Investigating the Relationship between the Similarity of Demographic Factors in the Formation of Audit Teams from the Perspective of the Sociological Law of Homophily

Until now, the criterion for selecting auditors and forming audit teams has been based on the experience, knowledge and expertise of individuals, but whether auditors, if they have the authority and right to choose, are willing to be in a team and cooperate or not cooperate with other people. Whether they have that team personally or not, and what criteria they prioritize for this cooperation, is an issue that has not been addressed so far. The purpose of this research is to investigate the relationship between demographic factors in the formation of audit teams from the perspective of the sociological law of homophily for the first time in Iran. The current research is practical in terms of purpose and it has studied nine demographic characteristics among 135 auditors working in auditing institutions, members of the public accountants society, with the help of a questionnaire in 2022. These features include gender, age, marital status, degree, field of study, year of entering the university and province of residence, position and years of experience of the auditors. In order to measure the characteristics of homophily in the network of auditors, Newman's network measurement model (2010) has been used. The findings of this research showed that all 9 characteristics of demographic homophily are effective in selecting auditors to form the audit team due to having a positive weight coefficient. Also, based on the weighting factor obtained in the findings of the research, the highest priority for auditors in choosing colleagues is gender, then the two components of education degree and the province of residence, and the lowest priority is the years of experience of people and then the marital status of auditors. The findings of the research showed that in Iran's auditing profession, along with religious and professional laws, there are also laws of homophily.