Auditor’s Fear of Losing a Client: Views of Professional Accountants in the Big Audit Firms in Botswana

The objectives of this study are to explore the causes of auditors’ fear of losing a client and to establish acceptable remedies according to practitioners in big audit firms in Botswana. A questionnaire was used to solicit the views of respondents, and descriptive statistics were computed. The findings of this study revealed that auditors in big firms are not concerned with the possibility of losing a client in case they issue an opinion that is unpleasant to the management. The study also revealed that the most acceptable remedy to mitigate the fear of losing a client was the creation of a Public Companies Accountancy Oversight Board to police the auditing firms and the appointment of an effective audit committee to deal with all auditing matters. The implications of these findings are that standards, statutes and regulations that are currently in place to ensure the integrity of auditors’ work are adequate if they are accompanied by a more effective enforceability mechanism.