in sum, while auditor independence was once viewed mainly as a moral-ethical position, it is today increasingly seen as an object that can be regulated (or self regulated) through standards promulgated in codes of ethics and/or government regulation, and checked upon and verified through reviews and inspections. These discursive features are widely consistent with the notion of independence commitment, as defined above. As such, the notion of independence commitment views positively the regulation of professional accountants’ ethics – specifically through the formulation of independence standards and the deployment of a rigorous enforcement re ́gime. This viewpoint contrasts with the cultural tradition of character and idealism (Preston et al., 1995), which assumes that profes- sional ethics is grounded in the character of the individual, ethics regulation is largely unnecessary, and ethical standards mainly serve as general reminders of features of the correct character of individuals. It also differs from the position of stiff upholders of the free-market logic in markets for professional services, who basically assume that the forces of competition are sufficient as such, without any regulatory support, to control the behavior of individuals in accordance with the preferences of users of professional services