Auditors’ going‐concern‐modified opinions after 2001: measuring reporting accuracy

An important change in auditors’ reporting behaviour in the period after the high‐profile corporate collapses in 2001 is that auditors were more likely to issue going‐concern (GC)‐modified audit opinions. Comparing company failure rates subsequent to receiving a first‐time going‐concern (FTGC)‐modified audit opinion in the pre‐ and post‐2001 periods, we find a consistent type 1 error (misclassification) rate (the rate of survival among companies issued an FTGC opinion). Results are indicative of auditors maintaining GC reporting accuracy when comparing the 1995–1996 and 2004–2005 periods. This conclusion is supported after considering the impact of mitigating circumstances surrounding companies that received an FTGC‐modified audit report and survived.     

小额赢利、独立董事和审计鉴证

有关中国资本市场的研究揭示,微利公司更容易被出具非标准无保留意见,本文通过此类非标准意见的说明段,发现其涉及事项和独立董事关注的公司非正常治理结构明显重合。进一步的检验则揭示,独立董事比例的增加能够提升公司机会主义特征激发非标准审计意见的概率,聘入行业专家型的独立董事则有利于公司的营运能力激发标准的审计意见。结论表明独立董事在规避渎职风险的过程中,通过充分披露信息来避免过高的机会主义阻止成本,和审计鉴证发生了协同效应。     

ON THE MEASUREMENT OF AUDITING STANDARDS

This study analyzes whether it is appropriate to use the percentage of qualified opinions issued by an auditor as a measure of his auditing standards, as is often done. It points out that incentives exist for auditors to specialize by auditing standards, and for clients to self-select on this dimension. As a result, even if auditing standards affect the propensity to issue qualified opinions, the observed percentages of qualified opinions will not necessarily reflect differences in auditing standards. This proposition is supported empirically with US data. A sample of auditors was split between a "higher standard" and a "lower standard" category based on the percentage of qualified opinions issued. After controlling for client firm size, leverage, systematic risk and "unexpected" earnings, auditing standard category is found to have no significant relation with firm-specific stock returns.     

Regulatory risk and auditors’ reporting conservatism: Evidence from Chinese comment letters

We study how auditors respond to regulatory risk that arises when their clients receive comment letters from Chinese stock exchanges. Our results show that auditors are more likely to issue modified or conservative—but not excessively conservative—audit opinions to the recipients of comment letters. This reporting conservatism is especially pronounced when the regulatory risk perceived by auditors rises, such as when comment letters contain more questions, when more comment letters are issued, when the auditors must give opinions on specific issues, or when comment letters involve more auditor issues. Comment letters have been issued in China since 2013, but did not have to be disclosed until 2015. We find no significant difference in the impact of comment letters on auditor conservatism between pre- and post-disclosure periods. Further, the size of auditor firms has no significant effect on the impact of comment letters in post-disclosure periods. We interpret our results as supporting the regulation risk hypothesis.     

Audit Reporting of Big 4 Versus Non-Big 4 Auditors: The Case of Ex-Andersen Clients

This paper examines audit reporting of Big 4 auditors versus non-Big 4 auditors for ex-Andersen clients and other clients. It suggests that ex-Andersen clients are more risky than other clients and are able to exert more influence than other clients on non-Big 4 auditors because they are larger in size than other non-Big 4 auditees. In addition, Big 4 auditors are more risk-averse and able to withstand clients' pressure than non-Big 4 auditors. The results show that Big 4 auditors are more likely than non-Big 4 auditors to issue going-concern opinions to ex-Andersen clients or restrict the level of discretionary accruals of those clients compared with other clients. Further, ex-Andersen clients of Big 4 auditors would have had a lower likelihood of receiving going-concern opinions or higher levels of discretionary accruals had reporting practices for other clients been applied. Ex-Andersen clients of non-Big 4 auditors would have had a higher likelihood of going-concern opinions or lower levels of discretionary accruals. Hence, the suggestion to reduce the Big 4 concentration in the audit market by allowing non-Big 4 firms a larger market share should be viewed prudently. Overall, these results are consistent with the suggestion that litigation risk and client pressure are important factors in audit reporting.     

Australian Audit Reports: 1980-89

This paper provides information on auditors' opinions in Australia in the period 1980-1989. Issues which are reviewed include the frequency with which different opinions are issued, the types of opinions which are issued by the different audit firms and the circumstances on which the financial statements have drawn qualification. Between 15% and 20% of the financial statements were found to draw qualification, with very few of these qualifications being in the more serious forms of the adverse opinion or the disclaimer. Most qualifications related to disagreements on balance-sheet values or technical breaches of accounting standards. Divergences were found between the frequency and types of qualifications issued by the different audit firms.     

Responses by Australian auditors to the global financial crisis

We examine the impact of the global financial crisis (GFC) on auditor behaviour in Australia. Using a sample of listed companies, we examine whether the GFC impacted the propensity of auditors to issue going concern modifications and increased audit effort as reflected in audit fees and audit reporting lag. Controlling for client characteristics, we find an increase in the propensity to issue going concern opinions during the period 2008–2009 compared with the period 2005–2007 and that Big N auditors responded to the GFC earlier than non‐Big N auditors. In relation to audit effort, we find evidence of increased audit fees during the period 2008–2009 compared with the period 2005–2007. There is, however, no evidence of increased audit reporting lags during the GFC.     

Great Expectations: Public Perceptions Of The Auditor's Role

The professional accounting bodies in Australia have undertaken a study of the "expectation gap" in perceptions of the auditing role and concluded that the public's image of the auditing profession will be enhanced if the differences in attitudes can be minimised. This paper analyses the views of auditors and financial report users about what the role of the auditor and the nature of an audit should be. The most significant differences between the auditors and the user groups relate to whether the auditor should be responsible for preventing and detecting fraud, detecting illegal acts, reporting whether the company is a reliable debtor or loan prospect and reporting the degree of confidence he or she has that the correct audit opinion has been issued. Where the differences represent "deficient standards" or "unreasonable expectations", the professional bodies should consider changing auditor responsibilities or attempting to change users' attitudes.     

Audit opinion and earnings management: Evidence from Greece

This study examines the relationship between audit opinions and earnings management, as measured by discretionary accruals, for listed firms on the Athens Stock Exchange (ASE). We divide the qualified audit opinions into two categories: qualified for the going-concern uncertainty and qualified for other reasons. The results indicate that audit opinions are not related to earnings management. Client financial characteristics, such as profitability and size are determinants of the going-concern audit opinion decision. The decision of auditors to issue qualified opinions for other reasons is explained by the type of audit opinion issued in the previous year.     

An investigation of recent changes in going concern reporting decisions among Big N and non-Big N auditors

Corporate accounting failures and regulatory proceedings that led to the enactment of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 increased the scrutiny of auditors. We investigate whether these events resulted in a change in auditor behavior with respect to going concern reporting. Generally speaking, we find that non-Big N auditors became more conservative while Big N auditors became more accurate. Specifically, non-Big N auditors issued more going concern opinions to both failing and non-failing clients post-2001, reducing their Type II misclassifications at the expense of increased Type I misclassifications. However, Big N auditors decreased their Type I misclassifications with no corresponding increase in Type II misclassifications. Thus, our findings suggest that increased auditor scrutiny resulted in performance improvements in the area of going concern reporting primarily for larger auditors. For smaller auditors, improved going concern accuracy for subsequently bankrupt clients came at the cost of more going concern opinions being issued to subsequently non-failing clients.     

Public Attention and Auditor Behavior: The Case of Hurun Rich List in China

Adverse client publicity can entail regulatory scrutiny over audited financial statements and impose political costs on auditors. We use the changes in client publicity caused by their controlling owners’ presence on the Hurun Rich List (the rich listing) in China to test the hypothesis that auditor conservatism increases with client publicity. Our evidence indicates auditors issue more adverse audit opinions to clients and charge higher fees following the rich listing events. Moreover, we observe that auditors strategically respond to clients with different attributes—for clients whose owners accumulated wealth in a more questionable manner, auditors choose more stringent audit reporting to better defend themselves from regulatory scrutiny; for clients without such attributes, auditors primarily rely on increasing audit fees to cope with any post-listing increase in audit risks. Our analyses also suggest the impacts of rich listings tend to be concentrated among large audit firms with stronger reputation concerns or among engagement auditors with more conservative reporting styles. By showing how auditors manage political risks associated with heightened public scrutiny, we contribute to both the auditing and political cost literature.     

Determinants and implications of long audit reporting lags: evidence from China

Audit reporting lag is the single most important determinant influencing the timeliness of the release of financial statements. In this study, we first explore the determinants of audit reporting lags in China where the audit market for listed firms is dominated by non-Big 4 auditors. We then examine the implications of long audit reporting lags in subsequent years. We find that selected measures of audit risk and complexity, and auditor expertise are all associated with the length of audit reporting lags in China. Firms with long audit reporting lags are more likely to have the receipt of non-standard opinions in subsequent periods. There is also evidence that firms with extremely long audit reporting lags tend to have more restatements in the subsequent year. As prior research has not specifically investigated the consequences of long audit reporting lags in subsequent years, this study makes an important contribution to the literature in this area.     

An investigation of independent audit opinions and subsequent independent auditor litigation of publicly-traded failed savings and loans

Failures of savings and loans (S & Ls) have resulted in substantial independent auditor litigation; however, there is limited empirical evidence concerning audit opinions of failed S & Ls. Our study investigates the audit opinions of publicly-traded S & Ls that subsequently failed. We found that the independent auditors of failed S & Ls issued qualified (or modified) going-concern opinions or going-concern disclaimers of opinion on the last audited financial statement prior to failure in 19 of 24 cases. Results of univariate and multivariate analyses are consistent with several predictions concerning economic factors expected to influence the type of audit opinion, and our evidence suggests that auditors rendered going-concern reports to those S & Ls that were most likely to fail ex ante. Analysis of independent auditor litigation data reveals that auditor lawsuits related to these failed S & Ls were filed in seven cases. Five of these seven lawsuits implicated auditors who rendered going-concern reports. This suggests that going-concern reports in the year prior to the failure of an S & L do not prevent auditor litigation. Because it is possible that independent auditors will face situations comparable to the S & L crisis in the future, government regulators and the public accounting profession should be interested in research that enhances the understanding of the audit opinion formulation process in such settings.     

Internal control audits: Judges' perceptions of the credibility of the financial reporting process and likely auditor liability

This paper reports the results of a study in which fifty-seven sitting United States judges participated in a behavioral experiment to assess the perceived credibility of the financial reporting process and the legal risk auditors bear under conditions where they provide an internal control audit report (vs. no report) under two corporate governance environments. We find that participating judges believe internal control audits provide enhanced assurance that intentional misstatements do not exist and also serve to provide elevated protection to the public, but only under conditions of a strong corporate governance environment beyond current regulatory requirements. We also find that, after being informed of an undetected material fraud, judges who currently have high expectations of the auditing profession find auditors more liable when an internal control audit report has been issued (as compared to when no such report has been issued).     

Trends in Auditor Reporting in Australia: A Synthesis and Opportunities for Research

The purpose of this review is to synthesise the existing research literature regarding audit reporting and, in particular, the going concern decision. We consider the findings of research conducted in Australia and New Zealand on these issues. We then analyse trends in audit reporting from 2005 to 2013. We identify an increase in auditors’ reports highlighting going concern issues well beyond the global financial crisis period confirming that this period represents a period of prolonged economic uncertainty. We identify trends by audit firm type, by industry and company size. We analyse the subsequent year outcomes for firms receiving going concern opinions. We also identify opportunities for future research.     

Internal audit reporting lines,fraud risk decomposition,and assessments of fraud risk

The main purpose of this research is to examine the effects of internal audit reporting lines on fraud risk assessments made by internal auditors when the level of fraud risk varies. Significant emphasis has been placed on the importance of reporting lines in maintaining the autonomy of internal auditors, but the perceived benefits of requiring internal audit to report directly to the audit committee have not been validated or systematically investigated. Results of an experiment involving 172 experienced internal auditors and additional survey findings indicate that internal auditors perceive more personal threats when they report high levels of risk directly to the audit committee, relative to management. Perceived threats lead internal auditors to reduce assessed levels of fraud risk when reporting to the audit committee relative to when reporting to management. This finding runs counter to the anticipated benefits of requirements that the internal audit function report directly to the audit committee, and it reveals potential conflicts of interest and independence threats created by the audit committee itself. We also investigate the effects of fraud risk decomposition on risk assessments made by internal auditors. We find that fraud risk assessment decomposition does not have the same effects on internal auditors as it has on external auditors, and the effects of decomposition do not align with the expected benefits of decomposition.     

The Effect of Client Fee Dependence on Audit Independence

This paper examines the effect of client fee dependence on the independence of audit firms. For the largest 25 audit firms for which fee revenue and total revenue could be determined, three research approaches were used to identify whether inappropriate audit opinions are being issued to large-fee clients. All situations identified by an audit opinion prediction model as having a high probability of qualification were duly qualified. It was found that for the top 25 audit firms, the level of fee dependence from any one client was substantially below the level suggested in auditing standards. In summary, the investigation was unable to identify any instances of fee dependence impairing the independence of auditors.     

Employee firing costs and auditors’ going-concern opinions: Evidence from wrongful discharge laws

This paper examines the impact of employee firing costs on auditors’ going-concern (GC) reporting decisions by exploiting the wrongful discharge laws (WDLs) adopted by U.S. states. We find that auditors are more likely to issue GC opinions to financially-distressed clients headquartered in states that have adopted the laws, in particular the good faith exception, than to clients in states that have not. This finding is robust to controlling for the state-level economics, the strictness of legal liability rules, audit office fixed effects, as well as alternative definitions of financial distress and estimation methods. The impact is concentrated in labor-intensive clients and clients in industries with a higher proportion of nonunionized or permanent employees. We further find that the increased propensity to issue GC opinions is attenuated when the auditor is economically dependent on the client, and is driven by auditors who possess labor-specific expertise. Overall, these findings are consistent with higher firing costs increasing auditors’ propensity to issue GC opinions.     

Do goodwill impairments affect audit opinions? Evidence from China

There has been a steady growth of goodwill impairments in the Chinese stock market since the adoption of the impairment approach in accounting. The influence of goodwill impairments on a firm’s financial position and profitability give reason to doubt its current and future performance. We examine whether auditors, as a crucial external monitor, identify the information risks of goodwill impairments and express their concerns about financial reporting quality in their audit opinions. Using a sample of firms listed on China’s A-share market from 2007 to 2017, we test the association between goodwill impairments and the type of audit opinion received in the same financial period. Our findings are as follows. First, the probability of receiving a modified opinion increases with the amount of goodwill impairments. Second, the positive association between goodwill impairments and modified audit opinions is driven primarily by earnings management risks. Third, this positive association is more salient when auditors are industry experts and there is no auditor–client mismatch. Fourth, auditors are more sensitive to the amount of goodwill impairments than to their mere existence. Overall, we document that auditors perceive goodwill impairments as a signal of information risks and communicate their concerns to investors to avoid litigation.     

SEC communications to the independent auditors: An analysis of enforcement actions

All 415 SEC releases issued between the end of 1972 and the end of 1989 were analyzed to clarify the SEC's philosophy of independent auditing and to document the violations of generally accepted auditing standards (GAAS) reported in the releases. Among the findings are 1) the SEC consistently concluded that the primary purpose of an independent audit is to enhance the efficiency of the capital markets and help protect the investing public by providing reasonable assurance concerning the integrity of the financial statements and related disclosures; 2) the SEC attributed many independent audit failures to questionable independent auditor judgement in adhering to professional standards, most often because of insufficient gathering of audit evidence due to over-reliance on management representations; 3) the large majority of cases in which the SEC associated the auditor with fraudulent financial reporting (usually constructive fraud) involved smaller audit firms; 4) the large majority of cases of management fraud in which the auditors were deceived by clients involved large audit firms. In the final section of this paper, we discuss the influence of enforcement releases on independent audit standard setting and possible implications for the audit profession in the future.