Explanations for Not Having an Audit Committee in a ‘Comply or Explain’ Regime

We utilise the Australian ‘comply or explain’ corporate governance regime to examine the explanations given for not having an audit committee and whether these explanations are consistent with underlying firm characteristics. We hand‐collect explanations provided by firms, and find the most common explanations are that the firm or board size is too small or that the firm is insufficiently complex to justify an audit committee. Thus, the reasons that firms provide for not having an audit committee are focused on internal factors limiting their ability to supply an audit committee. As we find that these explanations are associated with lower total assets, smaller board size and lower leverage, they are consistent with underlying firm characteristics. Thus firms are not providing inconsistent or unrelated explanations as pretexts to avoid forming an audit committee. Documenting that the explanations given for non‐compliance are associated with related firm characteristics should be of interest to regulators and policy makers.     

Bayesian Inference in Auditing: Evidence on the Most Appropriate Assessment Techniques

Interest in the use of the Bayesian statistical method in auditing has been increasing over the past few years. To use this method, however, appropriate prior probability assessment techniques (PPAT) need to be identified. This study uses three evaluation criteria, acceptability, accuracy and concordance, to compare four PPATs in auditing. The four PPATs compared are cumulative distribution function (CDF), probability density function (PDF), equivalent prior sample information (EPS), and hypothetical future samples (HFS). Seventy-three practising auditors were trained to use these four PPATs in their task of compliance error quantification in an audit case study. Results indicate that PDF is the most appropriate PPAT and EPS the least appropriate PPAT for use in practical audit situations. CDF and HFS were in the middle with no clear difference between them. Implications for audit practice and research are discussed.     

Thinking and Learning in the Tax Evasion Game

Equilibrium behaviour is one of the fundamental concepts of economics: that each player's strategy is a best response to their beliefs about other players' strategies (and that these beliefs are realised). It is therefore striking that one of the most utilised economic models of tax compliance (Allingham and Sandmo, 1972) lacks this property as random audit selection is not a best response for the tax administration. The game theory literature of tax compliance has solved the equilibrium under assumptions of perfect information, full rationality and representative agents (Reinganum and Wilde, 1986; Erard and Feinstein, 1994). The recent application of behavioural economics to tax compliance (Hashimzade et al., 2014) allows richer assumptions such as heterogeneity and asymmetric information to be included in agent‐based models. This paper investigates the tax administration's best‐response audit strategy with heterogeneous taxpayers, imperfect information and evolutionary survival of taxpayers. It finds that, under these conditions, the tax administration's best‐response audit strategy is an adaptive learning approach and not a well‐defined audit function. This fits with actual practice of ‘predictive analytics’ by OECD tax administrations. Behavioural game theory also predicts that when actors are information rich, adaptive learning will dominate abstract thinking.     

Audit Committee Regulation in Australia: How Far Have We Come?

This paper presents a synopsis of the major developments in corporate governance regulations and recommendations for Australian audit committees, categorised into three distinct periods of regulation from 1976 to 2004. Earlier Australian research on audit committee formation, composition and diligence is summarised and compared. The research is then extended by presenting the results of an empirical study of 188 of the top 300 ASX listed companies with a financial year end of 30 June 2004, the first year of the third period of regulation. The results indicate that compliance with corporate governance regulations and recommendations had improved substantially with respect to: audit committee formation; the number of audit committee members, non‐executive directors on the audit committee; financial expertise of audit committee members; and the frequency of audit committee meetings. However, the number of independent directors on audit committees was well below ASX best practice guidelines.     

The Differential Impact of the Force of Law Australian Auditing Standards

This qualitative study explores whether the impact of the introduction of the legally enforceable Australian Auditing Standards (ASAs) differs between audit firms based on their size. It complements and extends the Australian Government's pre‐implementation April 2006 Regulation Impact Statement ( AUASB 2006 ) and Hecimovic et al.'s (2009) study exploring the perceptions of key stakeholders. The results of the current study, based on data from extensive interviews with auditors from small, medium and large audit firms, suggest that compliance with the legally enforceable ASAs does not appear to increase perceived audit quality or public confidence. The study also finds that the costs/benefits to small audit firms and their clients differ to those of medium and large firms, raising questions about the viability of smaller firms remaining in the audit market.     

An Investigation of the Association between Cultural Dimensions and Variations in Perceived Use of and Compliance with Internal Auditing Standards in 19 Countries

Using a large sample of chief audit executives and internal audit managers from 19 countries, we investigate potential associations between cultural dimensions and variations in perceived use/compliance with the internal auditing standards. We find uncertainty avoidance to be inversely related to both use and compliance. We also find assertiveness and human orientation to be positively related to compliance but not to use of Standards. Among control variables, we find positive associations for the length of Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) membership, professional certification in internal auditing, and hours of continuing professional education (CPE) training on both perceived use and compliance. Finally, we find “Cost of compliance” and “Compliance not expected in my country” to be inversely related to perceived use/compliance. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Continuous audit: Model development and implementation within a debt covenant compliance domain

Because of technological advances and the current audit environment, there is a growing interest in the concept of continuous audit. Conceptually, a continuous audit is an assurance service where the time between the occurrence of events underlying a particular subject matter and the issuance of an auditor's opinion on the fairness of a client's representation of the subject matter is eliminated. A continuous audit is the natural evolution of the integration of technology into the auditing domain. Although the concepts of continuous auditing are now more than a decade old, only recently have technologies emerged that are both widely available and affordable, making implementation of the continuous audit feasible. The Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants have together called on the research community to investigate the concept of continuous auditing and its implementation in various audit domains. In response to this call, we develop a conceptual model of a continuous audit, and, as proof of concept, we design and demonstrate an implementation of continuous audit within the debt covenant compliance domain. The demonstrated Web application uses digital agents and alarm triggers sent over the Internet to continuously monitor whether actual values of a client's variables are in compliance with standards for these variables set out in the debt covenant agreement.     

The Existence and Composition of Audit Committees in the New Zealand Public Sector

This study investigates the association between the source of funding of New Zealand public‐sector entities (PSEs) and the existence and composition of their audit committees. We examine 134 PSEs in the health, local government and tertiary sectors. Of these PSEs, 81 (60%) have an audit committee. The size of the audit committees are on average larger than recommended by best practice guidelines. However, most of the PSEs comply with guidelines recommended for audit committee independence but not financial expertise. PSEs with higher levels of government funding are more likely to establish audit committees and PSEs that rely on funding from rate payers and debt providers are more likely to have audit committees with a majority of independent members. There is no support for the association between the source of funding and the level of financial expertise on audit committees.     

Compliance Over Time by Australian Firms with IFRS Disclosure Requirements

Prior literature indicates that compliance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) is not complete in many countries. This study examines practice under the Australian version of IFRS by measuring compliance with the disclosure requirements of eight standards. The study focuses on data drawn from the consolidated financial statements of a sample of the top 200 Australian listed companies. To enable a time‐series analysis of compliance over time, this study examines three reporting years: 2006, 2010 and 2014. This research identifies material non‐compliance among Australian companies, finding that some disclosure items appear to be neglected by companies, such as some of the requirements of AASB 137 Provisions. This non‐compliance raises questions about accounting and audit quality in Australia. It may suggest poor regulatory oversight.     

Public Oversight of Audit Firms: The Slippery Slope of Enforcing Regulation

This study uses the slippery‐slope framework to understand how an oversight regulator's enforcement style influences audit firm compliance. Using data from interviews with audit regulators and audit partners, we find that partners perceive the regulator's enforcement style has shifted from being more collaborative to being more coercive. A consequence of this shift is that partners believe the development of trust between the two parties has been inhibited and a forced compliance climate has emerged. In response, firms have mandated strategies to increase the visibility of compliance, such as increasing mandatory use of checklists. Audit partners express some concern that oversight of the profession has resulted in firms adapting their audit process in ways aimed at minimizing inspection risk and not necessarily improving audit quality.     

The Impact of Quasi‐Regulatory Reforms on Boards and Their Committees During the Period 2001–2007

This study investigates the cumulative impact of quasi‐regulatory and regulatory reforms, and political pressure on board composition and sub‐committees of boards over the period 2001 to 2007. Based on a sample of 450 firms listed on the Australian Stock Exchange, we find that most firms complied with the Principles of Good Corporate Governance and Best Practice by 2007. In particular, 85% of firms had an independent board and there was a significant increase in majority independent committees (audit, remuneration and nomination). While there was an increase in majority board independence, the increase in the mean level of board independence to 71% was modest. The level of compliance was highest for large firms, but the impact was largest on small firms, which changed their board composition the most. The relation between firm characteristics and board composition declined between 2001 and 2007, and changes in board composition were not able to be explained by changes in firm characteristics. If it is assumed that firms on average select their board to reflect their economic needs, this suggests that the changes in board composition may have been costly for firms.     

Costs and Returns on Graduates of the University of Bradford

Global repercussions of the Enron scandal and particularly the enactment of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act (SOX) in the USA, resulted in significant changes in the UK regulatory regime for audit and corporate governance, including an increased role for audit committees and independent inspection of audit firms. UK-listed company chief financial officers, audit committee chairs (ACCs) and audit partners were surveyed in 2007 to obtain views on the impact of 36 economic and regulatory factors on audit quality post-SOX. Four hundred and ninety-eight usable responses were received, representing a response rate of 36%. All groups rated various audit committee interactions with auditors among the factors most enhancing audit quality. However, International Standards on Auditing (ISAs) and the audit inspection regime, aspects of the ‘standards-surveillance-compliance’ regulatory system, are viewed as less effective. Exploratory factor analysis reduces the 36 factors to nine independent dimensions: economic risk; audit committee activities; risk of regulatory action; audit firm ethics; economic independence of auditor; audit partner rotation; risk of client loss; audit firm size and, lastly, ISAs and audit inspection. Post-SOX regulations have introduced additional dimensions to the factors influencing audit quality. Respondents commented that aspects of the changed regime are largely process and compliance driven, with high costs for limited benefits, a finding consistent with regulatory over-reaction.     

Audit Committee Financial Expertise,Litigation Risk,and Auditor‐Provided Tax Services*

The Sarbanes‐Oxley Act (SOX) greatly expanded audit committees' oversight responsibilities by requiring that they preapprove all non‐prohibited non‐audit services (NAS). Using data from 2003 to 2011, we find that tax NAS are significantly lower when accounting financial experts (ACT‐FEs) serve on the audit committee, suggesting that ACT‐FEs consider auditor independence risk, perceived and/or real, more than other members, including supervisory experts, to the point of not accepting any tax NAS, not even compliance. However, in firms with higher ex ante litigation risk, ACT‐FEs approve relatively more tax NAS than other members, suggesting that they accept the costs of a perceived lack of auditor independence from tax NAS in return for the potential benefits of increased financial reporting quality arising from tax NAS. Our analysis by subperiod (2003–2006 vs. 2007–2011) shows that this result is significant only in the second period. ACT‐FEs' differential evaluation of the trade‐off between the benefits and costs of joint audit and tax NAS provision between the two periods suggests the need for additional research in later post‐SOX years.     

Efficiency audit: An assembly of rationalities and programmes

This paper focuses on the insertion of accounting and auditing knowledge into wider areas of practice, and examines the processes of auditing change through studying the development of “efficiency auditing” using events in one jurisdiction, the Province of Alberta, Canada, as an exemplar. These developments are interpreted through use of Miller and Rose's (1990; Rose & Miller, 1992) theoretical concerns with governmentality, and especially the links between generally stated political rationalities and more specific programmes for action. In studying the association of ideas of efficiency with auditing, and the developing belief that efficiency could be investigated or procured through audit scrutiny, it is argued that these events can be understood in terms of an intersection between wider discourse (concerning, for example, best management practice, appropriate auditing roles, etc.) and local circumstance. The specific interpretations that result are understood as providing one set of conditions by which auditing (and accounting are linked to the social (Burchell et al., 1985). Further research (Radcliffe, 1995) attends to the logistics of how one might audit for efficiency, using fieldwork to trace the technologies which provide practitioners with particular mechanisms for action (Miller & Rose, 1990). © 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.     

The effects of information availability on the benefits accrued from enhancing audit-firm reputation

This paper reports on a laboratory experiment that examines the effect of market setting and reputation enhancement on audit prices, profits, and number of contracts. Klein and Leffler (1981) The role of market forces in assuring contractual performance. Journal of Political Economy, 89, 615–641 provide theory related to reputation effects based on the availability of perfect ex-post quality (of the audit) information. Such information is not routinely available within audit markets. Therefore, the assumption of the availability of perfect ex-post quality information was relaxed to reflect a more realistic market in which audit quality must be inferred from information related to audit failure. Findings are that restricting the information available in this manner significantly affected the market's response to the auditor's attempts to establish a reputation. While the markets for which perfect ex-post quality information was provided closely followed the model's expectations, the limited information markets did not—auditors who attempted to enhance their reputation were unable to charge significantly higher prices and correspondingly made significantly lower profits.     

Local Government Audit Committees: A Behaviour Framework for Effective Audit Committee Performance

Stakeholders will always be more receptive to the creation of structured and credible systems that pull participants towards good governance outcomes which serve to remove temptation rather than systems that attempt to push or otherwise coerce people into a state of compliance. This paper uses behavioural theory as an interpretative lens to explain the actions and effectiveness of public sector audit committees. Financial probity, independence to avoid conflicts of interest and conformance to ethical practices are the tenets of effective governance. Audit committees can be one of the mechanisms to monitor the risks of the public sector and the executive management team especially where ‘self‐interest’ conflicts with the governance requirements of legislation, societal norms and community expectations. An effective audit committee can provide behavioural oversight of governance processes, although one cannot legislate for integrity and honesty. The presence of an effective and contributing audit committee in local government negates a councillor from listening or subverting positive actions and provides a signal to external stakeholders of organisational risks.     

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.     

试论风险导向审计方法在证券投资审计中的应用

证券投资作为保险公司重要利润来源,具有较高的风险,开展有效的内部审计是保证证券投资业务操作合规性、安全性的重要保障手段。本文着重探讨以风险为导向的内部审计新模式在保险公司证券投资审计中的应用,以期对保险公司内部审计发展研究起到抛砖引玉的作用。     

Mandatory Financial Reporting Processes and Outcomes

In an extension to the mandatory financial reporting literature, we consider compliance and applicability as intermediate stages in the disclosure decision process, and investigate to what extent these measures explain any variance in the quantity of disclosure. We use financial instruments disclosures as our empirical context because of the level of complexity and diversity of the mandatory requirements. We find that neither applicability nor compliance show statistically significant association with disclosure quantity. By contrast we find that a firm's financial instruments management programme is an important determinant of both applicability and quantity. Finally, we demonstrate the economic consequences of applicability, compliance and quantity through their association with audit fees. For companies that use financial instruments management programmes to a greater extent, audit fees are higher. In contrast, the quantity of financial instruments disclosures appears to reduce audit fees.     

THE IMPACT OF THE FINANCIAL REPORTING REVIEW PANEL ON ASPECTS OF THE INDEPENDENCE OF AUDITORS AND THEIR ATTITUDES TO COMPLIANCE IN THE UK

The UK Financial Reporting Review Panel (FRRP) enforces the regulatory framework for larger companies and requires companies to restate non-compliant accounts. It is authorized to deal with directors but not auditors. Recent UK based research indicates a belief that the FRRP's activities have enhanced auditor independence and changed attitudes to accounting compliance. Defective accounts indicate a lack of audit quality as the auditor must have failed to detect and/or prevent the deficiency. By analysis of fifteen semi-structured interviews with finance directors and audit firm partners with experience of an FRRP inquiry, and by review of publicly available information, the impact of the FRRP on some aspects of audit quality is sought. The FRRP is found to have motivated auditors to improve accounting compliance by increasing the possibility of some errors being exposed. It is also found to have enhanced the independence of auditors at the pre-conventional level of ethical cognition as identified by Ponemon and Gabhart (1990), by changing the cost-benefit for auditors of permitting non-compliance. FRRP inquiries cause auditors to incur non-recoverable costs, can undermine the auditor–client relationship and increase the risk of client loss. Personal embarrassment, possible career damage and the risk of an ICAEW disciplinary inquiry arise for the audit partner. The FRRP is found to provide auditors with an additional negotiating tool in dealing with directors, thus making in easier for auditors at the conventional and post conventional level of ethical cognition to prevent non-compliance. Direct evidence is, therefore, found that the FRRP's activities have provided incentives for all auditors to focus more on accounting compliance (at least for items visible from an inspection of the accounts) and have provided incentives and mechanisms for auditors at lower levels of ethical cognition to be independent.