This study examines how (mis)conceptions of professional skepticism alongside auditing, impact the work of the auditor to mitigate the risk of fraud. Adopting phenomenographical analysis, this study draws on interpretive perspectives and adopts multiple case studies to expatiate on the conceptions.  It further draws on Professional Skepticism in Auditing from the Perspective of the New Institutional Theory (NIT) and its implications for mitigating fraud risk. Data corpora consist of interviews with 10 specialists from the big four firms and the experience built upon 3 cases of fraud from business environments in Brazil. The interviews lasted for approximately 50 minutes each and were later transcribed, and thematic analysis was performed. Findings identified high-order conceptions of auditing professional skepticism ranging from technical knowledge, knowledge of the business, questioning mind, critical evaluation, due professional care and auditor judgement; and low-order conceptions ranging from skills development, on-the-job and standard diligence-oriented, and planned procedures guided by role. What makes a sense in interpreting through New Institutional Theory embraces first-person point of view corroborating with idiographic contention. The main theoretical contribution of the study is the empirical disentangling of this (mis)conception of auding professional skepticism which challenges the practice of traditional auditing, noting, the entrenched super approach of the auditor to be gained overtime, noting cognitive ability of the auditor, assessing beyond the numbers and mitigating risks of fraud. The study raises opportunities for future research levying on myopic understanding of contextual influences, over-reliance on experimental methods, training and underdeveloped interventionist solution which could be taught of longitudinally.