Did SOX Influence the Association between Fee Dependence and Auditors' Propensity to Issue Going-Concern Opinions?

2013 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer L. Kao ◽  
Yan Li ◽  
Wenjun Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Government Regulations ◽  
Going Concern ◽  
Sarbanes Oxley ◽  
Short Run ◽  
Public Scrutiny ◽  
Jel Classifications ◽  
Auditor Conservatism

SUMMARY: Li (2009) found that the association between fee dependence (FEEDEP) and the incidence of going-concern opinions (GCO) changed from insignificant in 2001 to positive in 2003. This finding has been interpreted as evidence that auditors became more conservative after the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX). However, Feldmann and Read (2010) suggested that the year following SOX was not typical due to the intense spotlight directed at the audit profession. We revisit Li (2009) by extending the post-SOX period to 2011, and find robust results of little FEEDEP-GCO association in the years after 2003. Hence, the rise in auditor conservatism identified by Li (2009) likely represented the audit profession's temporary reaction to public scrutiny surrounding the passage of SOX, rather than a sustained movement toward more conservative going-concern reporting. Our study reinforces the notion that the effect of major events and government regulations cannot be adequately assessed based on what transpires in the short run. JEL Classifications: M420.

Auditor Conservatism after Enron

2010 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 267-278 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dorothy A. Feldmann ◽  
William J. Read
Keyword(s):  
Financial Statement ◽  
Going Concern ◽  
Corporate Scandals ◽  
Sarbanes Oxley ◽  
Audit Firms ◽  
The Media ◽  
Time Periods ◽  
Audit Opinions ◽  
Auditor Conservatism

SUMMARY: Corporate scandals and the resulting passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) in 2002 significantly affected the auditing profession. The quality of financial statement audits was called into questioned and the media and regulators held audit firms responsible. Several studies found evidence of an increase in the issuance of going-concern opinions after the passage of SOX relative to earlier time periods (Geiger et al. 2005; Nogler 2008; Myers et al. 2008). Auditors, it appears, behave more conservatively when the profession is in the headlines. We replicate and extend this research to determine whether the heightened conservatism continues or whether it fades as time passes. We examine audit opinions issued 12 months or less prior to a bankruptcy filing for 565 companies from 2000–2008. Our findings indicate that while the proportion of going-concern modifications increases sharply in 2002–2003 compared to 2000–2001, it declines in the periods that follow, ultimately returning to its pre-Enron level.

Clients' Workplace Environment and Corporate Audits

2017 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 89-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Minjie Huang ◽  
Adi Masli ◽  
Felix Meschke ◽  
James P. Guthrie
Keyword(s):  
Audit Fees ◽  
Risk Assessments ◽  
Audit Report ◽  
Accounting Firms ◽  
Workplace Environment ◽  
Workplace Satisfaction ◽  
Going Concern ◽  
Corporate Executives ◽  
Workplace Environments ◽  
Jel Classifications

SUMMARY We obtain a novel dataset of workplace satisfaction ratings submitted by about 100,000 employees working for large public U.S. companies. We document that lower workplace ratings are associated with higher audit fees and longer audit report lags. Lower workplace ratings also increase the likelihood of firms receiving modified going concern opinions. Our study shows that organizational workplace environments affect auditor risk assessments and auditing outcomes and provide insights for practicing auditors and corporate executives. Our interviews with practicing auditors at large U.S. accounting firms also provide insights as to how workplace quality affects the corporate audit. JEL Classifications: G3; J28; M14; M42.

Corporate Governance Factors and Auditor Going Concern Assessments

2005 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 5-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Parker ◽  
Gary F. Peters ◽  
Howard F. Turetsky
Keyword(s):  
Corporate Governance ◽  
Financial Reporting ◽  
Financial Distress ◽  
Audit Committee ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Going Concern ◽  
Sarbanes Oxley ◽  
Auditing Standards ◽  
Distressed Firms ◽  
The Impact

When making going concern assessments, Statement on Auditing Standards No. 59 (Auditing Standards Board 1988) directs auditors to consider the nature of management's plans and ability to mitigate periods of financial distress successfully. Corporate governance factors reflect attributes of control, oversight, and/or support of management's plans and actions intended to overcome financial distress. Correspondingly, this study investigates the impact of certain corporate governance factors on the likelihood of a going concern modification. Using survival analysis techniques, we examine a sample of 161 financially distressed firms for the time period 1988–1996. We find that auditors are twice as likely to issue a going concern modification when the CEO is replaced. We also find that going concern modifications are inversely associated with blockholder ownership. We also confirm Carcello and Neal's (2000) findings with respect to the association between an independent audit committee and an increased likelihood of modification. In a repeated events setting, we find that insider ownership and board independence are inversely associated with repeated going concern modifications. Our study concludes by proposing implications for the current financial reporting environment (including the Sarbanes‐Oxley Act of 2002) and future research avenues.

The effect of financial crisis on auditor conservatism: US evidence

2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 160-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Beams ◽  
Yun-Chia Yan
Keyword(s):  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Accounting Firms ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Going Concern ◽  
Big 4 ◽  
Distressed Firms ◽  
Recent Financial Crisis ◽  
Auditor Conservatism

Purpose – This paper aims to examine the effect that the recent financial crisis had on auditor conservatism in the form of increased going-concern opinions. Design/methodology/approach – This study uses a sample of US’ distressed firms from 2005 to 2011 to test the change in going-concern opinions issued. This paper uses a logistic regression model to control for other predictors of going-concern opinions to determine when the financial crisis led to an increase in auditor conservatism. Findings – The authors find that auditors became more conservative in the form of issuing higher levels of going-concern opinions even after controlling for other predictors of going-concern opinions. This increased conservatism was present in both Big 4 and non-Big 4 accounting firms. The increased conservatism quickly returned to normal levels when the financial crisis eased. Originality/value – These findings add to the literature on the effects of environmental changes on audit opinions. Additionally, this study finds a difference in the timing of the reaction by large and small accounting firms, but, overall, it finds consistency in that both increased conservatism during the crisis and quickly returned to normal afterward.

scholarly journals Regulatory Spillovers in Common Audit Markets

2020 ◽  
Vol 66 (8) ◽  
pp. 3389-3411 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raphael Duguay ◽  
Michael Minnis ◽  
Andrew Sutherland
Keyword(s):  
Nonprofit Organizations ◽  
Private Companies ◽  
Demand Shock ◽  
Financial Reports ◽  
Public Companies ◽  
Audit Market ◽  
Sarbanes Oxley ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Audit Fee ◽  
Short Run

We find that Sarbanes–Oxley (SOX) had two significant effects on the audit market for nonpublic entities. The first short-run effect stems from inelastic labor supply coupled with an audit demand shock from public companies. As a result, private companies reduced their use of attested financial reports in bank financing by 12%, and audit fee increases for nonprofit organizations (NPOs) more than doubled. The second long-run effect was a transformation in the audit supply structure. After SOX, NPOs were less likely to match with auditors most exposed to public companies, whereas auditors increasingly specialized their offices based on client type. Audit market concentration for NPOs dropped by more than one-half within five years of SOX and remained at this level through the end of our sample in 2013, whereas the number of suppliers increased by 26%. Our results demonstrate how regulation directed at public companies generates economically important spillovers for nonpublic entities. This paper was accepted by Suraj Srinivasan, accounting.

Insider Trading, Litigation Concerns, and Auditor Going-Concern Opinions

2012 ◽  
Vol 88 (2) ◽  
pp. 365-393 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chen Chen ◽  
Xiumin Martin ◽  
Xin Wang
Keyword(s):  
Insider Trading ◽  
Class Action ◽  
Bad News ◽  
Audit Committees ◽  
Market Reactions ◽  
Negative Relation ◽  
Going Concern ◽  
Negative News ◽  
Going Concern Opinion ◽  
Jel Classifications

ABSTRACT: We investigate whether insider selling affects the likelihood of firms receiving auditor going-concern opinions. Prior studies document significant negative market reactions to the issuance of going-concern opinions, indicating that such opinions convey bad news to investors. Insider sales followed by negative news are likely to attract regulators' scrutiny and investor class-action lawsuits. Therefore, we predict that, to reduce the risk of litigation, managers have incentives to avoid receiving going-concern opinions after their insider sales by pressuring auditors for clean audit opinions. We evaluate this prediction empirically and find that the probability of receiving a going-concern opinion is negatively associated with the level of insider selling. Further analysis indicates that this negative relation is more pronounced for firms that are economically significant to their auditors but less pronounced when (1) auditors have concerns about litigation exposure and reputation loss and (2) audit committees are more independent. Finally, the negative relation between going-concern opinions and insider sales is significantly weakened after SOX. JEL Classifications: G18; M42; G48.

scholarly journals A Review Of Going Concern Prediction Studies: 1976 To Present

2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jodi L. Bellovary ◽  
Don E. Giacomino ◽  
Michael D. Akers
Keyword(s):  
Model Development ◽  
Probit Analysis ◽  
Securities And Exchange Commission ◽  
Logit Analysis ◽  
Font Size ◽  
Primary Methods ◽  
Going Concern ◽  
Sarbanes Oxley ◽  
Public Company ◽  
Going Concern Opinion

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">In 1962, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was the first to address going concern issues with Accounting Series Release (ASR) No. 90.&nbsp;&nbsp; Then, in 1963, the AICPA issued Statement on Auditing Procedures (SAP) No. 33, in response to ASR No. 90.&nbsp; Both ASR No. 90 and SAP No. 33 addressed qualifications for issues that were unresolved and the results of which were indeterminable at the statement date. Soon after the issuance of Statement on Auditing Standards (SAS) No. 2 in 1974, researchers began to conduct studies on going concern issues.&nbsp; This paper provides a comprehensive review of the literature on going concern studies and updates studies by Mutchler (1983) and Asare (1990) which provide detailed reviews of the evolution of the going concern report and requirements of the standards related to auditors' assessment of going concern.&nbsp; Since SAS No. 2, the profession has not provided additional guidance on going concern.&nbsp; Even the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX), makes no modifications to the requirements for considering going concern and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has not issued guidance addressing going concern. Starting with the first going concern prediction study [McKee, 1976], this paper identifies 27 models developed for predicting the going concern opinion and identifies the primary methods used for model development; multivariate discriminant analysis (MDA), logit analysis, probit analysis, and neural networks are.&nbsp; This paper also identifies; the most popular type of focused model and identifies three non-U.S. firm models, the number of factors considered in any one study,&nbsp; and the predictive abilities of the models. The paper also provides an annotated bibliography for the 27 models.</span></span></p>

Capital Structure, Earnings Management, and Sarbanes-Oxley: Evidence from Canadian and U.S. Firms

2013 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 301-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelly E. Carter
Keyword(s):  
Capital Structure ◽  
Earnings Management ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Cost Of Debt ◽  
Equity Financing ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
Sarbanes Oxley ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Jel Classifications

SYNOPSIS I examine Sarbanes-Oxley's (SOX) effect on capital structure. I find that SOX is associated with higher long-term debt ratios, as firms listed in the U.S. raise their long-term debt ratios by 2 to 3 percentage points. This finding is consistent with the idea that, although the reduction in information asymmetry associated with SOX could prompt managers to increase equity financing, debt is still safer and less costly than equity in the SOX era. Further analysis shows that the increase in debt occurs in the two quarters prior to SOX, suggesting that firms anticipate a higher cost of debt after SOX and acquire debt while it is relatively cheap. Also, firms that heavily (lightly) manage earnings prior to SOX use less (more) debt after SOX. This result is consistent with the view that firms that aggressively manage earnings before SOX reveal intrinsically weaker earnings after SOX, casting doubt on those firms' ability to repay debt and relegating those firms to issue equity for financing purposes. JEL Classifications: G32; G38. Data Availability: Data available upon request.

Bias in Quarterly Estimates of Annual Effective Tax Rates and Earnings Management

2012 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Comprix ◽  
Lillian F. Mills ◽  
Andrew P. Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
Earnings Management ◽  
Earnings Forecast ◽  
Tax Rates ◽  
Effective Tax Rate ◽  
Effective Tax Rates ◽  
Tax Rate ◽  
Sarbanes Oxley ◽  
Jel Classifications

ABSTRACT We investigate whether quarterly annual effective tax rate (ETR) estimates are systematically biased in comparison to year-end actual ETRs. We find that estimated annual ETRs in the first, second, and third quarters are systematically higher than year-end ETRs. We then investigate whether firms' overstatement of quarterly ETRs creates slack that is used for earnings management. We find that quarterly ETR increases are more likely to be reversed in subsequent quarters when firms would have missed their analysts' earnings forecast absent the reversal. Finally, we show that in the years subsequent to the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), changes in the ETR continue to be associated with earnings management. These results, documenting patterns of annual ETR estimates and revisions, contribute to research about how earnings management is accomplished. JEL Classifications: H25; M41.

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