审计师关注客户所在地区社会信任水平吗? ——基于Pecking Order模型的研究

文章利用CGSS调查数据度量客户所在地区的社会信任水平,进而考察其对审计师决策的影响。文章首先分别考察了社会信任水平与审计定价、出具非标审计意见的倾向、审计师变更之间的关系,结果发现,公司所在地区的社会信任水平与审计定价、审计师变更均呈显著负向关系,表明审计师会对位于高社会信任地区的客户收取更低的审计费用、审计契约更为稳定,但社会信任与审计师出具非标意见的倾向之间没有显著关联。有序Logistic检验结果表明,在审计定价和审计师变更决策之间,审计师存在优先选择次序:对于低社会信任地区客户,他们会优先通过提高审计收费的手段来控制相关风险。只有在风险超出其承受力、不能通过提高审计费用来控制时,才会放弃客户。此外,文章还发现,地区法治水平能够缓解社会信任对审计师决策的影响。这一研究有助于加深社会信任与审计师决策之间关系的理解,并有助于理解审计师的风险管理策略。     

Auditing,consulting, and audit market concentration

In its recently published Green Paper, the European Commission (Audit policy: lessons from the crisis. Brussels, 2010) discusses various methods to enhance the reliability of audits and to re-establish trust in the financial market. The Commission primarily focuses on increasing auditor independence and on reducing the high level of audit market concentration. Based on a model in the tradition of the circular market matching models introduced by Salop (Bell J Econ 10(1):141–156, 1979), we show that prohibiting non-audit services as a measure intended to improve auditor independence can have counter-productive secondary effects on audit market concentration. In fact, our model demonstrates that incentives for independence and the structure of the audit market are simultaneously determined. Because market shares are endogenous in our model, it is not even clear that prohibiting non-audit services indeed increases an auditor’s incentive to remain independent.     

Experimental evidence on external auditor reliance on the internal audit

With the revised version of ISA 610 (revised 2013), external auditors now face both requirements and guidance addressing their responsibilities when relying on the internal audit function (IAF). The reliance decision of an external auditor has important economic consequences and implications for the efficiency and effectiveness of the annual audit. Using an experimental design, we explore how German external auditors’ reliance decisions regarding the IAF are affected by varying levels of environmental factors, like client business risk, effectiveness of the internal control system, and quality of the corporate governance. Furthermore, the experiences of external auditors in collaborating with an IAF are taken into consideration. The results indicate main effects for each factor and a two-way interaction between the effectiveness of the internal control system and the quality of corporate governance. Specifically, a strong internal control system can compensate for weaknesses in corporate governance with respect to the confidence of external auditors in the IAF. Also, the type of audit procedure influences the willingness of auditors to rely on the IAF, and the inherent risk of the examined transaction strengthens the negative impact of client business risk on the reliance decision. Moreover, past experiences of external auditors with an IAF have a significant impact on their reliance decision. Overall, the findings suggest that organizations can foster internal–external auditor coordination by enhancing corporate governance effectiveness and strengthening the internal control system.

     

An inspection game of internal audit and the influence of whistle-blowing

In this paper we analyse how whistle-blowing affects fraudulent behaviour of managers while the company instigates imperfect internal audit to detect the fraud. To do so, we employ in a first step a non-cooperative inspection game to analyse fraudulent behaviour of a manager controlled by an internal auditor. In a second step we introduce exogenous whistle-blowing of a manager’s employee to aid the auditor to reveal the fraud. In a third step, the two-person inspection game is extended to a three-person approach with endogenous whistle-blowing. Our novel results are that the intensity of internal audit is always lower with whistle-blowing than without and that whistle-blowing renders the manager to act less fraudulently than compared to the basic inspection game if and only if she is unaware of the whistle-blower’s expected pay-off and the efficacy of internal audit is sufficiently low.     

External audit and bankruptcy prediction

In this paper, we investigate the relationship between external auditor characteristics and the likelihood of bankruptcy. We use a sample of US public companies to analyse whether auditor attributes are associated with default. We also test whether the inclusion of such attributes in bankruptcy prediction models improves their predictive ability. We find that firms audited by industry-expert auditors, large audit firms and long-tenured auditors are less likely to default. Firms with higher audit fees are more likely to default. Our results also show that the inclusion of auditor attributes significantly increases the predictive ability of bankruptcy prediction models. This paper contributes to the literature about auditing and bankruptcy prediction. Our results suggest that the auditor attributes can provide predictive signals concerning a default risk and that an external audit can play a relevant role in early warnings of financial distress. Our study also suggests that bankruptcy prediction models can become more effective if they are complemented with audit data. Our results are of interest to market participants, auditors, regulating authorities, banks and other financial institutions that are interested in credit risk assessment.     

Audit committee perspectives on mandatory audit firm rotation: evidence from Canada

This study examines audit committee (AC) members’ perspectives on mandatory audit firm rotation (MAFR), mandatory audit partner rotation, ways in which ACs monitor auditor independence and objectivity, and the costs associated with switching audit firms. In-person interviews with AC members in Canada were conducted to improve our understanding of the reasons underlying AC members’ positions on MAFR. All AC members interviewed in this study were adamantly opposed to MAFR. MAFR was perceived as a threat to their shareholder-granted authority to make audit firm appointment decisions. Participants believe that their professional judgment and observations are the most effective means of ensuring auditor independence and view MAFR as an unnecessary intervention. We explain these results using self-determination theory. Our findings were also used to develop a conceptual model of AC relationships with external auditors and financial management.     

?konomie des Abschlusspr��ferwechsels

In this state-of-the-art article we survey the analytical and empirical work on the economic determinants and consequences of auditor changes. First, we define the term ??auditor change?? and touch on the legal constraints affecting auditor changes in Germany and in the USA. Additionally. we discuss the corresponding disclosure requirements associated with auditor changes in these countries. Auditor changes can be triggered by the client or by the auditor. We identify four categories under which auditor change incentives can be classified: (1) changes in contractual relationships of the client which in turn can cause a change in demand for audit quality; (2) changes of information possessed by the client or auditor concerning certain attributes of the audit; (3) changes in certain characteristics of the audit and (4) changes in regulation. We use this classification to structure our discussion of analytical models and empirical evidence. Turning to the consequences of auditor changes, we summarize the findings of the prior literature to show that capital market participants react on auditor changes and that they differentiate between both the initiator of auditor changes and the incentives to change auditor. We conclude with a discussion of some of the limitations of the current literature on auditor changes and identify some possible avenues for future research.     

A Cascaded Inference Model for Evaluation of the Internal Audit Report*

This paper provides a normative framework for how external auditors should evaluate internal audit (IA) work, with a view to assessing the risk of material misstatement. The central issue facing the external auditor when evaluating IA work is the reliability of IA work. Reliability assessments are structured using the cascaded inference framework from behavioral decision theory, in which attributes of source reliability are explicitly modeled and combined using Bayes' rule in order to determine the inferential value of IA work. Results suggest that the inferential value of an IA report is highly sensitive to internal auditor reporting bias, but relatively insensitive to reporting veracity. Veracity refers to internal auditors' propensity to report truthfully, whereas bias refers to the propensity to misreport findings. Results also indicate that this sensitivity to reporting bias is conditional on the level of internal auditor competence, thus suggesting significant interaction effects between the objectivity and competence factors. Collectively, these findings suggest that the impact of source reliability attributes may be more complex than portrayed in the auditing standards and that recognizing these subtleties may lead to greater efficiency and effectiveness.     

The value of audit quality in public and private companies: evidence from Spain

This paper compares the value of audit quality, proxied by the selection of a big N auditor, to the external claimholders of private and public companies. Although the combination of a lower ownership concentration of public companies, the greater demand for financial information quality about these companies and their higher litigation risk can result in the expectation that audit quality should be more valuable for public than for private companies, the greater information asymmetry between the managers and the external stakeholders and the unavailability of alternative mechanisms for monitoring the managers can make external audit more valuable for the external claimholders of private companies. In this paper, we test these two competing views by analysing if banks and lenders take into account auditor selection in the formation of the cost of debt. Our results support the second view: we find that only private companies obtain a lower cost of debt when they are audited by a high-quality auditor. These results are robust to both endogeneity and unobserved firm-specific heterogeneity.     

Managerial dominance and audit committee independence in Spanish corporate governance

The purpose of this paper is to analyse whether the independence of audit committees is affected by the degree of control exerted by managers over the board of directors. Results from a sample of 75 listed Spanish companies show that the majority of firms that voluntarily adopted an audit committee between 1998 and 2001, made an effort to guarantee their independence from management. The degree of independence is shown to be determined by the proportion of inside directors on the board, the same person holding both the CEO and board chairperson positions, and the level of management ownership. These findings may have political implications because existing regulations do not limit the presence of inside directors on audit committees. The presence of inside directors may compromise effectiveness, turning audit committees into instruments of management to provide the appearance of monitoring.

Fuzzy quality-team formation for value added auditing: A case study

Value-added (quality) auditing is emerging as one of the most powerful tools for continuous quality improvement, with the introduction of the ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 19011 standards that focus team-based audits, proper auditor skills, process auditing, and effectiveness, etc. Formation of an effective quality audit team (QAT) based on the required auditor skills is therefore the initial stage of the value added auditing. QATs audit organizations at different locations with varying auditing requirements in order to evaluate an organization's own quality system (first party part audits according to IEC9001 Clause 8.2.2). The QAT consists of a lead auditor and one or more auditors that have the required skills in varying levels for the execution of an audit. For a successful audit, the formation of a QAT is vital since each audit team must at least fulfill the minimum requirements and skills needed for a specific audit. In this case study, a fuzzy mathematical-programming model and a solution algorithm based on “simulated annealing” is proposed for the formation of QATs. This is one of the first attempts in the literature to form this kind of teams analytically. Example problems are also solved in the paper to present the application of the proposed approach.     

External audit and goodwill write-off

Building on agency theory, we investigate whether and how salient external auditor characteristics (size, audit fees, non-audit fees, tenure) impact on the reported goodwill write-off. We use a sample of US firms applying SFAS 142. We find that Big-4 auditors are more prone to limit underestimated write-offs rather than overestimated write-offs and that auditors require higher fees from companies underestimating the write-offs. The findings are consistent with the auditors’ preference for more conservative goodwill and earnings values, which reduce their litigation and reputation costs. This preference can converge with the managerial interest to use unnecessary overestimated goodwill write-offs for earnings management purposes (e.g. to smooth the income or take big baths). Our findings do not support the hypotheses that non-audit fees and tenure affect the goodwill write-off. Our paper contributes to prior literature on external audit and financial accounting choices. Our study suggests that leniently audited discretional fair value estimates are likely to compromise the role of auditing (and of financial reporting) as an external control mechanism. Our study can contribute to the current policy debate around goodwill accounting.     

The Application of Neural Networks and a Qualitative Response Model to the Auditor's Going Concern Uncertainty Decision*

An auditor gives a going concern uncertainty opinion when the client company is at risk of failure or exhibits other signs of distress that threaten its ability to continue as a going concern. The decision to issue a going concern opinion is an unstructured task that requires the use of the auditor's judgment. In cases where judgment is required, the auditor may benefit from the use of statistical analysis or other forms of decision models to support the final decision. This study uses the generalized reduced gradient (GRG2) optimizer for neural network learning, a backpropagation neural network, and a logit model to predict which firms would receive audit reports reflecting a going concern uncertainty modification. The GRG2 optimizer has previously been used as a more efficient optimizer for solving business problems. The neural network model formulated using GRG2 has the highest prediction accuracy of 95 percent. It performs best when tested with a small number of variables on a group of data sets, each containing 70 observations. While the logit procedure fails to converge when using our eight variable model, the GRG2 based neural network analysis provides consistent results using either eight or four variable models. The GRG2 based neural network is proposed as a robust alternative model for auditors to support their assessment of going concern uncertainty affecting the client company.     

Das Erfordernis der Umsatzunabh?ngigkeit und die Konzentration auf dem deutschen Markt f��r Abschlusspr��ferleistungen

The German market for services provided by audit firms is characterised by a growing concentration over the last decades. Due to numerous scandals, an auditor is obliged to meet stricter independence regulations. An audit firm has to reject a client if it received more than 15% of its total income from the listed company to be audited at any time during the last five years and at the same time expects to receive more than 15% in the current period. It can be argued that this regulation accelerates the concentration process, while small and midsize accountants, which serve only a small number of clients, are suppressed. This analysis is based on the data of 442 Prime-Standard audits for the periods 2005, 2006 and 2007. The results show that the Big4-audit firm obtained an increasing market share in terms of clients (77% (2005), 83% (2007)) and total fees (96% (2005), 97% (2007)). Furthermore, it is noticeable, that in particular NonBig4-audit firms exceed the critical threshold of 15% during the periods under investigation. As a result hereof such firms must leave the market after five years. Hence, the German commercial code`s independence regulations may affect the audit market structure. The results suggest that an enhancement of auditor independence through income thresholds is in conflict with a reduction of market concentration. Furthermore, it can be observed that an increase in fees earned from a particular client does not impact auditor independence as long as the income threshold is not exceeded. In addition, internal auditor rotation, auditor engagement by supervisory boards, and the implementation of audit committees could also result in an increase of concentration.     

Zum Einfluss der Mandatsdauer des Abschlusspr��fers auf die Pr��fungsqualit?t

This study provides evidence on the relation between auditor tenure and audit quality. It is motivated by calls for mandatory auditor rotation, which are based on concerns that longer auditor tenure reduces auditor independence and thus audit quality. Earnings management is used as proxy for audit quality and is measured by absolute and signed performance-adjusted-Jones-model discretionary accruals. Multivariate analyses, controlling for additional firm and auditor characteristics indicate lower earnings management with longer auditor tenure. This result suggests that, in the current environment, mandatory limitations on the length of auditor-client-relationship would result in lower audit quality.     

中国证券市场审计任期与盈余质量关系的实证检验

安然事件以来,审计任期与盈余(经审计的)质量的关系成为了研究热点.本文运用中国证券市场1998-2004年上市公司的公开数据,同时从事务所任期与合伙人任期两大层面实证检验了审计任期与盈余质量之间的关系.实证结果显示:随着会计师事务所审计任期的增加,盈余质量显著地表现出先逐渐上升后逐渐下降的倒U型趋势,且拐点稳定在6-8年之间;而随着签字注册会计师审计任期的增加,盈余质量虽然总体逐渐上升,但此趋势尚不足够显著.     

Audit quality and earnings management in less developed economies: the case of Saudi Arabia

This paper aims to determine if significant associations exist between audit quality and earnings management in less developed economies, providing their various shortcomings and differences. Five different measures of audit quality (auditor size, auditor industry specialization, auditor opinion, auditor change and timeliness of auditor report) were examined based on a sample of 337 non-financial Saudi listed firms from 2006 to 2009. The absolute value of discretionary accruals is used as a proxy for earnings management by using a cross-sectional variation of the Kothari model. The results of this research indicate that only auditor opinion indicates earnings management practice. The results support the argument that auditors are powerless in front of managerial opportunistic activities. Issues that may impair audit quality in Saudi Arabia are discussed.     

审计师任期、事务所任期与审计质量

利用审计师对财务危机的公司是否出具持续经营的查核意见,以及企业的异常营运资本,作为研究衡量审计质量良莠的代理变量,分析了中国审计师任期与会计师事务所任期对审计质量的影响。如果以查核意见作为被解释变量,没有发现审计师任期或事务所任期与审计质量有关联性的证据。然而,一旦以异常营运资本作为分析对象时,则发现较长的审计师任期有助于提高审计质量的证据。此外,当企业有增加盈余的动机时,还发现会计师事务所内的审计师之间有审计经验传承的效果。进一步的分析则显示,前述的发现主要来自于非四大会计师事务所。换言之,审计师任期的经验效果对于非四大会计师事务所更为重要。     

Einfluss der Mandatsdauer des Abschlussprüfers auf ergebniszielgr??enorientierte Bilanzpolitik

This study examines whether the length of auditor-client-relationship affects audit quality. It is motivated by recent calls for mandatory auditor rotation in Europe which are based on concerns that a longer auditor tenure reduces audit quality. Earnings management is used as proxy for audit quality. It is measured by the firms’ success to achieve earnings benchmark targets. A situation in which an abnormal high proportion of firms just meet the benchmark and an abnormal low proportion of firms just miss the benchmark is interpreted as earnings management. Analysed benchmark targets are the reporting of small profits (loss avoidance) and the reporting of small positive earnings increases. Multivariate analyses indicate a higher success for benchmark beating with longer auditor tenure. This result suggests that, in the current environment, mandatory limitations on the length of auditor-client-relationship could result in higher audit quality.