Auditor’s technical, digital, and creativity skills and their role in supporting audit outcomes in light of digital transformation strategy

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Abstract

The ability to ingeniously include aspects of surprise in audits is a requirement vital to the auditing profession (Herron & Cornell, 2021). The study investigates the auditor’s technical, digital, and creativity skills and their role in supporting the quality of audit outcomes in light of the digital transformation strategy. The study used partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to test the hypotheses. A questionnaire was distributed to 263 auditors from small and medium-sized Jordanian auditing firms and offices, comprising the study sample for data analysis. The study’s results proved that the auditor’s technical, digital, and creativity skills significantly enhance the quality of audit outcomes by verifying the correction of any significant defects found or reported in the audit report, meeting the expectations of audit clients, and collecting audit evidence. Considering that digitization is both a challenge and a vital opportunity for auditing, the results provided insightful information that is useful to all relevant parties that utilize the audit work’s findings to inform their decisions. Given its critical significance in improving the quality of audit outcomes, this study offers significant positive results on an auditor’s digital competence impact and fostering auditor creativity on the quality of audit outcomes, which is noteworthy given its essential importance in supporting audit quality. Therefore, the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board’s (IAASB) Framework invites audit firms to consider advanced methods for raising the caliber of their audits.

Keywords: Technical Skills, Digital Skills, Creativity Skills, Audit Outcomes, External Auditors

Authors’ individual contributions: Conceptualization — Y.S.A.F.; Methodology — Y.S.A.F.; Formal Analysis — M.E.A.-H.; Data Curation — M.E.A.-H.; Investigation — Y.S.A.F. and M.E.A.-H.; Validation — Y.S.A.F. and M.E.A.-H.; Writing — Original Draft — Y.S.A.F. and M.E.A.-H.; Writing — Review & Editing — Y.S.A.F.; Visualization — Y.S.A.F. and M.E.A.-H.; Supervision — Y.S.A.F.; Project Administration — M.E.A.-H.

Declaration of conflicting interests: The Authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

JEL Classification: M41, M42, O33

Received: 14.08.2024
Accepted: 14.04.2025
Published online: 18.04.2025

How to cite this paper: Al Frijat, Y. S., & Al-Hajaia, E. M. (2025). Auditor’s technical, digital, and creativity skills and their role in supporting audit outcomes in light of digital transformation strategy. Corporate Board: Role, Duties and Composition, 21(1), 60–70. https://doi.org/10.22495/cbv21i1art6