独立审计诚信危机原因探讨及改善独立性途径研究

独立性是注册会计师审计的灵魂 ,决定着审计意见的客观、公正。然而 ,近年来 ,中外审计失败案件屡屡发生 ,带来了独立审计的诚信危机。公司治理不完善 ,审计市场需求低效和注册会计师造假成本低等是审计独立性低下的成因。应从建立注册会计师职业声誉机制和有效的公司法人治理结构 ,保护中小投资者和债权人利益入手 ,改进和完善政府的监管职能 ,加大会计市场综合治理力度 ,为注册会计师保持审计独立性提供一个良好环境。     

市场化程度、内部人侵占与审计监督

本文以我国2003—2005年A股上市公司为样本,从市场化进程角度研究外部审计的公司治理功能及其所受法律执行环境的影响。结果表明,公司所在地的市场化程度越高,内部人利益侵占程度就越低;地区法治环境对外部审计的需求及其监督功能具有显著影响,公司所在地的市场化程度越高,其对高质量外部审计的需求也就越大;高质量外部审计可以有效地抑制内部人的利益侵占,保护中小投资者,但其作用的发挥受到法律执行环境的影响。     

独立审计的功能和制度环境的影响

审计独立性不仅是审计学术界与职业界关注的核心问题,也是各国资本市场发展中必须面对的重要问题.本文就独立审计的功能和制度环境的影响进行分析.     

浅析独立审计存在问题的成因

审计独立性的外因研究工作,为企业具体工作明确了方向,提供了思路,是企业具体审计工作的出发点和立足点;也有助于人们全面认识独立审计,区分合法与违法的界限,以便更好地保护和发展审计,打击违法行为.     

社会审计在会计报表审计方面的独立性分析

审计独立性是有别于其它经济监督的最本质特征。审计要保持其独立性既要有相应的法律制度安排,改善审计环境,又要有加强相关人员的思想道德培训,以此形成全社会讲诚信、讲道德的法律环境,从而使审计人员以社会公众利益为己任,真正做到客观公正,保持审计的独立性,履行好签证的职责。     

审计制度安排与审计独立性关系分析

审计在促进国家和企业责任管理方面有着重要作用,审计独立性则被誉为独立审计的灵魂.现实中许多因素对审计的独立性产生重大影响,如何提高独立审计独立性是现代审计迫切需要解决的问题.审计制度安排对审计独立性有重大影响,现代审计制度必须解决现实中被审计人双重身分及审计人与被审计人经济过度依赖问题.     

关于上市公司审计独立性的思考

"审计是独立检查会计帐监督财政、财务收支真实、合法、效益的行为."在这个简明审计定义的短短二十多个字中,审计的独立性被放在了最前面.而在国家审计的五项基本原则中,"独立审计原则"被放在了"依法审计原则"之后的第二位.在其之后才分别是"客观公正原则,职业谨慎原则和廉洁奉公原则".这也可以充分可以看出审计独立性的重要性.本文首先分析了坚持上市公司审计独立性的必要性,其次,针对上市公司审计独立性存在的问题,从加强行业自律;坚持独立性重在有所作为;严厉打击造假行为;保持审计人员的独立性;加强社会监督;完善公司治理结构,提高内部审计的独立性等方面就如何完善上市公司审计独立性进行了深入的思考,具有一定的参考价值.     

完善我国的审计制度加强审计的独立性

独立审计制度是公司的外部监督支持系统,是保护中小股东和利益相关者的有效机制.我国的审计制度还处于初步发展阶段,存在众多阻碍独立审计的因素.我国的审计制度有待完善,审计的独立性有待加强.     

民间审计独立性浅探

审计的独立性直接关系到监督机制的实施,社会公众的利益,经济发展的进程,目前我国会计师事务所和审计师的独立性面临着严重的挑战,本文从外部与内部环境、法律层面分析了我国民间审计独立性的现状,并提出了提高审计独立性的建议.     

中国投资者法律保护的国际比较

投资者权益保护是公司治理的核心,是资本市场稳健、持续发展的基本立足点.在投资者权益保护研究领域,法和金融理论界的学者们利用数据证明,通过法律来保护投资者权益是促进金融发展和提高公司治理水平的重要手段,投资者法律保护水平决定着一国金融发展的水平,加强投资者法律保护是各国发展金融市场的必然选择.本文将我国投资者法律保护水平与48个市场经济体进行了横向比较.结果显示,我国无论是书面立法还是法的实施水平都比较低.今后,在投资者法律保护书面立法上,要加强董事责任程度和股东诉讼便利程度方面的立法.在董事责任程度立法上,在不断加强证券违法行为行政与刑事处罚力庋的同时,更要加强对证券民事责任的保护;在股东诉讼便利程度立法上,建议逐步取消证券民事诉讼的前置程序,为提高证券违法行为处罚力度,逐步建立证券集团诉讼制度.在执法上,应逐步建立以法庭执法为主、以监管执法为辅的方式,不断加强司法独立性改革,推动证券案件异地审判制度建设.     

公司治理质量与外部独立审计效率

本文主要考察了公司治理质量对外部独立审计效率的影响。运用主成分分析技术构建公司治理指数,并以此作为公司治理质量的衡量指标,考察了公司治理质量对审计师的选择、审计收费和审计意见的影响。我们发现,公司治理质量越高的公司,越倾向于选择高质量的审计师;同时,也愿意支付更高的审计费用;但在其他条件一定的情况下,相对于公司治理质量高的公司,公司治理质量差的公司更容易获得标准无保留的审计意见,从而影响审计独立性和审计质量的提高。     

Some unresolved ethical issues in auditing

Independence is a fundamental concept to the audit. There is a clear relationship between independence and conflict of interest in all professions. This paper examines this relationship in the auditing profession and in the context of three specific practices. The paper analyses these practices by using the Davis model of conflict of interest. The results of this analysis give rise to some interesting questions for the ethical practices of the auditing profession.Sally Gunz teaches business law at the School of Accountancy, University of Waterloo, Waterloo Ontario. She is a former legal practitioner whose research interests include ethical and legal issues of concern to auditors and studies of the corporate counsel profession.John McCutcheon teaches accounting at the School of Business and Economics, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario. His research interests include analyses of alternate approaches to the liability of auditors for negligence and various issues in management accounting.     

Individualism–Collectivism, Private Benefits of Control, and Earnings Management: A Cross-Culture Comparison

Using private benefits of control and earnings management data from 41 countries and regions, we provide strong evidence that cultures, together with legal rules and law enforcement, play a critical role in shaping corporate behavior. More specifically, we find that private benefits of control are larger and earnings management is more severe in collectivist as opposed to individualist cultures, consistent with the argument that agency problems between corporate insiders and outside investors are severe in collectivist culture. These results are robust to the inclusion of controls for country wealth, economic heterogeneity across countries, and international differences in ownership concentration.     

Ethics and the Auditing Culture: Rethinking the Foundation of Accounting and Auditing

Although the foundation of financial accounting and auditing has traditionally been based upon a rule-based framework, the concept of a principle-based approach has been periodically advocated since being incorporated into the AICPA Code of Conduct in 1989. Recent high profile events indicate that the accountants and auditors involved have followed rule-based ethical perspectives and have failed to protect investors and stakeholders – resulting in a wave of scandals and charges of unethical conduct. In this paper we describe how the rule-based traditions of auditing became a convenient vehicle that perpetuated the unethical conduct of firms such as Enron and Arthur Andersen. We present a model of ten ethical perspectives and briefly describe how these ten ethical perspectives impact rule-based and principle-based ethical conduct for accountants and auditors. We conclude by identifying six specific suggestions that the accounting and auditing profession should consider to restore public trust and to improve the ethical conduct of accountants and auditors.     

Institutions,Corporate Governance and Capital Flows

Countries with weaker domestic investor protection hold less diversified international portfolios. An equilibrium business cycle model of North-South capital flow with corporate governance frictions between outside investors and corporate insiders explains this phenomenon through two channels. First, weak governance leads to concentrated ownership in the South because international diversification by insiders is penalized by lower stock market valuation. This reduces the float portfolio, or the supply of South assets. Second, weak governance tilts the demand of South outside investors towards domestic assets to hedge labor income risk. This is due to a higher share of labor in income, which increases labor income risk. In addition, the dynamics of investment under insider control leads relative dividend and labor income to be more negatively correlated in the South, making domestic assets a better hedge against local labor income risk. I find that the insider ownership and hedging channels are responsible for at least 29% and 11%, respectively, of the cross-country variation in international diversification. Thus, weak institutions lower international diversification primarily through concentrated ownership of firms, with outsider hedging also playing a quantitatively significant role.     

我国审计法立法与实施的经验、问题和改进

审计法在其实施的十来年时间里,对我国政府审计制度的建立和经济健康发展起到了重要作用。我们在肯定立法的创新精神和进步性,指出其存在的时代局限性的同时,提出了审计法的修改意见,包括审计法的界定、审计人员任用资格、审计对象、绩效审计、经济责任审计、审计结果公告制度和审计法律责任等方面的问题,以期对我国审计法的成熟与发展有所裨益。     

Executive integrity,audit opinion,and fraud in Chinese listed firms

We examine the influence of auditors on mitigating corporate fraud in China, which is known to have weak legal enforcement, weak investor protection along with tight control of the media and labour unions. We find that firms with executives that have lower integrity, indicated by a greater degree of earnings manipulation, are associated with higher propensity of regulatory enforcement actions against corporate fraud in the subsequent year. We show that this effect is moderated by the issuance of a modified audit opinion report by the auditors. This finding implies that auditors can serve as external governance mechanism to discourage executives with lower integrity in committing fraud. Our results have policy implications for further strengthening auditor independence in emerging countries like China.     

法律环境、法律责任与审计师独立性--来自中国会计师事务所转制的证据

本文基于中国不平衡的法律环境和始于2010年的大中型事务所组织形式转制提供的天然实验场所,运用2010至2012年期间发生的事务所转制案例数据,研究法律制度与审计师独立性之间的关系,发现事务所转制与出具非标准无保留意见的概率显著正相关,事务所转制引致的法律责任增加有助于促进审计师独立性的提升;在法律环境差的区域,事务所转制与非标准无保留意见出具概率不相关,在法律环境好的区域,事务所转制与非标准无保留意见出具概率显著正相关。说明法律环境影响审计师的行为,审计师法律责任的增加更加有助于审计师独立性的提高。     

Foreign strategic ownership and minority shareholder protection

We show foreign strategic investors provide monitoring protection, by reducing tunneling through intercorporate loans. Further, foreign strategic investors mitigate minority shareholders expropriation through controlling excessive borrowing, whereas firms without foreign-founders channel excessive borrowing to controlling shareholders using intercorporate loans. The monitoring benefits are greater when corporate governance is weaker, and when foreign strategic investors are from English common law countries. Compared to foreign investor proxies typically used in Chinese studies, we use foreign-founder shareholders. As foreign-founders are long-term investors facing high liquidity risk, they are highly motivated to actively monitor and influence firm behaviours.     

客户重要性与审计质量：基于投资者保护视角

本文探讨投资者保护条款的完善与执行、客户重要性与审计质量之间的关系,利用我国证券市场2003~2005年的数据研究发现：（1）客户重要性对审计质量并没有产生负面影响,事务所审计质量普遍有所提高;（2）随着法律责任的加重,法律保护条款的完善与盈余管理空间显著负相关,然而法律执行越严的省区,上市公司的盈余管理却越强烈,这表明中国证券市场出现了法律条款的完善与执行逆向起作用的＂背驰效应＂;（3）审计师对盈余管理方向的关注与国外文献的发现不一致,审计师能够关注重要客户操纵盈余减少的行为,但却无法控制重要客户操纵盈余增加的行为;（4）相对于规模较小的事务所而言,投资者保护条款的完善对规模较大的事务所提高审计质量具有更明显的促进作用。