Auditing Information Systems, Second Edition

14.8. MOTIVATION OF AUDITORS

Motivation of auditors is as complex a subject as for any group of individuals. Everyone has different wants, needs, and desires, and is therefore motivated by different factors. To delve deeply into human psychology and management theory as to all of the possible motivating factors that exist would be far beyond the scope of this section. Instead, I focus on two factors that can be highly successful at motivating auditors if effectively implemented: creativity in one's job and goaloriented financial incentives.

Job Creativity

Many people, including auditors, are motivated by a certain degree of creativity in their jobs and other aspects of their lives. In auditing, creativity may mean the freedom to pursue new approaches to auditing a particular process; to learn about new technologies, tools, and techniques; to earn new certifications; to create new training tools; to perform research and write about the results; and the like. In short, creativity means the ability to search outside the standard methodology that may have been previously established. Sometimes the risk of allowing this sort of creativity may not result in the most efficient deployment of audit resources. However, if granted within reasonable constraints, the ability to practice creativity can often produce significant rewards to the organization through creative solutions as well as the auditors' satisfaction in terms of job fulfillment.

Therefore, successful audit managers should ...