Overseeing the external audit function: Evidence from audit committees’ reported activities

Recently, in response to calls for more transparency, many firms have begun reporting the activities undertaken by their audit committees in overseeing the work of the external auditor. We use a composite measure of audit committees’ reported oversight activities for a sample of S&P 1500 firms and examine the extent to which these reported activities are associated with audit quality. We find that when firms’ audit committees report exerting strong oversight, they have higher audit quality as proxied by audit fees, discretionary accruals, the likelihood of meeting or beating earnings benchmarks, and restatements. We also find that the market reacts positively to reports indicating strong oversight, consistent with perceptions of higher audit quality. This study extends prior literature on audit committees by introducing a new comprehensive measure of audit committees’ reported oversight activities and sheds light on how these activities map into audit quality.

Effects of other comprehensive income on audit fees and audit report lag in Egyptian firms: does board gender diversity matter?

PurposeThis paper aims to (1) investigate the effect of other comprehensive income (OCI) on audit fees (AF) and audit report lag (ARL) and (2) test the moderating effect of board gender diversity (BGD) on such relationships.Design/methodology/approachThis paper uses data extracted from the financial reports for a sample of Egyptian firms from 2013 to 2019, where the data are processed using the Panel Corrected Standards Errors (PCSE) and the Structure Equation Model (SEM).FindingsThe results reveal that (1) the OCI existence and OCI volume have a significant positive effect on AF and ARL, and (2) the presence of female directors on the board and the percentage of female representation affect the relationship between OCI and AF positively, but this effect on the relationship between OCI and ARL is insignificant.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper has some limitations, where the analysis uses a small sample of Egyptian listed firms, as well as, the measures that were used as proxies of the study variables, which do not necessarily express the most suitable ones.Practical implicationsThe results of this paper would (1) provide signals to the audit market, the professional bodies in Egypt and stakeholders about the determinants of AF and ARL, (2) provide guidelines that support the capital market authority to consider gender diversity in boards of companies taking into considerations its impact on AF and ARL, and (3) help the accounting setters in emerging economies as Egypt in drafting more suitable standards and guidelines regarding OCI.Originality/valueThis paper adds to the literature on OCI, where it investigates the effect of OCI on ARL, which was not yet studied in prior studies. Also, this paper complements and extends the literature by providing empirical evidence from one of the emerging markets as Egypt about the effect of BGD on the relationships between OCI, AF and ARL, as these relationships have not been examined before.

The Effect of Turnover Intention, Locus of Control, Audit Fee, Work Motivation on the Performance Quality of Medan City Public Accountant Firm

The purpose of this study is to determine the effect of turnover intention, locus of control, audit fees, and work motivation on the quality of auditor performance at the Medan City Public Accounting Firm in 2021. The choice of the sector in this study is due to very tight competition conditions like now. In this case, the auditor must always maintain their performance so that audit quality is not compromised. Auditors must perform work by professional standards so that trust in the auditor can be maintained. The data used is sourced from quantitative data in the form of questionnaires. Using the Simple Random Sampling technique, a sample of 50 auditors was drawn from five Medan City KAPs.The results showed that locus of control, audit fees, and work motivation had a positive and significant effect on the quality of auditor performance at KAP Medan City. Meanwhile, the turnover intention has a negative effect and does not significantly affect the quality of auditor performance at KAP Medan City. But all variables are affected simultaneously.

The Analysis of Factors Affecting the Amount of Audit Fee with Type of Public Accountant Office as a Moderating Variable in Manufacturing Companies Listed on the IDX for the 2013-2019 Period

This study analyzes the factors influencing the number of audit fees in manufacturing companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange in 2013 – 2019. The number of audit fees depends on several factors that influence it. The Indonesian Institute of Certified Public Accountants has determined the minimum standard of audit fees charged to auditee companies but does not include a substantial total cost and tends to fluctuate and vary. This study uses the audit committee, audit report lag, and firm size as independent variables, the type of public accounting firm as the moderating variable, and audit fee as the dependent variable. This study uses causal associative as the research design. The data was collected by collecting data on the company's financial statements from 2013 to 2019. The study population was 176 manufacturing companies whose samples were taken using the purposive sampling method. The number of research samples was 20, with 140 observations. The data analysis technique uses Studio R's panel analysis regression model as the test tool. The results showed that the Audit Committee, audit report lag, and firm size each had a significant positive effect on the audit fee's value and jointly had a significant impact on the audit fee. The type of public accountant office is not a moderating variable. Keywords: audit fee, audit committee, audit report lag, firm size, public accountant office.

¿Influyen los auditores en la agresividad fiscal de sus clientes? Evidencia empírica en las compañías españolas no cotizadas

The purpose of our study was to carry out an empirical test of the extent to which auditors have an influence on the tax practices of the audited firm. Based on a wide sample of Spanish non-listed companies for the period 2009-2017, we have obtained consistent empirical evidence revealing that the choice of a high-quality auditor has a significant impact on the tax planning strategy of the firm. Companies show a greater tax planning aggressiveness when they are audited by one of the Big Four. Notwithstanding, leverage and the existence of tax credits are factors mitigating that aggressiveness. Moreover, abnormally higher audit fees do not seem to be an incentive for the auditor to cooperate in the tax strategies of the audited company. Our results are robust and remain unaltered after adjusting for the potential heterogeneity inherent to auditor’s choice and using alternative variable specifications. Nuestro estudio tiene por objeto verificar empíricamente en qué medida los auditores influyen en las prácticas fiscales de sus clientes. Tomando una amplia muestra representativa de compañías españolas no cotizadas para el periodo comprendido entre 2009 y 2017, hemos documentado resultados empíricos que dejan constancia de que la elección de un auditor de calidad induce un significativo impacto en las estrategias de planificación fiscal de las empresas, que muestran una mayor agresividad tributaria cuando son auditadas por una Big Four. No obstante esta evidencia, el endeudamiento y la presencia de créditos fiscales pendientes de aprovechamiento se erigen como factores mitigantes de esta conducta. Además, la percepción por el auditor de un nivel de honorarios anormalmente elevados no parece generar incentivos para cooperar en las estrategias fiscales de la compañía auditada. Los resultados que hemos documentado son robustos y se mantienen inalterados tras corregir la posible endogeneidad inherente a la elección del auditor y ensayar con especificaciones alternativas de variables.

Political connections, political uncertainty and audit fees: evidence from Pakistan

Purpose This paper aims to examine the association between political connections, political uncertainty and audit fees. The authors use various measures of political connections and uncertainty: political connections (civil and military), political events (elections) and a general measure of political stability (i.e. a world bank index). Design/methodology/approach The authors measure the association between political connections, political uncertainty and audit fees. Audit fees reflect auditors’ perceptions of risk. The authors examine auditors’ business risk, clients’ audit and business risk after controlling for the variables used in prior audit fee research. Findings Results indicate that civil-connected firms pay significantly higher audit fees than non-connected firms owing to the instability of civil-political connections. Military-connected firms pay significantly lower audit fees than non-connected firms owing to the stable form of government. Furthermore, considering high leverage as a measure of clients’ high audit risk and high return-on-assets (ROA) as a measure of clients’ lower business risk, the authors interact leverage and ROA with civil and military connections. The results reveal that these risks moderate the relationship between political connection and audit fees. Election risk is independent of risk associated with political connections. General political stability reinforces the theme that a stable government results in lower risks. Originality/value The authors combine cross-sectional measures of political uncertainty (civil or military connections) with time-dependent measures (general measures of political instability and elections).

Does the expertise of outsourced IAF providers affect audit efficiency? Empirical evidence from an emerging market

Purpose This study aims to examine the effect on audit efficiency of outsourced internal audit function (IAF) providers with industry and/or firm-specific expertise. Drawing on relevant studies from external and internal audit literature, the authors assume that such IAF providers are associated with greater audit efficiency as proxied by audit report lag and audit fees. Design/methodology/approach Based on a sample of firms listed on the Omani capital market during 2005–2019, the pooled regressions are used to test the developed hypotheses. The authors use the market share approach to identify outsourced IAF industry expertise providers and tenure to measure the firm-specific expertise of outsourced IAF providers. Findings The authors find that industry outsourced IAF providers are not associated with shorter audit report lag and lower audit fees. The authors also find that firm-specific expertise outsourced IAF providers are associated with a greater reduction in audit report lag and audit fees. These conclusions are robust under a battery of analyses. The significant contribution of firm-specific expertise outsourced IAF providers to audit efficiency is incremental when abnormal audit report lag and audit fees analysis is conducted. Originality/value The results are the first to attest to the contribution of outsourced IAF with firm-specific expertise. They also show that industry expertise held by outsourced IAF providers does not contribute to audit efficiency.

Auditor Choice and the Informativeness of 10-K Reports

This study provides new evidence on the influential role of external auditors in enhancing the informativeness of form 10-K annual reports to shareholders. Specifically, we find that the client’s choice of a Big 4 auditor (PwC, EY, KPMG, and Deloitte) versus a non-Big 4 auditor contributes to cross-sectional variations in 10-K disclosure volume. We also document that the benefit of enhanced disclosures provided by Big 4 auditors is more pronounced for audit clients with poorer accrual quality and those with higher information asymmetry. Furthermore, we introduce the portion of 10-K length unexplained by operating complexity and observable client characteristics as a new proxy for audit firm effort. Specifically, we find that abnormally long disclosures are associated with higher audit fees and longer audit report lag, which implies that an incremental level of audit effort can be inferred from the discretionary component of 10-K disclosures. As audit effort is costly, a greater volume of 10-K disclosures can be expected to be associated with an improvement in the quality of financial reporting. Overall, our findings show that auditors play more than a simple attestation role in the financial reporting process, and that the quality of financial reporting in a company’s 10-K annual report is a joint product of the effort and decisions of both a company’s managers and its auditors.