Managerial Auditing Journal最新文献

Purpose

This paper aims to examine how the allocation of audit hours to the year-round procedures, based on the risk of material misstatements in financial statements, impacts audit quality.

Design/methodology/approach

Using a data set on audit hours spent on year-round and year-end procedures, the authors build an empirical model for testing the effectiveness of year-round auditing of Korean public firms during the period of 2014–2018.

Findings

The initial tests do not show that proportionate increases in year-round procedures increase audit quality. However, after the authors control for the risk of material misstatements, the authors find that proportionate increases in year-round audit hours generally increase audit quality, except for high-risk firms where audit quality increases only as year-end hours proportionately increase. For high-risk firms, the results suggest that increases in year-round audit procedures occur at the cost of the essential year-end work. Similarly, except for high-risk firms, the authors find that the allocation of more audit effort to year-round procedures improves audit efficiency.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study provides some of the first empirical evidence showing how a risk-based approach to allocating audit effort over the duration of an audit can impact audit quality and efficiency. Regulatory bodies, such as the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board and Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, which consider the proper allocation of audit hours as a key audit quality indicator, should find the results useful.

Purpose

This paper aims to conduct an experiment that investigates the effect of the ambiguity present in international financial reporting standards (IFRS) on the judgments of auditors. This paper also examine the effects of the personality trait of ambiguity tolerance on judgments of auditors.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper conduct an experiment in which experienced Australian-based auditors are placed in hypothetical revenue recognition and lease classification decision contexts. The participants are members of the Australian accounting profession who are familiar with applying IFRS.

Findings

This paper find support for the perception that when the relevant IFRS are more ambiguous, auditors make less aggressive reporting judgments compared to when the IFRS are less ambiguous. The results also unveil a novel finding that auditors who are more tolerant of ambiguity are likely to choose the accounting treatment that best reflects the economic substance of a transaction when interpreting IFRS compared to those who are less tolerant of ambiguity.

Practical implications

These results would be of interest to policymakers and accounting researchers as they continue to contemplate a shift to more principles-based IFRS.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine the influence of an individual’s ambiguity tolerance on financial reporting quality in jurisdictions that have adopted IFRS.

Purpose

This study aims to investigate the impact of remote auditing on audit quality and explore the moderating role of both the client’s and the audit firm’s technology readiness in this interaction.

Design/methodology/approach

Data was collected through a questionnaire survey distributed to 360 audit professionals in Jordan, resulting in 208 valid responses. The data was analysed using SmartPLS – structural equation modelling.

Findings

The results showed that remote auditing significantly and positively affect audit quality. This study found that the technology readiness of both the audit firm and the client greatly influences audit quality. Notably, the technology readiness of the client positively enhances the relationship between remote auditing and audit quality, while the technology readiness of the audit firm does not play such a role.

Practical implications

The findings are of value to policymakers in terms of the positive impact of remote auditing on audit quality, and the role of technology readiness in this regard. In particular, they allow policymakers and regulators of audit profession to make informed and relevant decisions pertaining to the adoption of remote auditing. The findings also indicate the significance for audit firms and business institutions to pay special attention to developing their technology capabilities to keep abreast of rapid technology advancements, ensuring the maximum benefits for auditing profession, thereby enhancing their efficiency and effectiveness.

Originality/value

The importance of this study lies in its unique contribution to bridging the research gap related to understanding the pivotal role of technology readiness in enhancing the relationship between the use of remote auditing and the achievement of high audit quality.

Purpose

This paper aims to examine the effect of executive compensation incentives, specifically CEO inside debt holdings, on the choice of industry specialist auditor.

Design/methodology/approach

High inside debt holdings are expected to constrain excessive managerial risk-taking and align the interests of managers and outside debtholders. The authors hypothesize that reduced debtholders’ expropriation concerns will decrease the demand for high audit quality, measured by industry specialization. The authors investigate a sample of US firms from 2006 to 2018 using OLS regression and use CEO relative leverage to proxy for CEO inside debt holdings. The authors conduct an additional two-stage least squares regression analysis to address potential endogeneity issues.

Findings

The paper finds that firms with higher levels of CEO inside debt tend not to appoint an auditor with industry specialization. This result is consistent with the notion that inside debt mitigates agency conflicts between managers and debtholders, reducing the demand for high-quality audits as a monitoring mechanism. The paper also finds that among firms which are excessively leveraged, those with higher levels of CEO inside debt tend to appoint an industry specialist auditor.

Originality/value

The findings contribute to the literature on agency cost and auditor choice by demonstrating that CEO inside debt has both substitutive and complementary effects on demand for industry specialist auditors.

Purpose

This study aims to investigate whether mandated disclosure of engagement quality review hours provides new information that affects investors’ decision-making.

Design/methodology/approach

In 2014, Korean authorities mandated that audit engagement quality review hours must be disclosed in their audit reports. Using this unique field setting in Korea, this study presents empirical evidence of the policy initiative’s effect on earnings reliability by examining both pre- and post-implementation periods.

Findings

Following the initial disclosure of engagement quality review hours in 2014, the authors observe that the capital market’s valuation of quarterly earnings surprises, measured by earnings response coefficients (ERCs), was significantly lower for firms with high levels of abnormal engagement quality review hours than for other firms. This paper also finds that the observed association between engagement quality review hours and ERCs in the postregulation period hinges on the probability of earnings management, proxied by discretionary accruals and just meeting or beating analyst earnings forecast.

Originality/value

This paper suggests that the policy mandating disclosure of engagement quality review hours provides original information that the market considers relevant for appraising the reliability of reported earnings.

Purpose

This study aims to examine whether auditors who specialize in research and development (R&D) activities help reduce managers’ opportunistic adjustment of R&D expenditure for real earnings management (REM).

Design/methodology/approach

Using a sample of US firms during the 2001–2017 period, the authors identify auditors’ R&D specialization as their prior experience of auditing R&D expenses spent by each client’s peers. The authors measure R&D-based REM as the negative deviation from the predicted level of R&D expenditure.

Findings

The authors find that clients of R&D specialist auditors are less likely to engage in REM through a discretionary reduction of R&D expenditure. This effect is more pronounced when clients face higher competition, have larger investment opportunities and entail higher audit risks.

Practical implications

This study shows that auditors’ specialized knowledge can facilitate stronger monitoring of clients’ real decisions, providing implications for auditors’ knowledge acquisition and transfer in specific types of transactions.

Originality/value

This study contributes to the literature by documenting the governance role played by R&D specialist auditors in clients’ real economic decisions. Moreover, the study identifies R&D as a distinct area of auditor specialization.

Purpose

This study aims to examine whether the newly available auditor tenure information is associated with non-GAAP earnings, as the recent requirement to disclose the initial year of auditor-client relationship in audit reports may give the impression that longer auditor tenure may be related to lower audit quality.

Design/methodology/approach

Using a sample of firm-quarters from 2017 to 2020, the authors conduct both univariate and regression analyses. We use hand-collected data for auditor tenure, SEC comment letters, and non-GAAP variables.

Findings

First, the authors find that the likelihood of disclosing non-GAAP earnings monotonically increases with auditor tenure on a univariate basis. Second, auditor tenure is negatively associated with aggressive non-GAAP reporting. Third, the authors document evidence of aggressive reporting in general; that is, items excluded in calculating non-GAAP earnings are associated with future performance. However, the association declines with longer auditor tenure. Finally, the authors report evidence that the likelihood of receiving an SEC comment letter that contains non-GAAP comments decreases with longer auditor tenure.

Practical implications

The results show that regulators need to consider both GAAP and non-GAAP disclosures’ costs and benefits when enacting auditor tenure regulation. Investors can benefit from the findings in evaluating the quality of non-GAAP earnings. The findings are also relevant to the SEC when allocating limited resources in monitoring non-GAAP reporting.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study showing that auditor tenure is associated with the quality of non-GAAP earnings. Given that financial reporting quality should be understood as a comprehensive system comprising both mandatory and voluntary disclosures, this study complements the literature that examines the effect of auditor tenure on financial reporting quality using GAAP reporting.

Purpose

In this paper, the authors examine auditor upward feedback, which provides a unique opportunity for staff auditors to exercise their voice within an audit firm. Upward feedback can improve employee perceptions of fairness and justice while mitigating feelings of burnout and turnover intentions, thus enhancing audit quality. However, it is unclear which circumstances improve the likelihood that auditors will use their voice and give feedback to superiors. The purpose of this study is to investigate contextual factors that impact the likelihood that auditors will provide upward feedback.

Design/methodology/approach

Using a 2 × 2 + 2 experiment with staff auditors, the authors test the likelihood of giving feedback when presented with different feedback systems (electronic anonymous, face-to-face or no opportunity) and experiences with managers (favorable or unfavorable).

Findings

The authors find that, while feedback type alone does not change the likelihood of auditors providing upward feedback, auditors are more likely to provide feedback after a favorable manager experience than an unfavorable one. The likelihood of providing feedback after an unfavorable experience is higher, however, when the feedback type is electronic and anonymous as opposed to face-to-face. Additional analyses illustrate strong relationships between manager experience, feedback type and procedural justice, which significantly influence the turnover intentions of staff auditors.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the authors are the first to examine the value of subordinates’ upward feedback on firm outcomes, including burnout and turnover intention.

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to investigate the association between nonaudit services (NAS) and out-of-period adjustments (OOPAs). Over the years, the number of OOPAs has risen while the number of restatements has decreased. This could indicate an improvement in financial reporting quality. It could also indicate the use of a type of stealth restatement for opportunistic purposes. These less prominent restatements are more likely to go undetected and could perpetuate opportunistic disclosure and mitigate the likelihood of unfavorable market reactions.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors use a two-stage multivariate regression analysis to examine the relationship between NAS and the reporting of an OOPA. The authors use prior research on NAS to guide the model development. The authors perform several robustness checks including different types of NAS and different characteristics of OOPAs.

Findings

The results indicate that NAS has a significantly negative association with the existence of OOPAs. The core findings suggest that NAS does not impair auditor independence. Rather, greater amounts of NAS may contribute to knowledge spillover, which leads to higher financial reporting and audit quality. The results are robust to several additional tests.

Research limitations/implications

The results raise interesting implications for regulators, executives, auditors, investors and future research. The authors provide insight into the relationship between NAS and auditor independence.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, prior research has not considered the effect of NAS on OOPAs. The authors contribute to the literature by providing evidence that OOPAs, a form of stealth restatements, is an important consideration in audit quality research.

Purpose

This study aims to examine the changes in the correlations between stressors and performance in French chartered and accounting firms.

Design/methodology/approach

The linkages between role stressors and performance were analyzed through a quasi-longitudinal study of 476 chartered public accountants and trainee-chartered accountants surveyed before and after the busy season, using the partial least squares approach.

Findings

Only challenge appraisals are positively related to motivation before and after the 2018 busy season. Stress arousal is positively associated with burnout and physical symptoms. However, the associations between role ambiguity and conflict, and hindrance appraisals became insignificant after the busy season. The challenge appraisals–role ambiguity linkage persisted but reduced significantly. The burnout–performance association was insignificant in the two time periods.

Practical implications

A busy season with its increased challenge stressors has positive effects on performance through motivation but also negative effects through strains, which explains the observed insignificant net impact.

Originality/value

This quasi-longitudinal study first suggests the role of appraisals, motivation and physical symptoms as mediators of the effects of role stressors on performance. Then, it aids in the broad generalization of certain findings from previous studies. Finally, it demonstrates the applicability of the partial least squares approach, which has been hitherto under-used in behavioral accounting.