EXPLORING UNDERLYING FACTORS GOVERNING THE PROTECTION OF STAKEHOLDERS’ INTEREST: STATUTORY AUDITORS’ ROLE IN THE BACKDROP OF CORPORATE ACCOUNTING CORRUPTION

Business enterprise develops and attains its maturity within the society with the help of stakeholders. The main motive of business operation is to earn profit and create value for the stakeholders. If the management fails to attain this end, stakeholders would terminate their financial relationship with the company leading to its demise. So, in order to keep the stakeholders, management of some businesses often resort to some malpractices. Manipulating financial reports to show a strong accounting profit and good balance sheet position is one such bad practice. Stakeholders based on the impressive result continue to increase their financial relationship with the company until the huge deviation between actual and reported result is revealed. Against this backdrop, the study explores the underlying factors governing the protection of stakeholders’ interest in the backdrop of corporate accounting corruption.