dysfunctional audit behaviour is statistically related to a personality variable called locus of control.
14 2013 Ozbek, Alniacik, Akkilic, & Koc The moderating role of locus of control on the links between perceived ethical problem and ethical intentions of marketing managers in Turkey.
Locus of control moderates the relationships between perceived ethical problem and ethical intentions. Open Journal of Accounting The influence of the complexity of the task, locus of control and gender on the performance of auditors in Surubaya Indonesia.
Locus of control does not affect the performance of auditors.

2015 Fagbola & Popoola
Influence of locus of control, work motivation and information use on decision-making of managers in the Aviation industry in Nigeria.
Individual's locus of control has a positive and significant influence on managerial decision.

2017 Balogun
Emotional intelligence as a moderator between perceived organisational injustice and organisational deviance among public sector employees Emotional intelligence significantly moderates the relationship between the three dimensions of perceived organisational injustice and deviance.

2017 Zarefar & Zarefar
The influence of ethics and locus of control to do whistle blowing intention with profession of auditor and non-auditor as a moderating variable.
There is a negative relationship between locus of control and whistle blowing in auditing.    is less than 5% or 0.05 which implies that the dependent variable (ETC) is statistically significant. Using the bench-mark of 2.0 and above against the t-Statistic regression outcomes, the regression result is greater than 2.0. This shows that the dependent variable in the research model is statistically significant, and therefore implies that the Null Hypothesis is to be rejected in favour of the Alternate. This is because the rule for acceptance and rejection of hypothesis using the t-Statistic says that, "if t-Calculated (Statistic) in the regression model is higher than t-Tabulated in the t-test table, the Null Hypothesis (H 0 ) is rejected for the Alternate (H A ) and vice versa". Consequently, the regression analysis reveals that, "ethical compliance is a function of an individual's locus of control".

Conclusion, Limitation and Recommendations
This study seeks to examine the relationship between locus of control and professional ethical compliance. It is motivated by the numerous instances of corporate scandals and their debilitating effect. Premised on the fraud triangle, the rationale domain and behavioural disposition of practicing auditors (in the light of professional independence) was qualitatively sought by meta-analysing and synthesizing the assertions, findings and conclusions of thirty related studies from 1996 to 2019. The meta-analysed qualitative information were translated to quantitative measurable data through coding and were tested with E-View 9 for correlation. Open Journal of Accounting The test results reveal a strong statistically significant association between locus of control and ethical compliance. Specifically, the regression analysis result shows that locus of control significantly influences accountants particularly auditors in the performance of their duties. This is in tangent with over ninety percent of the meta-synthesized studies in Table 2. Consequently, this study concludes that, ethics is not an end in itself, but a means to an end. Certainly, ethical compliance is more of a personal decision than a collective goal. Above all, ethical compliance is a function of an individual accountant or auditor's locus of control. It is therefore recommended that professional bodies and institutions should note the significance of individual differences and locus of control in the establishment and enforcement of professional ethics.