scholarly journals The report of the audit expectation gap and audit market

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 71
Author(s):  
Yuqi He
Keyword(s):  
Audit Report ◽  
Audit Market ◽  
Expectation Gap ◽  
Audit Firms ◽  
Big Four

<p>After the collapse of Carillion Plc, the big four audit firms received criticisms. This report focuses on the audit expectation gap and the audit market to explain this phenomenon and solve it. The audit expectation gap indicates the gap between what the audit report users expect the auditors to do and what they have done. The audit market contains the competition in the audit industry, and the breaking up of the big four can increase the competition in the audit market. Thus, the public’s trust in audit firms can be increased.</p>

Factors Influencing KAM Reporting: A Structured Literature Review

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (164) ◽  
pp. 743-758
Author(s):  
Teodora Porumbacean ◽  
◽  
Adriana Tiron-Tudor ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Financial Reporting ◽  
Reporting Quality ◽  
Financial Statements ◽  
Positive Influence ◽  
Financial Reporting Quality ◽  
Risk Level ◽  
Audit Report ◽  
Expectation Gap ◽  
Big Four ◽  
Relevant Factors

The disclosure of KAMs contribute to the increase of financial-reporting quality, the value of the audit report and implicit interest in it. Moreover, KAM’s disclosure has a positive influence over the expectation gap between the auditors and other users of the audit report and financial statements. This study aims to identify relevant drivers influencing the Key Audit Matters (KAMs) disclosed in the audit report, based on a review of the articles published in top accounting journals. Our results reveal the fact that the audited company itself especially influences the disclosure of the KAMs, emphasizing the size of the company, the complexity of the business, the applicable regulation of the industry in which the company operates, all of which impact the overall client-risk level. Other relevant factors are the accounting standards with which the company must comply and on which it must report, the audit company (‘Big Four’ or not) and the audited company’s location.

scholarly journals MODERN PROBLEMS OF AUDIT SERVICES IN UKRAINE

2020 ◽  
pp. 86-92
Author(s):  
T. Zhukova ◽  
K. Iermolenko ◽  
I. Plikus
Keyword(s):  
Financial Statements ◽  
Practical Experience ◽  
Professional Organizations ◽  
Existing Problems ◽  
Audit Market ◽  
Audit Firms ◽  
Number Of Factors ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Audit Activity ◽  
Big Four

Today, audit activity in Ukraine has a number of contradictions and misunderstandings. Lack of practical experience of auditors and the necessary resources, as well as a tight market lead to the fact that some audit firms do not perform their work well. The article reveals the shortcomings of audit activity, a number of factors influencing them, the situation and prospects for changes and development in the future, and the ways to solve existing problems. The analysis of the audit services market in Ukraine showed positive trends. Today we observe how it has expanded significantly and encompassed all areas of economic activity. The article provides a comparative description of the audit market by the total number of audit activity subjects (SAD) in 2014 - 2018. The audit market is proved to be suffering from changes in the country. The decrease in the number of audit activity subjects is associated primarily with tightening the requirements for auditors and changes in legislation, but this did not affect the volume of services provided. The problems of the market monopolization under the "Big Four" are noted. In fact, the audit of state-owned enterprises was handed over to four companies, which make up 0.4% of the total number of audit entities in Ukraine. It is emphasized that audit companies have shortcomings and unresolved issues, which include the lack of a unified audit program, the pricing of audit services, the insufficient number of methodological developments for audit control, the cost of certification of auditors, and the lack of guidelines for computerizing the audit. It is noted that the main areas of audit development in Ukraine include creating the mechanism for applying ISAs, developing the methodology for auditing financial statements of enterprises by industry, deepening cooperation between Ukrainian professional audit organizations with international and European professional organizations of accountants, auditors, developing a pricing mechanism for audit services, and improving the quality control of providing the audit services.

scholarly journals Learning by Doing? Partners Audit Experience and the Quality of Audit Services

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-209
Author(s):  
Josep García-Blandon ◽  
Josep María Argilés-Bosch ◽  
Diego Ravenda
Keyword(s):  
Audit Quality ◽  
Discretionary Accruals ◽  
Learning By Doing ◽  
Audit Report ◽  
Industry Specialization ◽  
Audit Market ◽  
Specific Experience ◽  
Audit Firms ◽  
Different Levels

A pesar de la evidencia que sugiere que el conocimiento especializado debería resultar más relevante que el genérico para explicar diferentes niveles de calidad de auditoría asociados a los auditores individuales, ningún estudio hasta la fecha ha abordado el posible impacto diferencial de la experiencia genérica y específica en la calidad de los servicios de auditoría. Nuestro estudio investiga esta cuestión en el mercado de auditoría español. Aproximamos la calidad de la auditoría a partir de los ajustes de devengo discrecionales y la opinión del informe de auditoría; diferenciando entre experiencia específica con el propio cliente, experiencia sectorial y experiencia de auditoría genérica. Como se esperaba, los resultados muestran una mayor calidad de auditoría cuando el cliente es auditado por un socio con mayor experiencia en el sector de actividad del cliente. También observamos que ni la experiencia específica con el propio cliente, ni la experiencia genérica de auditoría del socio auditor son determinantes significativos de la calidad de los servicios de auditoría. Por otro lado, mientras que algunos estudios previos señalan que el conocimiento especializado resulta más relevante que el genérico para explicar la calidad de los servicios de auditoría, este trabajo sugiere que el conocimiento especializado es, de hecho, el único tipo de conocimiento que resulta relevante. Estos resultados pueden tener implicaciones interesantes para las firmas de auditoría. Despite evidence suggesting that specialised knowledge should be more relevant than generic knowledge to explain different levels of audit quality across individual auditors, no study to date has addressed the respective impacts of the industry-specific and the generic audit experience of audit partners on the quality of audit services. Our study investigates this issue in the Spanish audit market. We proxy audit quality by discretionary accruals and by the opinion of the audit report, and differentiate among client-specific experience, industry-specific experience and generic audit experience of individual auditors. As expected, our results show significantly higher audit quality when the client is audited by a partner with stronger industry-specific audit experience. Furthermore, we observe that neither client-specific experience nor generic audit experience of audit partners are significant determinants of the quality of audit services provided by these auditors. These results may have some interesting implications for audit firms. Therefore, whereas some prior studies on the related issue of industry specialization point out that specialised knowledge is more relevant than generic knowledge to explain the quality of audit services, our findings suggest that specialised knowledge is, in fact, the only type of knowledge that seems to matter.

scholarly journals Concentration of the Audit Market: Evidence from Serbia

2015 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-126
Author(s):  
Kristina Mijić ◽  
Dejan Jakšić ◽  
Bojana Vuković
Keyword(s):  
Concentration Ratio ◽  
Audit Fees ◽  
Market Concentration ◽  
Independent Variables ◽  
Audit Market ◽  
Audit Firms ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Big Four ◽  
Operating Revenue

Abstract This paper presents a research on market concentration of audit services in the Republic of Serbia during the 2008-2011 period. Market concentration was measured by Herfindahl-Hirschman index (HHI) and concentration ratio CR4, based on four independent variables: operating revenue, net earnings, number of employees and number of audit clients. The research of market concentration based on operating revenue as the most referential variable indicated that the market for audit services in the Republic of Serbia has a moderate concentration and that it has the characteristics of an oligopoly of four largest audit firms known as “Big Four”. However, research of market concentration, when other variables are taken in consideration, does not reveal dominance of “Big Four” in terms of net earnings, number of employees and number of clients. The differences in conclusions when different variables are concerned can be explained by relatively high audit fees of “Big Four” and a lack of correlation between operating revenue and net earnings.

scholarly journals The role of «BIG FOUR» auditing firms in the public procurement market in Ukraine

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 2483
Author(s):  
Olena Antoniuk ◽  
Natalya Kuzyk ◽  
Iryna Zhurakovska ◽  
Roman Sydorenko ◽  
Liudmyla Sakhno
Keyword(s):  
Public Procurement ◽  
Competitive Environment ◽  
Pricing Policy ◽  
The Public ◽  
Audit Market ◽  
Big 4 ◽  
Audit Firms ◽  
Procurement System ◽  
Big Four

The authors conducted a study aimed to identify the role of «Big Four» («Big 4») audit firms in the public procurement market in Ukraine.The purpose of the article is to answer the questions: whether Ukraine is in a general trend of most countries in the concentration of audit market; what is the share of revenues of the «Big Four» audit firms in the performance of audit services in the public procurement system in Ukraine. First of all, in order to get answers to these questions, the authors conducted a study of the main trends in the development of the «Big Four» companies in Ukraine. It was found that the characteristic competitive environment in the market of audit services, the impact on competitiveness of pricing policy and regulatory requirements, relating to the acquisition of audit services by public sector entities through a public procurement system "ProZorro". An element of price regulation and compliance with the transparent conditions of the competitive environment is the participation of audit firms in the public procurement system. As a result of processing data on procurement of audit services for the period 2008-2019, the authors calculated key indicators that characterize the concentration of the audit market. Based on the data on the amount of remuneration for various types of audit services using the public procurement system "ProZorro", aspects of pricing policy and the role of the companies of the "Big Four" in the market were established. The values indexes indicate that the companies of the «Big 4» do not have a complete monopoly in the segment of procurement of audit services, having certain dominant positions in some years, and the indexes indicate a trend towards effective competition in the audit services market in Ukraine.

Industry Specialization by Auditors

1999 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris E. Hogan ◽  
Debra C. Jeter
Keyword(s):  
High Risk ◽  
Market Share ◽  
Scale Economies ◽  
The Other ◽  
Industry Specialization ◽  
Audit Market ◽  
Audit Firms ◽  
Regulated Industries ◽  
Concentration Levels ◽  
Over Time

Dramatic changes in recent years in the audit market suggest the timeliness of an investigation of trends in auditor concentration and an extension of prior research (e.g., Danos and Eichenseher 1982). In recent press, large audit firms have claimed that specialization is a goal of increasing importance. Peat Marwick, for example, has restructured along industry lines, claiming to be recruiting professionals for national teams of multidisciplinary experts organized to “focus on the same industry to serve clients optimally.” On the other hand, litigation concerns might prompt auditors to diversify their risks by diversifying their clientele. In this study, we examine trends in industry specialization from 1976 to 1993 and the industry factors which may affect specialization; whether market share increases are greater for audit firms classified as specialists; and whether the nation's largest audit firms have increased their market share in the industries which they have identified as their focus industries. We find evidence that concentration levels have increased over this period, consistent with the claims of the large audit firms. We find that auditor concentration levels are higher in regulated industries, in more concentrated industries and in industries experiencing rapid growth, but lower in industries with a high risk of litigation. Levels of concentration have increased over time in nonregulated industries providing evidence that scale economies or superior efficiencies of heavy-involvement auditors are not limited to regulated industries but extend to nonregulated industries as well. We also find that for the audit firms classified as market leaders at the beginning of the year, market share has increased over time, whereas market share has declined for firms with a smaller share at the beginning of the year. This suggests that there are returns to investing in specialization.

The interplay between global accounting firms and national institutional contexts: The establishment of the Big Four in China from 1978 to 2007

2021 ◽  
pp. 103237322110581
Author(s):  
Wenjun Wen ◽  
Amanda Sonnerfeldt
Keyword(s):  
Economic Transition ◽  
Professional Service ◽  
Service Firms ◽  
Professional Service Firms ◽  
Accounting Firms ◽  
Audit Market ◽  
Institutional Contexts ◽  
Reform And Opening Up ◽  
Big Four ◽  
Opening Up

This paper provides an analysis of the establishment of global accounting firms (the ‘Big Four’) in China between 1978 and 2007. Drawing on the extant literature on professional service firms, and the work of Faulconbridge and Muzio (2015) , this paper examines how the Big Four entered China following the country's ‘Reform and Opening-up’ and evolved from tentative representative offices to established accounting firms in the Chinese audit market. Based on an extensive analysis of archival materials and interviews, the findings of this paper show that the Big Four's establishment in China has been deeply intertwined with the country's socio-political and economic transition. It reveals important conjunctural moments in history that have provided the Big Four with important windows of opportunity to actively shape local institutional change to their own interests. This paper contributes to the extant accounting literature on the expansion of the Big Four in China by highlighting the interplay between their surrounding institutional context and their capacity for agency.

scholarly journals The Determinants of Audit Expectation Gap: An Empirical Study from Kingdom of Bahrain

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sayed Ali Ahmed Alawi ◽  
Rami Mohammad Abu Wadi ◽  
Gagan Kukreja
Keyword(s):  
Financial Reporting ◽  
Quantitative Research ◽  
Financial Statements ◽  
International Standards ◽  
Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia ◽  
The Public ◽  
Financial Reporting Standards ◽  
Expectation Gap ◽  
Audit Firms ◽  
National Bank

The research aims at identifying the determinants of audit expectation gap between the auditors and the users of financial statements in the Kingdom of Bahrain. This issue is noticed in many frauds or errors or illegal matters by the general public after every scam whether Enron and WorldCom from United States or Satyam and Punjab National Bank from India or Tesco and BHS from United Kingdom or Mobily from Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. As per International Standards on Auditing (ISAs), auditors are not responsible to detect each and every fraud or error or illegal act as it is the responsibility of management. However, auditors are expected to assess the possibility of an error or fraud to occur and assess risks of material misstatement due to error or fraud and they are supposed to express their independent and objective opinion on financial statements whether financial statements are prepared in accordance to suitable criteria (International Financial Reporting Standards in the case of Bahrain).This quantitative research and its descriptive design aims empirically to analyze determinants that may impact the audit expectation gap in the Kingdom of Bahrain. The study used a detailed questionnaire as a measuring instrument across the sample group to measure 4 determinants that are expected to have a significant impact on the level of the audit expectation gap. Those determinants are the efforts of auditors, the skills of auditors, the knowledge of the public about the audit profession and the users’ needs from auditors. The research inferred that identified factors found to have a significant impact on the level of audit expectation gap. It is recommended that audit firms should provide training to the audit staff that how to utilize the required efforts in conducting an audit engagement and go extra miles to fill the gap. Furthermore, the auditors should keep themselves updated about the latest frauds and the best audit practices. 

scholarly journals The impact of Key Audit Matters (KAMs) on financial information quality: Evidence from Lebanon

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 135
Author(s):  
Joelle Matta ◽  
Khalil Feghali
Keyword(s):  
Value Creation ◽  
Information Quality ◽  
Investment Decision ◽  
Financial Statements ◽  
Financial Information ◽  
Audit Report ◽  
External Auditors ◽  
Expectations Gap ◽  
Expectation Gap ◽  
The Impact

<p>The purpose of this study is to discover the impact of Key Audit Matters (KAMs) on financial information quality and their value for Lebanese auditors. The value creation of KAMs is determined by its financial information quality, its ability to help during investment decision and its effect on the audit expectation gap. The research is conducted through a survey that was filled by external auditors who audit Lebanese banks exclusively, and are involved in the new audit report. The main results show that reporting by using Key Audit Matters adds value to the audit report from the perspective of Lebanese external auditors, and can reduce information asymmetry, increase trust in accounting and reduce the expectation gap. Moreover, the results marked that KAM improves the auditee's understanding in the audited entity, builds confidence in the audited financial statements, and helps to reduce the audit expectations gap.</p>

The Effect of Corporate Governance on Auditor-Client Realignments

2012 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cory A. Cassell ◽  
Gary A. Giroux ◽  
Linda A. Myers ◽  
Thomas C. Omer
Keyword(s):  
Corporate Governance ◽  
Audit Committee ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Governance Mechanisms ◽  
Portfolio Decisions ◽  
Audit Market ◽  
Sarbanes Oxley ◽  
Corporate Governance Mechanisms ◽  
Audit Firms ◽  
Governance Index

SUMMARY Events leading up to the implementation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) increased the public's focus on corporate governance and increased regulatory scrutiny of corporate governance mechanisms. These events also contributed to a massive restructuring in the audit market that resulted in the transfer of a large number of clients from Big N to non-Big N audit firms. We extend prior research examining the determinants of auditor-client realignments by investigating the effect of corporate governance on downward (i.e., from Big N to non-Big N auditors) switching activity. We develop a corporate governance index comprised of governance characteristics that we expect auditors to find more desirable in their clients (specifically, board and audit committee independence, diligence, and expertise). The results suggest that Big N auditors consider client corporate governance mechanisms when making client portfolio decisions. Specifically, downward auditor-client realignments are more likely for clients that score lower on our corporate governance index. However, the influence of audit committee-related corporate governance components on downward auditor-client realignments decreased post-SOX. The reduced effect of audit committee-related corporate governance components is consistent with what would be expected if the audit committee-related rules imposed by SOX reduced the variation in audit committee quality across clients. Data Availability: The data used are publicly available from the sources cited in the text.

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