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The Validity of Auditor Industry Specialization Measures
Abstract
In this research note, we examine the validity of the measures of auditor industry specialization in empirical archival audit research. Industry specialist auditors are auditors who have developed a specific expertise and are therefore able to provide high quality and more efficient services to their clients. Over the years, research scholars have developed a multiplicity of measures of industry specialization (ISP). We compare 30 ISP measures and find that the use of different ISP proxies results in inconsistent classifications of auditors as specialists. Using audit fee and earnings quality models, we further show that these inconsistencies have a significant effect on the inferences drawn from the models using ISP measures. We conclude that ISP measures exhibit a low degree of internal and external construct validity. This represents an important measurement challenge for researchers and casts some doubts on the robustness of prior empirical evidence found in auditor industry specialization research.
... Audit fees research is inconclusive on the issue of audit fee and competence. Some research argues that experienced auditors receive higher audit fee payments (Audousset-Coulier et al., 2016;Fung et al., 2012). These auditors seem more motivated to help stakeholders get trustworthy financial records, reducing agency conflict-induced information asymmetry (Habib, 2011). ...
... Only Jordan requires audit costs in the annual reports of listed companies. Audousset-Coulier et al. (2016) prefer audit fee-based IS metrics. Audit prices reflect client size, complexity and risks. ...
... Audit prices reflect client size, complexity and risks. Because of businesses' non-disclosure of audit fees in many contexts, only a few IS studies have used audit fee-based indicators (Audousset-Coulier et al., 2016). Audit pricing research on IS's impact on audit fees varies because different calculation components determine client shares and different criteria allocate IS. ...
Purpose-Motivated by the disastrous impact of COVID-19 on the world's economies, the purpose of this study is to examine its effect on the association between auditor industry specialization and external audit fees, referring to two time periods: before and during COVID-19. Design/methodology/approach-A quantitative analysis based on the ordinary least squares regression is performed, using 3,200 company-year observations from 2005 to 2020 in Jordan to test the hypotheses. The qualitative component is a textual analysis of firms' annual reports that support the quantitative analysis findings.
... The higher audit fee must provide higher benefits output because the fee reflects the quality of the audit. Audit fees charged by auditor specialist tend to be higher because they will develop different higher audit procedures, and produce higher working hours as a result, the value of the audit fee increases along with the high audit effort and audit hours (Audousset-Coulier et al., 2016;Bae et al., 2019). Leventis et al., (2011) initiated research related to product market competition (PMC) and audit fees at a public accounting firm in Greece. ...
... These results are supported by the audit pricing theory by Simunic (1980) higher audit fee value reflects a higher level of audit quality. Research by Audousset-Coulier et al., (2016) showed that the fee premium is a reflection of auditor industry specialization that represents high audit quality. ...
This research aims to examine the influence of product market competition on audit fees and the role of auditor industry specialization as a moderating variable. Using probability sampling method, 1,018 non-financial companies listed on Indonesia Stock Exchange from 2014 to 2018 were selected as research samples. Multiple linear regression was used to analyzed the data. The results showed that product market competition has a negative significant effect on audit fees, while auditor industry specialization has a positive significance or weakens the relationship between product market competition and audit fees. In other words, auditor industry specialization stimulates the increase audit fees even in a competitive market.
... We based Industry Specialist Auditor on the measure of office size developed by Francis et al. (2013), and we augmented the measure by allowing it to capture industry expertise, as represented by a larger number of clients in a particular industry. This measure is continuous and thus avoids common criticisms of industry expertise variables that use arbitrary cutoffs or only define industry specialization as the firm with the largest market share of industry clients (Audousset-Coulier et al. 2015). H2 predicts a positive coefficient on θ 1 when Industry Specialist Auditor is the dependent variable. ...
Recent corporate governance failures have heightened stakeholder expectations that the board of directors engage in robust oversight of the firm’s risk management processes. This expectation is in line with widely embraced enterprise risk management frameworks, which assert that strong board risk management is a key component of an entity’s risk management process. We use a hand-coded measure of board engagement in risk management from the recent literature to measure the robustness of that oversight for a sample of large, publicly traded U.S. firms and examine the relationship between robust board risk management (board risk management) and firm-wide strategies for mitigating financial reporting risk. While controlling for board composition-related characteristics, we found a positive association between robust board risk management processes and two avenues for mitigating financial reporting risk (i.e., more effective internal control over financial reporting and the selection of industry specialist auditors). Our results indicate that firms with more robust board risk management are associated with fewer actual instances of materially misstated financial statements and less earnings management.
... In conjunction with Audousset-Coulier et al. (2016), who document that using different proxies for industry specialization provides inconsistent classifications of the auditors as specialists, we use additional metrics for industry specialization of the individual audit partner and reran our testable models equations (1) and (2). ...
Purpose
This study aims to examine the relationship between the individual auditor’s industry specialization and the audit report lag (hereafter ARD). Further, it explores whether changing in the audit reporting requirement (i.e. the adoption of ISA701) influences the auditor’s industry specialization effect on the ARD.
Design/methodology/approach
A large data set of companies listed on the NASDAQ OMX Stockholm over the period 2010–2019 has been analyzed. Least squares regressions have been estimated to provide empirical evidence for the researched hypotheses.
Findings
The research findings indicate that the ARD is shorter for client firms audited by an industry specialist audit partner. Testing for the moderating role of changing in the auditing reporting regulation on the relation between the audit partner’s industry specialization and the ARD, the authors reveal that all client firms (except client firms with industry specialist audit partners) experienced an increase in the ARD. Overall, the baseline regression findings are found to be robust to the endogenous auditor choice and multiple measures of both the ARD and the auditor’s industry specialization.
Originality/value
This paper provides novel evidence on the relationship between the audit reporting lag and industry specialization from the individual auditor perspective, an issue that has hitherto been unexplored. The regression results further contribute to the upsurge debate about the consequences of changing in the audit reporting model by providing consistent support for the importance of industry specialization of the audit partner in minimizing costs derived from the former requirement.
... Por lo tanto, ESPECIALISTA toma el valor 1 cuando la firma de auditoría es un especialista de la industria y 0 en caso contrario. Los auditores son tratados como especialistas si son líderes de la industria, definida por tener una participación de mercado mayor al 30 % (Audousset-Coulier et al., 2016). Inicialmente, esperamos que los especialistas de la industria de auditoría incluyan una descripción más legible de la CCA en su informe de auditoría, tanto del riesgo como de los procedimientos realizados, debido a su mayor conocimiento del cliente y su industria. ...
En los últimos años el contenido del informe de auditoría ha evolucionado de manera significativa. España, a través de las NIA-ES, ha establecido las normas que regulan su contenido, contemplando la incorporación de una sección que informa sobre los riesgos más significativos que han atraído la atención del auditor. En este artículo estudiamos si la inclusión de las cuestiones clave de auditoría (CCA) ha tenido un impacto real sobre la calidad de la auditoría, medida a través del estudio del valor comunicativo de los informes de auditoría. Concretamente analizamos la legibilidad de los riesgos vinculados a la CCA, estudiando cuáles son las características del cliente y de la firma de auditoría que determinan dicha legibilidad. Los resultados de nuestro estudio empírico, aplicado a las empresas del Ibex 35 durante el periodo en los que se han publicado estas cuestiones en España (2017-2019), muestran que la legibilidad, tanto en la descripción de los riesgos como de los procedimientos de auditoría empleados, es baja, siendo las variables vinculadas a la firma de auditoría las que ejercen una mayor incidencia en la legibilidad de las CCA. La decisión de elección de una firma de auditoría, el cambio de auditor y la especialización son elementos que inciden claramente sobre la legibilidad. Las implicaciones de esta investigación muestran que debe trabajarse en mejorar la claridad del mensaje del auditor, lo cual repercutirá sobre la comprensibilidad del contenido del informe de auditoría. Por ello, las conclusiones de esta investigación son de gran relevancia para reguladores, profesionales y para académicos.
... Auditor especialista Es una variable dummy que toma el valor de 1 cuando el auditor es especialista en la industria donde opera el cliente y 0 en caso contrario. Los auditores se consideran especialistas si son líderes de la industria, definidos por tener una participación de mercado mayor al 30 % (Audousset-Coulier et al., 2016). ...
La inclusión en el informe de auditoría de los riesgos más significativos está siendo, en los últimos años, el punto central del debate en torno a la auditoría. En este artículo analizamos las Cuestiones Clave de Auditoría en España (CCA) y en las Critical Audit Matters en EE. UU. (CAM) en una muestra de 35 empresas de cada país durante los años 2019 y 2020. Dichos conceptos difieren, ya que las CAM solamente recogen como riesgos aquellos que tienen un reflejo en una cuenta contable, mientras que las CCA habla de riesgos significativos, vinculados a cuentas contables o no. Esta diferencia crea problemas en la consecución de una armonización internacional de la auditoría y emite al mercado informaciones que pueden ser equívocas para los stakeholders. Nuestro estudio empírico aporta evidencia pionera comparada sobre las CCA en España y las CAM en EE. UU., llamando especialmente la atención el hecho de que los riesgos vinculados al cumplimiento legal y normativo, tecnología de la información y otros riesgos, no aparecen incluidos por los auditores en los informes de auditoría de las empresas estadounidenses al no estar vinculados a anotaciones contables. Adicionalmente, el estudio muestra que la firma auditora, la especialización del auditor y el sector de actividad inciden en el tipo de cuestiones incluidas por los auditores en el informe de auditoría. Las reflexiones que planteamos en este artículo, utilizando los resultados de nuestro análisis empírico, evidencian que se pueden crear desfases de información para los stakeholders que analicen empresas estadounidenses y lo que es todavía más confuso, pone en peligro culminar el proceso de armonización internacional de la auditoría.
... The first one is balancing financial reporting transparency and avoiding presenting excessive information (due to misuse of rivals). The other is how much information should be delivered, for whom and when (Audousset-Coulier, Jeny, & Jiang, 2016). Given the presence of the financial reporting process, its objective (presenting information to users), and regarding the stance of firms (publishing information as least as possible) and also the costs of financial reporting, including information collection and processing, legal, political and competition costs and costs that limit the behavior of managers, in some cases, it is observed that managers have some confidential information about the firm that brings about information asymmetry. ...
Purpose
The present study aims to assess the impact of narcissism, self-confidence and auditor's characteristics on audit report readability for companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange.
Design/methodology/approach
The study’s statistical population comprises firms listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange. The present research used a systematic elimination method, and 1,162 firm-year observations were obtained for seven years from 2012 to 2018. Three variables including auditor tenure, audit fee and audit specialization are used for measuring auditing features. The Fog index is used as a proxy for measuring audit report readability. In addition, in this paper, four regressions, including fixed effects, random effects, pooled and T +1, are used to estimate reliable coefficients.
Findings
The findings show a negative and significant relationship between auditor’s characteristics (tenure, fee and specialization) and audit report readability. Moreover, the variables of the auditor’s narcissism, self-confidence and mandatory auditor change have a positive and significant association with audit report readability. This study lends support to the theories of personality disorder and behavioral decision.
Originality/value
Since narcissism and self-confidence are two characteristics that shape an individual’s character and personality, some involved behavioral factors in auditors’ characteristics contribute to their decisions. The effects of these should be detected to enhance the decision-making process. The said factors significantly impact audit report readability. Hence, this paper attempts to assess the effect of the said factors on audit report readability.
... Researchers agree that acceptable CG practices are valued increasingly (Johl et al., 2016). Good CG adds value to a company by closing the information gap between the resource handler and the ultimate owner and keeping both parties' interests on the same page (Audousset-Coulier et al., 2016). The implementation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002 increases the effectiveness of CG in reducing agency costs and creating firm value. ...
Purpose-The purpose of this research is to look into the governance-performance relationship in the context of critical firm characteristics, such as firm size. Design/methodology/approach-Based on total assets, sample firms were classified as small or large. The governance index, which is based on 29 governance provisions covering the audit committee, board committee, ownership and compensation structure of the respective firm, measures governance quality among sample firms. A higher governance index indicates a higher level of governance quality and vice versa. Accounting and market value measures are used to determine firm profitability. The authors used the t wo-stage least square (2SLS) method of estimation of the model to eliminate the simultaneous equation bias. Findings-Corporate governance (CG) appears to have a positive impact on accounting return and market indices (Tobin's Q), but it has little impact on return on equity. In terms of firm size, larger companies profited more from better governance implementation than smaller firms that lacked these principles, thus improving CG. The findings indicate that small businesses should improve their governance mechanisms to reap the benefits of CG in terms of increased profitability. Research limitations/implications-There are certain drawbacks to this research. First, the authors omitted qualitative aspects of CG from the CG index, such as the board's decision-making process, directors' perceptions of the board's position and directors' age and qualifications. Such a qualitative component will improve the governance index in the future while building the governance index. Second, as the current study only looks at the nonfinancial sector, caution should be exercised before applying the findings to the entire population. Practical implications-The findings show that companies that follow good governance standards have better accounting and market efficiency than those that do not. As a result, good governance practices can help firms in developing countries improve their performance. Academic researchers, regulators, investors, lenders and practitioners can find the findings useful in establishing a true relationship between firm performance and CG practices in Pakistan. Originality/value-The relationship between governance and profitability in the context of firm size is examined in this research. Firms with varying resources and ability to implement CG codes have varying effects on profitability. To the authors' knowledge, there was a gap in the literature that addressed this topic in the local context.
... Researchers agree that acceptable CG practices are valued increasingly (Johl et al., 2016). Good CG adds value to a company by closing the information gap between the resource handler and the ultimate owner and keeping both parties' interests on the same page (Audousset-Coulier et al., 2016). The implementation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002 increases the effectiveness of CG in reducing agency costs and creating firm value. ...
Purpose
The purpose of this research is to look into the governance–performance relationship in the context of critical firm characteristics, such as firm size.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on total assets, sample firms were classified as small or large. The governance index, which is based on 29 governance provisions covering the audit committee, board committee, ownership and compensation structure of the respective firm, measures governance quality among sample firms. A higher governance index indicates a higher level of governance quality and vice versa. Accounting and market value measures are used to determine firm profitability. The authors used the two-stage least square (2SLS) method of estimation of the model to eliminate the simultaneous equation bias.
Findings
Corporate governance (CG) appears to have a positive impact on accounting return and market indices (Tobin’s Q), but it has little impact on return on equity. In terms of firm size, larger companies profited more from better governance implementation than smaller firms that lacked these principles, thus improving CG. The findings indicate that small businesses should improve their governance mechanisms to reap the benefits of CG in terms of increased profitability.
Research limitations/implications
There are certain drawbacks to this research. First, the authors omitted qualitative aspects of CG from the CG index, such as the board’s decision-making process, directors’ perceptions of the board’s position and directors’ age and qualifications. Such a qualitative component will improve the governance index in the future while building the governance index. Second, as the current study only looks at the nonfinancial sector, caution should be exercised before applying the findings to the entire population.
Practical implications
The findings show that companies that follow good governance standards have better accounting and market efficiency than those that do not. As a result, good governance practices can help firms in developing countries improve their performance. Academic researchers, regulators, investors, lenders and practitioners can find the findings useful in establishing a true relationship between firm performance and CG practices in Pakistan.
Originality/value
The relationship between governance and profitability in the context of firm size is examined in this research. Firms with varying resources and ability to implement CG codes have varying effects on profitability. To the authors’ knowledge, there was a gap in the literature that addressed this topic in the local context.
... First, there is no consensus on the various measures of industry specialization research, which are the best and representative (Audousset-Coulier et al., 2014;Francis, 2004). Audousset-Coulier et al. (2016) examined the construct validity of industry specialization measurements based on archival studies from audit research and concluded that there was low internal and external validity of these measurements. Other limitations are proxies of audit quality represented by aggressive earnings management using discretionary accruals and real transactions, and modified audit opinions are sensitive to regression models used. ...
This study investigates the association of industry specialization at the engagement partner level and audit firm level with aggressive earnings management and modified audit opinion. The study employs a sample of 570 firm-year observations of manufacturing industries on the Indonesia Stock Exchange from 2014 to 2018 using a binary logistic regression model. First, this study finds no evidence of a relationship between industry specialization at the engagement partner level and audit firm level with aggressive discretionary accruals. Furthermore, the author finds evidence of a positive association between industry specialization at the audit firm level and aggressive real earnings management due to high audit quality. Finally, the study finds evidence that industry specialization at audit firm level is likely to issue modified audit opinion. This study contributes to the study of industry specialization at the engagement partner level and audit firm level, which is rarely performed in Indonesia. Policy makers and capital market players might learn some lessons from the audit quality of external auditors with industry specialists as the gatekeeper of the capital market. Moreover, this study has provided a valuable perspective to practitioners, researchers, and policy makers in other emerging markets regarding the quality of industry specialization at the partner and audit firm level.
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the impact of the auditor's characteristics on bank's earnings management (EM) through loan loss provisions (LLP) for African banks.
Design/methodology/approach
This study is based on 360 bank-year observations from 14 African countries for the period 2011–2016, discretionary LLP is used as proxy for EM. Panel regressions have been conducted.
Findings
The authors' findings reveal that auditor's industry specialization and tenure exert a negative and significant influence on the extent of LLP-based EM. The results also show that total fees paid to the banks' auditors are positively related to the extent of EM. In a further analysis, the authors find that industry specialist auditors are more effective in reducing the incoming-increasing. Similarly, the positive relationship previously found between EM and total fees still holds only for income-increasing. Moreover, auditor tenure negatively impacts both income-increasing and income-decreasing EM. As for auditor change, results reveal differential effect on EM.
Originality/value
The current research extends prior literature and provides an understanding of an important external monitoring mechanism, the external audit, within African banks. To the best of the authors' knowledge, there is a paucity of cross-country studies that has addressed the influence of auditors' attributes on banks' EM in Africa.
This study examines whether and how individual-level auditor industry expertise affects audit pricing and audit quality. Using 11,650 firm-year observations from China, where an audit report must be signed by two auditors, we examine the industry expertise of both signing auditors and find that expert signing auditors charge higher audit fees and provide higher quality audits. We also explore the role of fee premiums on the expertise-quality association and find that the positive expertise-quality association is moderated by fee premiums charged by specialist auditors. Finally, we find that engagement auditor expertise, either alone or in conjunction with review auditor expertise, is positively associated with audit fees and audit quality.
Data Availability: Data used in this study are publicly available from the sources described herein.
JEL Classifications: M4; M42.
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of industry specialization of audit partners and audit committee members on the level of tax avoidance in Australian banks.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses a multivariate regression analysis based on hand-collected data consisting of 180 observations from Australian domestic banks between 2010 and 2018.
Findings
The primary results of the empirical analysis indicate that audit partner industry specialization is negatively associated with the level of tax avoidance in Australian banks. Regarding the audit committee, the proportion of industry specialists among audit committee members reduces the magnitude of tax avoidance. These results are robust, as they hold the same for alternative measures of tax avoidance and industry specialization of audit partner and audit committee members. Results from supplementary analysis reveal that the interactive effect of both audit firm and audit partner industry specialization strengthens the auditors’ effectiveness in reducing the level of tax avoidance.
Practical implications
As this study highlights the importance of the industry specialization in decreasing tax avoidance, it can be beneficial for policymakers to assess the impact of good governance on the level of tax avoidance in the banking industry.
Originality/value
Even though the existing studies examine the link between the governance actors’ industry specialization and tax avoidance in nonfinancial firms, this paper explores the banking industry that differs from nonfinancial firms in among others; accounting and fiscal regulations. This study further provides unique evidence indicating that industry specialization of the audit partner constitutes a significant determinant of minimizing the bank’s level of tax avoidance.
Structural equation modeling (SEM), an empirical methodology underutilized in archival research, enables researchers to examine paths linking constructs. SEM consists of two components: a measurement model that generates common factors from observed variables and a path model that links the factors. We discuss SEM’s components, estimation, advantages, best practices, and limitations. We illustrate SEM with an application to disclosure research. Unlike some prior research, we find voluntary disclosure quality is negatively associated with cost of capital, both directly and indirectly through information asymmetry, even after controlling for earnings quality’s direct and indirect associations with cost of capital. We believe SEM offers fruitful avenues for future research because it allows flexibility in modeling relations guided by theory, enables tests of underlying theoretical mechanisms, provides tools to address measurement error and missing data, and estimates simultaneous equations. SEM may be useful in settings that currently use path analysis or principal component analysis.
Data Availability: Data used in this study are available from public sources identified in the paper.
JEL Classifications: M41; C30.
The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of audit partner tenure, KAP rotation, and transaction complexity on the financial reports quality. The quality of financial reports uses earnings quality proxies. The research sample used is a manufacturing company listed on the IDX with a research period of 2017-2019. Data collection uses secondary data, namely financial reports contained on the IDX during the study period. Data processing using IBM SPSS Statistics 25. The samples used were 97 companies using purposive sampling. The data used in this study were 260 samples. The results of this study indicate that transaction complexity has a negative effect on the quality of financial reports, while Audit Partner Tenure and KAP Rotation do not show a significant impact on the quality of financial statements.
Mechanical correlation bias is inherent in audit pricing studies when independent variables (X) are derived from firm level audit fees (Y). Such variables are endogenous by construction leading to biased estimates, since (mechanically) X determines Y and Y determines X. After reviewing the extant auditing/accounting literature where mechanical correlation obtains we employ mathematical derivations and simulations to quantify the bias associated with a range of mechanically correlated market competition and industry specialist variables. Since auditor market competition variables are important to regulators and antitrust authorities, we analyze the mechanical correlation issue with regard to an extant study which introduces a novel measure of audit market competition (derived from audit fees). The study provides evidence that smaller incumbent auditors are pressured into offering lower fees when competing against a large local audit firm. However, when the current client’s audit fee is ‘decoupled’ from this new competition measure to mitigate bias, it is statistically insignificant in our multivariate regression analysis. Additionally, we employ auditee sales and total assets to construct proxies for competition variables (which are not mechanically correlated) and find them to be statistically insignificant. We conclude with suggestions of how to address the issue of mechanical correlation in future studies.
Purpose
This study investigates the effect of auditing industry specialization (AIS) on the relative derivatives use for earnings management.
Design/methodology/approach
The sample chosen in this study comprises 30,599 firm-year observations of Chinese public companies from 2005 to 2018. The sample is divided into two time periods (2005–2013 and 2014–2018) according to the year when IFRS 9 was implemented (IFRS 9, first discussed by the International Accounting Standards Board in March 2008, is based on an expected credit loss model for determining new and existing expected credit losses on financial assets. The definition was completed in July 2014 and implemented in 2018). AIS was gauged with respect to audit firms and individual auditors, and measured by market share in number and scale of clients. Linear regression is adopted to test hypotheses. Moreover, two-stage least square model (2SLS) is used to eliminate the concern of possible endogeneity.
Findings
When gauged with respect to client scale, the scale-based AIS constrained the level of derivatives use for earnings management in the first period (2005–2013) while increased the level in the second period (2014–2018). The findings sustain for the analysis of audit firms and that of individual auditors, and for different definitions of AIS.
Research limitations/implications
The positive AIS-IN relation after the adoption of IFRS 9 implies the sacrifice audit independence. This could be indebted to the government policy that favors local audit firms to be comparable to international Big 4 audit firms, and therefore results in competition among local auditors/audit firms in securing number rather than quality of clients.
Originality/value
The data of AIS in China are collected using a Python web crawler.
We investigate whether audit partner level data provides a more powerful measure than office or firm level measures of client importance. We find that the likelihood of issuing a going‐concern opinion (any and first‐time) increases, and the absolute value of discretionary accruals decreases, in relation to the proportion of audit fees to the total audit fees received by audit partners from all their clients. We also find that the likelihood of issuing a going‐concern opinion (any and first‐time) increases, and the absolute value of discretionary accruals decreases, in relation to the proportion of non‐audit services fees from a client to total non‐audit service fees, and the proportion of total audit and non‐audit service fees from a client to total fees from all their clients at the office and firm levels. Our findings provide evidence to regulators, audit clients, and stakeholders that audit partners do not succumb to pressure from economically more important clients as audit quality has a positive association with client importance.
This paper examines whether the readability (and hence informative value) of key audit matters (KAM) varies according to the audit firm and the KAM type disclosed, a question of vital importance for stakeholders, whose effective decision‐making depends on the quality of information received. Our analysis shows that the informative value of KAM matter and KAM audit procedures varies according to the audit firm responsible. This informative value also depends on whether the KAM is related to entity‐ or accounting‐level risks. This study contributes to the KAM and audit quality literature by showing how these factors impact on the informative value of the expanded audit report. Furthermore, in the context of the agency, institutional and self‐presentation theories and the real effects hypothesis, we discuss auditors’ incentives to increase or decrease the informative value of the expanded audit report.
SYNOPSIS
We show that a firm’s likelihood of appointing auditors with industry expertise or with a larger office increases after the firm is affected by an exogenous reduction in analyst coverage, relative to its matched control firms. This effect is stronger for affected firms with greater reductions in analyst monitoring, for smaller or younger firms, for firms with lower institutional or CEO ownership, and when the lost analysts are more effective monitors. We further show that affected firms that switch to high-quality auditors receive more positive market reaction, experience a smaller decrease in stock liquidity and a smaller increase in cost of equity capital relative to other affected firms, suggesting that audit quality has real payoffs. These results collectively provide causal evidence supporting the agency incentive driven demand for high-quality external auditing.
Purpose
This paper investigates the application of the product differentiation and shared efficiency approaches to understand the impact of the auditor industry specialisation (IS) on audit fees in relation to Fair Value Disclosures (FVD).
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses 1,470 firm-year observations for the period 2005–2018 and is focused on Jordanian financial firms. Two competing theoretical approaches of IS proxied by audit fee-based measures were employed: firstly, the product differentiation approach measured using Market Share-based (MS) measure and secondly, the shared efficiency approach measured using Portfolio Share-based (PS) measure. The paper employs the Ordinary Least Squares regression to test the association between the proportion of fair-valued assets (using fair value hierarchy inputs) and audit fees.
Findings
The results suggest that the association between the proportion of fair-valued assets and audit fees is strengthened (weakened) when the client hires specialist auditors identified by MS (PS). This association varied across the fair value inputs. Level 1 assets were found to be only moderated by both scenarios positively (negatively) for MS (PS) experts. The results are robust after controlling the endogeneity of auditor self-selection.
Practical implications
The results provide valuable insights for policymakers into challenges of auditing FVD. These insights present a valuable input for the development of FVD policies and practices as well as providing guidance for updating auditor prices. Additionally, the results provide a foundation for policymakers and regulators to introduce and update fair value auditing practices. The current findings are generalisable to other countries, including the Middle East and North Africa, and are particularly beneficial for those countries which have adopted the fair value model.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the theory by demonstrating the impact of the auditor industry expertise on post-implementation costs of FVD. The novelty of the study lies in introducing principle-based standards requirements of FVD to test the relationship. This approach is based on the IFRS disclosure requirements using data from the Jordanian financial sector to examine this relationship.
We examine non‐GAAP earnings reporting following a going‐concern audit opinion (GCO). Using a propensity score‐matched sample, matching first‐time going‐concern issuing companies with firms in financial distress that did not receive a going‐concern report, we find that the likelihood and frequency of non‐GAAP earnings reporting are lower following GCOs. In additional analyses, we find the negative association between the announcement of GCOs and the likelihood and frequency of non‐GAAP earnings reporting stronger when GCOs are issued by industry‐specialist auditors and when GCOs are unexpected, but do not find litigation risk or managers' ability to affect the association. These results are consistent with a decrease in investor demand for non‐GAAP earnings disclosures following GCOs.
Purpose
This study aims to examine the relationship between auditor industry specialization (IS) and audit fees.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors utilize 2,100 firm-year data of Jordanian companies from 2005 to 2018. Two conflicting theoretical approaches of IS were employed: the product differentiation approach, as assessed by market share (MS); and the shared efficiency approach, as evaluated by portfolio share (PS).
Findings
Results of the ordinary least squares (OLS) regression support product differentiation (shared efficiency) and show that employing experts' auditors exerts a very substantial and favorable direct impact on audit fees (negative).
Originality/value
This research contributes new empirical data to the auditing literature by examining if IS does influence Jordanian businesses' audit fees. The findings offer useful data for Jordanian officials to examine the auditing industry's difficulties while refining regulations and revising auditor pricing. Additionally, the results offer advice to Jordan's regulatory bodies who oversee the auditing industry. Arguably, results from Jordan may be extrapolated to other Middle Eastern nations.
SYNOPSIS
Auditing financial derivatives is complex and contentious. Our study examines the impact of derivative use on the risk premium charged by auditors of bank holding companies (BHCs). We find that audit fees are higher regardless of whether derivative instruments are used for hedging and trading. This implies that auditors charge BHCs that use derivatives a risk premium to compensate for additional risk related to these instruments. We also find that trading derivatives tend to have a higher risk premium than hedging derivatives. Our results suggest that auditors price risks related to derivatives, and trading derivatives are perceived to be higher risk than hedging derivatives.
Data Availability: All data are available from public databases identified in the paper.
JEL Classifications: G21; M40; M41.
It is often difficult to establish determinants of governmental audit quality. This discussion explores the motivations of municipalities to invest in auditing and for auditors to deliver quality services within this specialized market. This paper provides a review of governmental audit quality research findings, including measurement of audit quality proxies. The paper also discusses potential future research avenues and suggests several lines of audit-focused research remain open for exploration.
In this paper, we examine the relation between client importance to Big 4 audit firm local offices and unconditional conservatism in complex accounting estimates; specifically, stock option volatility, pension expected asset rates of return, and pension discount rates. Changes in these estimates, which can appear small, can have material financial statement effects, have been used in earnings management schemes, and pose greater audit risk. We find that more important audit clients are associated with the use of more unconditionally conservative accounting estimates. These results are consistent with auditor reputation protection rather than important client economic dependence, and suggest client importance does not impair auditor independence with respect to complex accounting estimates.
Data are available from the public sources cited in the text.
We examine how the extent and distribution of industry knowledge within an audit team affect audit outcomes. While prior research examining the role of auditors' industry knowledge focuses mainly on audit firms, audit offices, and audit partners, audits are conducted by audit teams. Using an audit framework and proprietary data from a Big 4 firm that includes audit hours for each team member, we find that Big 4 audit teams with higher average industry knowledge are associated with more audit effort. In contrast, we find mixed evidence on the relation between the average hourly internal cost rate and team knowledge. Further, we find that balanced teams, which have at least one team member who qualifies as an industry specialist at both the senior rank and junior rank, produce higher quality audits than teams that have no specialists. In contrast, the audit quality of unbalanced teams, which have a specialist at the senior rank but not the junior rank or vice versa, is not statistically different than teams with no specialists. Overall, our evidence suggests that both the extent and distribution of industry knowledge within a team matter for audit production and that industry knowledge is utilized more effectively when it is spread throughout the team. The findings have useful implications for audit firms and regulators regarding how team composition and industry knowledge affect audit outcomes. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Purpose
The main objective on this research is providing evidence of the contagion effect of decreasing audit's quality. Audit failure affects the quality of the financial analysis that has been carried out and has a big impact on the accuracy of decision making due to the material information bias. Findings of this research will urge the Public Accounting Firm (PAF) to design a quality control of the audit services. This action is taken with the consideration of maintaining the quality of audit services and the reputation of auditors.
Design/methodology/approach
Utilizing manufacturing data listed on Bursa Efek Indonesia (BEI), the researchers developed a model to explain the audit failure which is seen from restatement of financial statement in the subsequent period.
Findings
This research indicates that audit failure to detect the misstatement will decrease the audit's quality of other companies audited by the same auditor. There is also an insight that contagion effect of decreasing auditor quality was stronger for non-big four and non-industry specialist auditors.
Research limitations/implications
Audit failure still has the potential to occur. There is the potential that a failure in an audit of a particular client entity has an impact on defects of other clients served. If this allegation is proven, there are big challenges faced by the public accounting profession and PAF to pay special attention in order to maintain the professional reputation.
Practical implications
Professional body and government need to develop a robust standard and operating procedures as well as quality control on audit engagement.
Originality/value
Due to the intention of fraud occurred in Indonesia, namely SNP Finance and Garuda Indonesia case. It is important to learn from that cases. This research gives fruitful insights to prevent the same case in the future.
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine the association between auditor industry specialization and accounting quality in the European Union (EU).
Design/methodology/approach
This study employs a difference-in-differences design and explores audit quality from different industry specialist perspectives and different accounting standard regimes. Specifically, this study examines accounting quality among audits performed by non-industry specialists, EU member country-level industry specialists (EUM-level), EU community-level industry specialists (EUC-level), as well as joint industry specialists.
Findings
This study finds evidence of an improvement in accounting quality among audits performed by non-industry specialists post-IFRS. There is also evidence of an improvement in accounting quality among audits performed by EUC-level industry specialists post-IFRS. In addition, accounting quality among audits performed by EUM-level industry specialists seems to be greater than that of audits performed by non-industry specialists in either the pre-IFRS period or the post-IFRS period. Overall, the mandatory adoption of IFRS in the EU appears to be associated with an improvement in accounting quality among some auditor groups.
Research limitations/implications
Industry specialization and accounting quality are not directly observable constructs; this study inevitably employs proxy measures for both. The findings of this study are location-specific and apply to mandatory IFRS adopters only.
Practical implications
This study informs regulators with respect to the importance of industry specialist auditors and financial reporting quality, particularly within the context of the EU. The findings suggest that industry specialists were a significant accounting quality determinant during the mandatory adoption of IFRS. The findings have implications for regulators in the EU and beyond.
Originality/value
This study is among the first to investigate the impact of auditor specialization on accounting quality in the EU, particularly in connection with the adoption of IFRS.
We examine the effects of a large number of clients in an audit office using the same enterprise-resource planning (ERP) system such as SAP or Oracle resulting in what we term “client accounting system homogeneity” on audit efficiency and effectiveness. Using a unique dataset of ERP system implementations, we find that accounting system homogeneity is positively associated with audit efficiency. Specifically, we find lower (higher) audit fees for clients using an ERP system from a vendor used by a higher (lower) proportion of clients in that office. We further document that accounting system homogeneity is associated with improved audit effectiveness as proxied by two accruals-based measures, incorrect internal control weakness reporting, and restatements. Our findings are reflective of a new form of knowledge spillover from repeated experiences auditing clients using similar accounting systems, resulting in audits that are not only less expensive but also of higher quality.
Data Availability: Contact the authors.
This paper examines a specific mechanism, partner co-signing relationships, through which knowledge sharing in an audit team may influence audit quality. Specifically, we examine whether an engagement partner’s co-signing relationships with non-engagement industry specialist partners are associated with audit quality. Using a unique setting in which co-signing relationships for each audit engagement is available, we find that audit quality is higher when the engagement partner for the focal client has co-signing relationships with non-engagement partners who are specialists in the focal client’s industry and that the positive association is more likely driven by a learning effect than a consultation effect. Further evidence suggests that attributes of co-signing relationships such as continuity matter and that co-signing relationships with industry specialist partners are more likely to be utilized when engagement partners have limited industry knowledge, clients operate in homogeneous industries, and engagement partners are from large audit firms. Overall, our results suggest that interactions with industry specialist partners facilitate knowledge sharing and hence improve audit quality.
SYNOPSIS
We investigate how the geographic distribution of domain-specific internal audit education impacts financial reporting quality and audit efficiency in the U.S. Using universities with Centers for Internal Auditing Excellence as proxies for robust internal audit education, we find that companies headquartered in close proximity to these programs have fewer material weaknesses in internal controls over financial reporting, fewer financial statement misstatements, and shorter audit lags, and sometimes pay lower audit fees compared with a matched sample of companies not in close proximity to these programs. These findings have implications for practitioners responsible for the staffing and quality of their internal audit functions, the Institute of Internal Auditors in its education-collaboration initiatives, and higher-learning institutions responsible for educating future audit practitioners. These findings also contribute to the academic debate on the value of internal audit and determinants of internal audit function quality.
Data Availability: Data are available from sources cited in the text.
Our study investigates whether individual auditor quality contributes to firm value through enhancing the market valuation on corporate cash holdings. Specifically, high audit quality improves financial reporting quality that facilitates external monitoring, which deters managerial misuse and thus enhances the value of cash holdings. By exploring Chinese listed companies, we find that industry expertise at the individual auditor-level enhances the value of cash holdings, while such effect presents after controlling for audit firm-level industry expertise. Moreover, the effect of individual auditor-level industry expertise is mediated via financial reporting quality, and its effect is more pronounced when media coverage is high, when the engagement auditor is a partner, and when the economic importance of the audited client is low. Overall, our results suggest that investors recognize that expertise knowledge gained at individual auditor-level is not fully transferable among audit firms so individual auditor quality provides incremental informational value than does audit firm quality. Our study contributes to auditing literature and the policy debates about mandatory name disclosure of engagement auditors.
SYNOPSIS
We study the costs and benefits to the issuer of engaging an initial public offering (IPO) auditor specialist. We measure IPO auditor specialization and then find that IPO specialist auditors earn significant fee premiums relative to IPO auditors without specialization and that clients with an IPO specialist auditor exhibit lower levels of underpricing relative to clients without an IPO specialist auditor. We also demonstrate that IPO specialist auditors provide higher quality audits than IPO auditors without IPO audit specialization, finding that their IPO clients have a lower likelihood of financial misstatement and have lower discretionary accruals. Collectively, our results have important implications for the auditing profession and capital markets because we demonstrate empirical evidence of the costs and benefits of engaging IPO specialist auditors.
The purpose of this study is to measure firm value (FV) and return on stock (RoS) by considering corporate governance (CG), financial performance (FP), and refined economic value added (REVA) combinedly and also identify the convergence among these three parameters. The GMM estimator’s method was applied on the dataset of Dhaka Stock Exchange listed firms during the period 2013 to 2018. The sample contains 310 firms with 1860 firm years. The study reveals that CG, FP, and REVA characteristics are significantly conjuncted with FV and RoS. Firms, regardless of size, age, and nature, adopting good CG within business management practice can significantly improve FP and continuously generate positive economic value for both firms and shareholders over the period, thus enhance FV and RoS. Moreover, firms confirming continuous growth of FV are able to provide positive RoS to shareholders. This study ensures necessary guidelines for both firms’ manager and investors, as managers will be encouraged to implement good CG within the firms and confirmed to maintain healthy FP and continues REVA growth for the firm. Investors can assess firm performance and future growth opportunities before taking any investment decision.
This study investigates the association between money laundering control systems (MLCS) and tax haven use based on a sample of U.S. multinational financial corporations (MFCs). We also examine the impact of external auditor specialization on the association between MLCS and tax haven use. We find that MLCS is significantly negatively associated with tax haven use. Our result is also economically significant. Based on our regression estimates, a one‐standard deviation increase in MLCS is associated with a decrease in tax haven use by around 2.75%. Additional analysis shows that external auditor specialization magnifies the negative association between MLCS and tax haven use. Overall, our study indicates that MLCS and the external audit function have important consequences for tax haven use by MFCs.
This study finds firms with major government customers have better information quality and, therefore, lower future stock price crash risks. Our main findings are robust to various tests accounting for endogeneity concerns, including propensity score matching analysis and entropy balancing method. We also conduct a difference‐in‐differences analysis based on a quasi‐natural experiment that exogenously enhances government procurement contracts’ disclosure quality. Further analysis shows that the effects of government customers are more pronounced when traditional information intermediaries are weaker (i.e., firms with lower institutional ownership and lower analyst coverage, of smaller size, and audited by non‐industry specialized auditors). Consistent with government customers improving the information quality, we also find that firms with major government customers are less likely to have SEC‐attributed restatements.
This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved
We hypothesize and provide empirical evidence that higher institutional investor inattention is associated with lower audit quality. We employ an inattention measure that captures the extent to which institutional investors are distracted by attention-grabbing events irrelevant to the focal firm. Results suggest that a higher degree of institutional investor inattention is associated with a lower propensity of a going-concern opinion, a lower probability of the auditor reporting a material internal control weakness, and a higher likelihood of the audit client misstating the financial statements. Further analyses show that these associations vary by auditor litigation risk, their workload pressure, auditor industry expertise, and analyst coverage. Overall, our findings reveal that while institutional investors play an important monitoring role, the distractions they face undermine the quality of monitoring they provide.
استهدف البحث دراسة واختبار أثر تقييم مراقب الحسابات لخطر أعمال عميل المراجعة وخطر المراجعة على قراره بشأن قبول التكليف بمراجعة الحسابات، وكذلك أثر خبرة مراقب الحسابات على العلاقة بين تقييمه لهذين الخطرين من ناحية، وقرار قبول التكليف بمراجعة حسابات عميل المراجعة من ناحية أخرى، وذلك من خلال دراسة تجريبية على عينة من 97 مراقب حسابات فى وظيفة مراجع أول أو مدير مراجعة أو شريك مراجعة فى مكاتب المراجعة المختلفة فى مصر.
قام الباحث بتصميم حالة تجريبية 2X2 between subjects لإختبار أثر خطرى المراجعة وأعمال العميل على قرار مراقب الحسابات بشأن قبول التكليف بمراجعة الحسابات. وقد توصل الباحث إلى وجود أثر معنوى لكلاً من خطر أعمال العميل وخطر المراجعة (منفردين ومجتمعين) على قرار قبول مراقب الحسابات للتكليف بمراجعة الحسابات، حيث توصلت الدراسة إلى وجود انخفاض معنوى فى احتمال قبول مراقب الحسابات للتكليف بمراجعة الحسابات فى حالة ارتفاع خطر أعمال هذا العميل و/أو خطر المراجعة. وكذا توصل الباحث إلى وجود تأثير أقوى لارتفاع خطر المراجعة – بالمقارنة بأثر ارتفاع خطر أعمال العميل - على قرار قبول مراقب الحسابات للتكليف بمراجعة الحسابات.
وللتحقق من أثر خبرة مراقب الحسابات على العلاقة بين خطر أعمال العميل وخطر المراجعة من ناحية وقرار قبوله للتكليف بمراجعة الحسابات من ناحية أخرى، قام الباحث بتصميم نموذج انحدار متعدد ولكنه لم يتوصل إلى وجود أثر معنوى لخبرة مراقب الحسابات فى هذا الصدد وهو ما يشير إلى تجاوز الأثر السلبى الذى يخلفه خطر أعمال العميل وخطر المراجعة عن الأثر الإيجابى الذى تخلفه خبرة مراقب الحسابات.
وعليه، أوصى الباحث بضرورة اهتمام مكاتب المراجعة فى مصر بتدريب مراقبى الحسابات وتنمية مهاراتهم خاصة تلك المتعلقة بإصدار الأحكام المهنية وقبول التكليف.
In general, prior research offers empirical support for the idea that audit industry specialisation is associated with higher audit quality in public sector organisations. A limitation in this literature, however, is that inferences are drawn from analyses confined to the audit firm level alone. In order to offer further insights into the relationship between audit industry specialisation and audit quality, and on whether such audit characteristics support the de facto harmonisation of accounting rules and regulations, this research includes both the audit firm and the auditor in charge of the financial audit as units of analysis. The results, based on an analysis of cross‐sectional data from Swedish municipalities, show interesting differences between the audit firm and individual auditor levels. It is only at the audit firm level that the results consistently support the idea that industry specialisation is associated with higher audit quality. Although there is no such evidence at the individual auditor level, it should be considered that the results, in part, indicate that audit quality is highest in a situation of joint specialisation. That is, in combination with specialisation at the audit firm level, specialisation at the individual auditor level seems to offer something over and above audit firm specialisation alone.
Designed to bridge the gap between theorists and methodologists by presenting an integrated approach to measurement. It differentiates between random and systematic error thus conveying both statistical techniques and their theoretical underpinnings. The book is written at a level accessible to students of social sciences with some statistical training, and does not assume a sophisticated mathematical background. Chapters include factor analysis, reliability, validity and evaluating systematic error.-K.Clayton
Casterella, Francis, Lewis, and Walker (CFLW 2004) find, using survey data from 1993, that (1) there is a Big 6 industry specialization audit fee premium in the small client segment of the U.S. audit market, but (2) audit fees decrease for large companies as the client becomes increasingly large relative to an auditor's clientele. In this study, we first replicate and confirm the results of CFLW (2004), using audit fee data from SEC filings for fiscal 2000 and 2001. In the post-SOX period, we find that the results related to specialization continue to hold in fiscal 2004 but not in 2003-suggesting that 2003 is perhaps a unique year due to the flux in the audit market following the enactment of SOX. With respect to client bargaining power, our results in the post-SOX period differ from CFLW (2004) in that we observe a negative association between client bargaining power and audit fees for both the small and large client segments.
Our study attempts to determine whether, and if so why, the large auditing firms are able to earn a premium on their audit work in the UK. We start by confirming the apparent existence of a Big Firm premium during the period 1985-2002. We examine industry specialisation, non-audit service fee and monopoly pricing explanations for the premium. The results of our tests of industry specialisation are mixed. There is little evidence that this premium is associated with industry specialisation when specialists are defined at the national level. Significant premia are observed if specialisation is defined at the city level, particularly if the auditor is the industry leader. However, when appropriate allowance is made for endogeneity. by modelling both audit and non-audit fees in a simultaneous equations framework, the Big Firm premium disappears. We find evidence to suggest that non-audit fees earned by auditors from their audit clients are positively related to the size of the audit fee and vice versa. Finally, when the sample is stratified by the size of audit client, we find no systematic evidence of anti-competitive pricing.
"This paper advocates a validational process utilizing a matrix of intercorrelations among tests representing at least two traits, each measured by at least two methods. Measures of the same trait should correlate higher with each other than they do with measures of different traits involving separate methods. Ideally, these validity values should also be higher than the correlations among different traits measure by the same method." Examples from the literature are described as well as problems in the application of the technique. 36 refs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
A number of research papers present evidence of fee premiums paid to specialist auditors. In this paper, we explore for listed and unlisted New Zealand firms not only the question of whether such premiums exist, but perhaps more importantly why they exist. We find evidence of fee premiums for auditor specialisation defined at the city level but not at the national level. We extend testing to examine the issue of self-selection of auditors by clients; we examine several different industry classification schemes and a number of different specialisation measures; and we consider the issue of portfolio specialists. We find from these additional tests that self-selection does not account for the existence of specialisation premiums; various alternative classification schemes all result in premiums at the city level; and portfolio specialists also earn fee premiums when portfolio specialisation is measured at the city level. We find that these specialist premiums apply most consistently to larger client firms and to low-risk firms. We consider various explanations and conclude that this result is consistent with non-specialist auditors providing discounts to attract desirable clients. Desirable clients – those that are large or low risk – are not able to negotiate fees as successfully with auditors who have differentiated themselves via industry specialisation.
Recent shifts in audit practice have dprovided more substantive and pervasive roles for specialized industry knowledge (e.g., see Bell et al. [1997]). Specifically, most of the largest firms now are structured along industry lines and designate most, if not all, of their auditors as industry specialists (Emerson [1993]). This change suggests that a preferred way for auditors to acquire industry knowledge is via specialized indirect experience (e.g., training) coupled with focused direct experience (e.g., working exclusively on audit engagements in a particular industry). Our experimental investigation of what industry-specialist auditors know is intended to probe the knowledge implications of industry specialists? focused training and narrow, but deep, direct experiences.
Earnings management remains a popular topic of debate and discussion among investors, regulators, analysts, and the public. One mechanism that might mitigate earnings management is auditors' industry expertise. Using a large sample of clients of Big 6 auditors, this research examines the association between auditor industry expertise, measured in terms of both auditor market share in an industry and an industry's share in the auditor's portfolio of client industries and a client's level of absolute discretionary accruals, a common proxy for earnings management. Clients of non-specialist auditors report absolute discretionary accruals that are, on average, 1.2 percent of total assets higher than the discretionary accruals reported by clients of specialist auditors. This finding is consistent with the notion that specialist auditors mitigate accruals-based earnings management more than non-specialist auditors and therefore, influence the quality of earnings.
We evaluate and summarize the large body of audit fee research, and use meta-analysis to test the combined effect of the most commonly used independent variables. The perspective provided by the meta-analysis allows us to reconsider the anomalies, mixed results and gaps in audit fee research. We find that, while many independent variables have very consistent results, there are also several where there is no clear pattern to the results and others where significant results have been found only in certain periods or particular countries. These variables include a loss by the client and leverage, which have become significant in comparatively recent studies; internal auditing and governance, both of which have mixed results; auditor specialization, regarding which there is still some uncertainty; and the audit opinion, which was a significant variable before 1990 but not in more recent studies.
The purpose of this paper is to integrate research on audit markets, fees and production. We present a model of the components that determine audit fees and production [hours]. We observe that, overall, knowledge is concentrated on certain aspects of the model and it is not well-integrated. In particular, little is known about the labor market for the factors of audit production; and while there is extensive research in audit fees, what is known is often conditional and driven by the context of the studies. Further, and at a more general level, the limited focus of prior research omits certain elements of the audit market and audit production that could influence how audit fee research should be interpreted. The paper develops an integrated view that will help to interpret existing research and guide future researchers. We use the integrated view of audit research to derive some overall conclusions concerning our current understanding of audit markets and to suggest some directions for future research.
This paper examines the accumulated weight of evidence in audit fee research. Research on factors related to audit fees has become more widespread in recent years, and there was a considerable upsurge in audit fee papers published subsequent to the data used in a recent meta-analysis. In this paper I use meta-analysis to accumulate statistical results from more recent published studies as well as the earlier studies and revisit the overall conclusions about the issues that are examined in audit fee research. The addition of audit fee studies from the more recent period shows that there is now evidence that audit fees are positively associated with internal control and with corporate governance. Evidence from previous studies regarding the audit fee premiums for Big 4 firms and industry specialist auditors, and about the positive relationship between non-audit services and audit fees is reinforced, although in each case there are issues regarding the underlying research that need to be addressed in future studies. The analysis also shows that longer audit tenure is associated with higher fees. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research.
This paper examines IPO audit fees to assess the use of industry specialization as a differentiation strategy by audit firms. We extend existing theory on the impact of industry specialization on audit fees by incorporating Porter's (1985) theory of competition and differentiation. We suggest that market share enables audit firms to gain competitive advantages in terms of cost and service. However, the impact of such advantages on fees depends on whether the audit firm has successfully differentiated itself from competitors within client industries. Our results indicate that as audit firm industry market share increases without a differentiation in market share, the audit fee charged for a given IPO decreases. In the context of Porter (1985), this result suggests that the client is able to bargain for a portion of the auditor's cost savings because the audit firm has not successfully differentiated itself from competitors. In contrast, we show that audit firms that possess significantly higher market shares than their industry competitors earn fee premiums, suggesting that audit firms that have successfully differentiated themselves retain a stronger bargaining position with their clients.
We expand upon the traditional market share-based measure of industry specialization by auditors to address the following question: Are industry specialist auditors who obtain their market share by auditing varying proportions of clients in an industry similar in terms of product (audit) quality and price (audit fees)? Our analyses suggest that the audit market is characterized by a type of segmentation in which some specialists pursue product differentiation strategies, focusing more extensively on the acquisition of requisite expertise, while others pursue cost minimization strategies, producing lower cost, lower quality audits. We find that audit fees and quality are higher (lower) when the specialist gains significant market share by auditing a low (high) proportion of clients in that industry. Our evidence suggests that specialists pursue different strategies in different settings. In some cases, specialist auditors may actually be low-end producers, raising a question of whether the "specialist" label is even appropriate.
Are high audit fees a signal that the auditor exerted more effort or a signal that the auditor may be losing her independence? Prior literature offers conflicting evidence. In this paper, we reexamine the issue on a sample of clients who have both the incentive and the ability to use discretionary accruals to meet or beat the consensus earnings forecast. We find a negative relationship between the level of abnormal audit fees paid by the client and the likelihood of using discretionary accruals to meet or beat the consensus analyst forecast. The evidence is consistent with the notion that abnormal audit fees are indicative of greater effort on the engagement. In other words, the results suggest a positive relationship between abnormal audit fees and audit quality. We show that the conflicting evidence in prior research was caused by research designs that did not consider the incentives of the manager.
JEL Classifications: M42; M41.
Data Availability: All data are available from public sources quoted in the text.
We examine the effects of city-level auditor industry specialization and scale economies on audit pricing in the United States. Using a sample of Big N clients for the 2000–2007 period, and a scale measure based on percentile rankings of the number of audit clients at the city-industry level, we document significant specialization premiums and scale discounts in both the pre- and post-Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) periods. However, the effects of industry specialization and scale economies on audit pricing are highly interactive. The negative effect of city-industry scale on audit fees obtains only for clients of specialist auditors. By contrast, clients of non-specialist auditors obtain scale discounts only when they enjoy strong bargaining power, suggesting that auditors are “forced” to pass on scale economies to clients with greater bargaining power.
Data Availability: Data are available from sources identified in the article.
We reexamine the association between audit fees and risky initial engagements by developing an ex ante client-risk metric that is based on auditor change 8-K filings. We concentrate on auditor-client disagreements and other reportable events (restatement, management integrity, scope limitations, illegal acts, reaudits) disclosed in the 8-K auditor change filings. We find that audit fees are significantly higher for clients reporting disagreements and other reportable events in their 8-K auditor change filings for the initial year of engagement. However, the fee premium is only attributable to Big 4 auditors. While the Big 4 charge 45 percent higher fees when clients have disagreements or other reportable events, there is no such fee premium associated with non-Big 4 clients. More importantly, Big 4 predecessor auditors increase fees prior to the auditor switch as clients develop problems. Big 4 successor auditors continue to charge significantly higher fees for at least three years following adverse 8-K disclosures. Our results provide evidence on how successor and predecessor auditors incorporate risk in the pricing of audit fees, where risk is based on the information contained in auditor change 8-K reports.
This paper investigates brand name, industry specialization, and leadership audit pricing in the wake of the mergers that created the Big 6 and the Big 5 accounting firms. For samples of Australian listed public companies in each of the postmerger years 1990, 1992, 1994, and 1998, we estimate national audit fee premiums for the Big 6/5 auditors and the industry specialists and leaders. We find limited support for the ability of the Big 6/5 to obtain fee premiums over non-Big 6/5 for those industries not having specialist auditors. Nonspecialist Big 6/5 auditors are able to obtain fee premiums over nonspecialist non-Big 6/5 auditors for those industries having specialist auditors. However, this result only holds among the smaller half of our sample. We do not find strong support for the presence of industry specialist premiums in the postmerger years, especially after 1990, using various definitions of industry specialist. We find, at best, limited support for the presence of industry leadership premiums. The evidence suggests that after the Big 8/6 audit firm mergers, some caution is required in generalizing the Craswell, Francis, and Taylor 1995 finding of national market industry specialist premiums. More generally, the study raises questions about the tenuous link between the concept of specialization and national market-share statistics.
This study examines whether auditor industry specialization, measured using the auditor's within-industry market share, improves audit quality and results in a fee premium. After matching clients of specialist and nonspecialist auditors on a number of dimensions, as well as only on industry and size, there is no evidence of differences in commonly used audit-quality proxies between these two groups of auditors. Moreover, there is no consistent evidence of a specialist fee premium. The matched sample results are confirmed by including client fixed effects in the main models, examining a sample of clients that switched auditors, and using an alternative proxy that aims to capture the auditor's industry knowledge. The combined evidence in this study suggests that the auditor's within-industry market share is not a reliable indicator of audit quality. Nevertheless, these findings do not imply that industry knowledge is not important for auditors, but that the methodology used in extant archival studies to examine this issue does not fully parse out the effects of auditor industry specialization from client characteristics.
Auditing research requiring measures of auditor industry expertise have relied largely on auditors' market shares as proxies for industry expertise. This study systematically documents differences in these proxies for each of the Big Six (now Big Five) and a subset of non-Big Six auditors. Next, it examines an alternative measure based on the industry's share in the auditor's portfolio. Finally, it compares the market shares-based measures and the alternative measure with audit firms' postings of their industry specialisation in their home pages on the World Wide Web. The numbers indicate that the auditors' self-reported specialisations are not correlated with market shares for most auditors. The findings suggest that future studies should consider alternative measures of specialisation in studies of audit market outcomes. © City University of Hong Kong.
Audit firms vary with respect to the quality of services they provide to their clients. One differentiation strategy is related to providing services to clients that are based on in-depth industry knowledge. Industry specialization helps audit firms increase the demand for audit and non-audit services, improves audit efficiency through economies of scale, creates barriers to entry by requiring new entrants to invest significant resources in relevant industries, and affects client-relevant audit outcomes like audit fees and financial reporting quality. This review attempts to evaluate critically the archival research on the effect of audit firm industry specialization on client-relevant audit outcomes. Some suggestions for future research are offered.
This study empirically examines the effects of competition through differentiation on audit pricing. Based on prior economic theory on differentiated-product markets (e.g., Hotelling, 1929; Tirole, 1988), we hypothesize that audit fees are affected by an auditor's relative location in a market segment. We define audit markets per industry segment and U.S. Metropolitan Statistical Area and specify an auditor's industry location relative to the client (auditor–client industry alignment) and relative to the closest competitor (industry market share distance to closest competitor). We find that audit fees increase in both auditor–client industry alignment and industry market share distance to the closest competitor.
ABSTRACT: Under the assumption that audit quality relates positively to unobservable
financial reporting quality, we investigate whether audit quality is associated with the
predictability of accounting earnings by focusing on analyst earnings forecast properties.
The evidence shows that analysts’ earnings forecast accuracy is higher and the
forecast dispersion is smaller for firms audited by a Big 5 auditor. We further find that
auditor industry specialization is associated with higher forecast accuracy and less
forecast dispersion in the non-Big 5 auditor sample but not in the Big 5 auditor sample.
Overall, our results suggest that high-quality audit provided by Big 5 auditors and
industry specialist non-Big 5 auditors is associated with better forecasting performance
by analysts.
This study investigates the role of global audit firm networks in the market for audit services. Underlying theory suggests that there are benefits from the use of network structures, which enable these firms to expand efficiently into the global audit market and to develop global industry specializations. I identify global and national industry specialist auditors via market share metrics based on client assets audited, and use a large sample of 15,583 clients from 62 countries in 2000 and 14,628 clients from 60 countries in 2004. I find in both periods that audit fee premiums are consistently associated with global specialist auditors, irrespective of whether those audit firms are or are not national specialists.
This study investigates the effects of industry specialization on auditors' risk assessments and audit-planning decisions. In an experiment, auditors from different industry specializations complete a hypothetical audit case set in a specific (bank) industry, which creates either a match or a mismatch between the auditors' industry specialization and the hypothetical client's industry. Furthermore, I manipulate the industry-specific case information to achieve differential audit risk levels. I also provide the auditors with a set of preliminary audit procedures and a constrained time budget. I find that the auditors' knowledge of the client's industry improves their audit risk assessments and directly influences the nature and the perceived quality of their audit-planning decisions. In addition, the auditors' knowledge of the client's industry moderates the sensitivity of the auditors' planning decisions to their audit risk assessments.
This paper extends prior studies in auditor industry specialization to an international setting and examines if the impact of industry specialist auditors on earnings quality is dependent on the legal environments. Using data for 28 countries over 20 industries from 1993 to 2003, we find that clients of industry specialist auditors have lower discretionary current accruals and higher earnings response coefficients than clients of nonspecialist auditors. In addition, we find that the impact of auditor industry specialization on earnings quality increases as the legal environment weakens. Collectively, the results suggest that the benefits from engaging the services of industry specialist auditors increase as a country's legal environment shifts from a strong to a weak environment. Our results are robust to the inclusion of additional control variables.
Auditor industry specialization has generated significant interest in the academic community. However, a review of prior research suggests a lack of consensus as to how auditor industry specialization should be measured. This paper analyzes data from the 1989-1997 time period and: (1) examines the underlying concepts of specialization that are embodied in the different measurement approaches to industry specialists and the reasons why these measures yield inconsistent results and conclusions, (2) presents a framework to assist researchers in selecting the most appropriate auditor industry specialization metric to apply, and (3) proposes an alternative metric for research designs in particular investigative settings. Our analyses, results, and discussion highlight the differences inherent in industry specialization metrics and offer an interpretation of why such differences exist and provide some guidance for auditor industry metric selection.
Porter's (1985) analysis of competitive strategy is used to explain industry specialization by Big 6 accounting firms. In Porter's framework, industry specialization can be viewed as a differentiation strategy whose purpose is to create a sustainable competitive advantage relative to nonspecialist auditors. A differentiation strategy will lead to higher audit fees if valued by clients. We find evidence of higher fees for Big 6 industry specialists relative to nonspecialists in the U.S. audit market, but only for companies in the lower halt of the sample based on size (assets < $123 million). By contrast, companies in the upper half of the sample do not pay a specialist premium, and audit fees actually decrease as a company becomes increasingly large relative to its auditor's industry clientele. Together these results suggest that audit fees are higher when clients are small and have little bargaining power, but audit fees are lower when clients have greater bargaining power and this is more likely when companies are large in absolute size and large relative to their auditor's industry clientele.
Numerous capital market studies have investigated the stock market's reaction to firms switching to and from brand name auditors (Big 8/6/5/4 auditors). However, audit firm brand name Is only one possible Indication of the quality of an auditor. This study contributes to the existing literature on auditor switching, by examining how the market reacts to auditor switches to or from audit firms that are considered to be Industry specialists. Consistent with our hypotheses, we find that firms switching between Blg 4 auditors experience significant positive abnormal returns when the successor auditor Is an industry speclallst, and they experience significant negative abnormal returns when the successor auditor is not a speclallst. We also find that these market reactions are more likely to be due to changes In perceived audit quality rather than differential costs of using specialist auditors. In supplemental analysis of switches involving non-Big 4 auditors, we find that firms that switch from a specialist Blg 4 auditor to a non-Big 4 auditor suffer the largest negative market reaction. Surprisingly, we also observe that the market reacts most positively when a company switches from a non-Big 4 auditor to a Big 4 auditor who is not a speclallst. These results suggest that the market does perceive audit quality differences based on industry specialization to be relevant to the valuation of a company's market value.
This study examines the effect that client size has on the relation between industry-specialist auditors and fraudulent financial reporting. Most of the major accounting firms have organized their audit practices along industry lines, reflecting a belief that industry specialization leads to higher quality audits. Furthermore, regulatory bodies and extant research suggests that larger clients have greater bargaining power and are more likely to be able to convince the auditor to acquiesce to aggressive accounting. Also, it may be more difficult for an auditor to possess industry expertise for larger clients who are likely to be more complex and operate in more than one industry. Consistent with previous research, we generally find a significant negative relation between auditor industry specialization and client financial fraud. Also, as expected, the negative relation between auditor industry specialization and financial fraud is weaker for larger clients. This study provides evidence that the positive benefits of auditor industry specialization in deterring financial fraud is affected by client size.
In this paper we examine whether there is auditor differentiation through industry specialization and audit methodology in judging the adequacy of mitigating management actions as implemented by financially distressed companies. Using a sample of U.S. companies from manufacturing industries (SIC 20-39) that went bankrupt between 1999-2002, we find evidence that specialist auditors are more likely to issue a going-concern opinion for soon-to-be bankrupt companies when management undertakes strategic turnaround initiatives, relative to non-specialist auditors. Interestingly, and counter to our expectations, we find that audit firms that use a business risk audit methodology are less likely to issue a going-concern opinion for a firm that subsequently goes bankrupt if the client has undertaken operating initiatives to mitigate financial distress. Finally, we also find very strong evidence that all auditors, irrespective of type, are less likely to issue a going-concern opinion for clients that subsequently go bankrupt when the client has plans to raise cash in the short term.
Audit fees of Big 6 and non-Big 6 accounting firms are examined for 348 publicly listed Hong Kong companies. Using more recent data than prior studies, we find evidence of Big 6 premiums for both general brand name and for industry specialization. In addition, we find that the large local firm Kwan Wong Tan & Fong, which is the market leader in the property sector, has significantly lower fees than both Big 6 and other non-Big 6 auditors in that industry. Specialization thus leads to different results for Big 6 and non-Big 6 firms and suggests a market segment not previously identified: non-Big 6 specialization, which leads to production economies and the capture of market share through lower fees for a clientele seeking low-priced audits. These results also suggest that prior studies do not recognize sufficiently that Big 6 brand-name reputation is a necessary foundation on which to achieve higher priced quality-differentiated audits based on industry specialization.
The pricing of Big 5 industry leadership in the U.S. audit market is inves- tigated using audit fee disclosures for the 2000-2001 fiscal years and the joint national- city framework in Ferguson et al. (2003). There is a significant fee premium of 19 per- cent on those engagements where Big 5 auditors are both the nationally top-ranked auditor and the city-level industry leader in the city where the client is headquartered, indicating that national and city-specific industry leadership jointly affect auditor rep- utation and pricing. However, there is never a premium in any tests for auditors that are national industry leaders alone without also being city-specific industry leaders, indicating that national leadership by itself does not result in a premium. The evidence is mixed with respect to city-specific industry leaders alone that are not also national industry leaders. While there is a premium of 8 percent in the primary tests, this result is inconclusive as it does not hold in all sensitivity analyses.
This article investigates the relationship between supplier concentration and competition in the market for audit services. The study is motivated by the concern that high levels of concentration may be detrimental, resulting in lower levels of competition, which could harm clients through higher fees and lower levels of service. However, a counterargument is that high levels of concentration may not be detrimental but may result because market leaders display exceptional performance, providing lower-priced audits (perhaps due to economies of scale) and/or enhanced service to clients. We obtained audit fee and financial data on 140 life and health insurance companies and 101 property and casualty insurance companies. Our findings indicate that concentration is negatively associated with fees, suggesting that higher levels of concentration are related to higher levels of price competition (i.e., lower fees). Additionally, we address the validity of concentration as a surrogate for competition by examining competition among the market leaders. Our analysis examines the fees paid by 47 insurance companies that switched auditors during the sample period. We investigate the effect of industry specialization on fees paid by clients that switch auditors, finding evidence of significant fee cutting among market leaders for each others' clients but no evidence of fee reductions for clients switching from nonleaders to market leaders. This is consistent with the claim that there is significant price competition for clients among the market leaders, suggesting that high concentration need not result in low levels of price competition (i.e., higher fees).
Using cross‐country data, we evaluate the impact of investor protection on the association between earnings quality and audits by industry specialists. Our findings show that the positive association between industry specialist auditors and earnings quality as documented in the literature is affected by the political electoral system, which reflects investor protection rights in a country. We document that audits by industry specialists are associated with higher earnings quality in countries with the proportional electoral system, reflecting weak investor protection. Our results also confirm Kwon et al.'s findings that overall there is a positive association between earnings quality and audits by industry specialists in countries with weak legal enforcement. Our findings, however, indicate that Kwon et al.'s results are valid only for countries with weak investor protection reflected by the proportional electoral system and not for countries with strong investor protection reflected by the majoritarian electoral system. These findings thus suggest that higher earnings quality of firms audited by industry specialists across countries can especially be expected when investor protection is low and legal enforcement is also weak. In addition, our research suggests that future cross‐country studies could explicitly consider the role of the political electoral system of a country in evaluating corporate governance, management and accounting issues.
Auditing research requiring measures of auditor industry expertise have relied largely on proxies for industry expertise based on the market shares of auditors. These studies have yielded different results for the audit market outcomes examined. This study systematically documents differences in the proxies for each of the Big 6 and a subset of non-Big 6 auditors. Next, it examines two alternative measures, one based on market shares in large and small client segments, and the other on the industry's share in the auditor's portfolio. Finally, it examines whether the alternative measures are likely to be better proxies for auditor industry expertise. The market shares-based measures and the alternative measures are compared with an independent outside indicator of auditors' industry expertise, the audit firms' postings of their industry specialization in their home pages on the World Wide Web. The numbers indicate that the auditors' self-reported specializations are not correlated with market shares for most auditors. However, the self-reported specializations are more closely associated with one of the alternative measures, the industry's share in the auditor's portfolio. The findings suggest first, that the market share based measures may not be adequate proxies for industry expertise, and second, that future studies should consider alternative measures of specialization in studies of audit market outcomes.
Utilizing a dataset on the client portfolios of the Big 4 audit partners in Sweden, this study examines auditor specialization and pricing at the individual partner level. Consistent with the view that there are returns on investing in specialization, the analysis of audit fees indicates that both audit partner industry specialization, and specialization in large public companies, are recognized and valued by financial statement users and/or by corporate insiders, resulting in higher fees within these engagements. The highest fees are earned by engagement partners who are both industry and public firm specialists. Collectively, the findings of this study indicate that part of an auditor’s deep expertise is not transferable across audit partners within an audit firm but is instead inseparably tied to the individual audit partner’s private human capital.
This paper first examines whether the Big 4 audit quality is associated with auditor industry expertise, measured as both individual partner- and audit firm-level leadership. We focus on a sample of listed firms in Taiwan, where audit reports must be audited and signed by the two signing auditors as well as by an audit firm. For accruals analyses, we find that differential discretionary accruals due to industry expertise are driven by a combination of firm and partner expertise. For audit opinion analyses, we find that differential likelihood of a modified audit opinion (hereafter, MAO) is primarily attributable to signing auditor specialists. We also find that firm-level specialists alone are not associated with a higher likelihood of issuing a MAO. However, firm-level specialists, in combination with signing auditor specialists, can add something over and above the effects of the signing auditor specialists alone. Second, we further examine whether there is differential audit quality between signing auditors (i.e., lead and concurring auditors). We find that clients of lead signing auditor specialists, either alone or in conjunction with concurring auditor specialists, have smaller accruals and are more likely to receive a MAO compared to those of nonspecialists. However, concurring auditor specialists alone are not associated with higher audit quality, in terms of either smaller accruals or a higher MAO likelihood. Thus, we conclude that industry expertise is not homogeneous across individual auditors within the same audit firm in Taiwan.
Data Availability: Data are available from the sources identified in the text.
This paper examines IPO assurance fees to assess the use of industry specialization as a differentiation strategy by audit firms. Theory suggests that as an audit firm's share of a client industry increases their costs will decrease and their service quality to that industry will increase. In this setting, the impact of industry specialization on fees is indeterminate. We extend existing theory by considering both the supply and the demand for industry specialization. We conclude that the market for audit services is generally price-competitive, suggesting that auditors will be forced to share cost savings with clients. However, when an audit firm is able to differentiate its services from competitors it should be able to earn a modest premium. We test and find support for our conjectures using U.S. IPO audit fee data from 1991 to 1997.