Voluntary adoption of the International Standards on Auditing (ISA) in local government audits—empirical evidence from Finland

Abstract

A growing literature has identified several factors differentiating public and private sector auditing, which might advocate differences in audit regulation between these sectors. This article contributes to the existing literature by examining the voluntary adoption of International Standards on Auditing (ISA) in local government audits. The empirical data in this article is based on a survey of all Finnish authorized public sector auditors. The results show that voluntary adoption of ISA in local government audits is increasing, which can be explained using the institutional theory of influencing forces.