Is There No Sin Down South of the Equator? Brazilian Auditors’ Perception of the Gendered and Racialized Dynamics in Audit Firms

Abstract

We aim to analyze the perception of Brazilian auditors regarding differences in career development for women and black people. Methodologically, we conducted a web survey totaling 329 answers from professionals with diverse profiles regarding the length of service, job position, age, sex, and race. The results show that even men perceive the career as being harder for women. An important finding is that the main difficulties are found in medium and small-sized auditing companies. We contribute to the literature on three fronts: (i) by expanding the theme to cover medium and small-sized companies; (ii) by bringing to the Brazilian scenario the discussion on the perception of differences in the careers of external auditing professionals; and (iii) by contrasting perceptions about the career and the environment for professionals from diverse groups in terms of sex and race. As a practical implication, we conclude that if there is an interest in turning audit into a more just and equitable profession, much has to be changed in auditing careers, even in companies situated to the South of the Equator, so that the sins from elsewhere would not be the same here, sins that were imposed by a colonial conceptualisation of gender and race.