According to a recent doctoral thesis, the issues of the
professional judgment, known in the international literature as “judgment and
decision–making process” have an inter-disciplinary character, being treated in
such domains as psychology, medicine, law and accounting. The professional
approach to this process offers a high level of complexity, which is also
revealed by the large number of research papers from the specialized literature.
This highlights the diversity of the factors that contribute to the
substantiation of the professional judgment and of the decision making process.
The thesis continues this research, focusing on the auditing-accounting activity area. Accordingly, it studies the notion of professional judgment seen both as a
general concept and as a multi-professional perspective, in order to be able to
identify the general elements that define and characterize the process of the
professional judgment. The most discussed subjects refer to the wide range of
factors that contribute to the reasoning realization or to the divergent
opinions regarding the approach based on principles or rules. The application
of a professional reasoning which starts from well defined principles offers a
broader scope for auditors to apply their experience, knowledge and abilities
acquired over time, while constraining the activity in a set of strict rules
that encompass the perspective of a diversified approach to the problems that
professionals face.
To learn more, refer to the 2012 thesis on “The
Background of Professional Judgment in Statutory Audit” by Phd Student Georgeta Ancuţa Șpan,
Faculty of Economic Sciences and Business Administration, Department of
Accounting and Auditing, Babeș-Bolyai
University.
