The effect of external audits of internal control over financial reporting on financial reporting for clients of Big 4, Second-tier,and small audit firms

The external audit of internal control over financial reporting (ICFR) is a very expensive and contentious aspect of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act (SOX). Larger public firms were first required to file a management report on and have an external audit of ICFR in 2004. Smaller public firms were first required to file a management report on ICFR in 2007 but are exempt from the audit requirement. Whereas most related prior research investigates the combined effect of management and auditor reports on financial reporting, this study examines the distinct effect of auditor reports on reporting quality. For companies audited by small auditors, we find evidence that financial reporting quality improves with an auditor report on ICFR. We find no evidence that auditor ICFR reports improve reporting quality for clients of Big 4 or Second-tier audit firms. Our study adds to the debate on the applicability of SOX Section 404 to smaller firms.     

Internal Audit Outsourcing: A Literature Synthesis and Future Directions

The internal audit function (IAF), which has traditionally been an in‐house function, is increasingly being outsourced to outside consultants, in line with global trends for other services. This study synthesises research on the outsourcing and co‐sourcing of internal audit services over the last three decades, and suggests directions for future research. It draws from professional and academic literature to highlight the nature of organisations that outsource the IAF, and the main reasons behind the outsourcing decision. The study further examines the financial impact of outsourcing, as well as its impact on financial reporting, internal audit quality and auditors’ independence. The study shows widespread adoption of outsourcing of internal auditing services, largely due to the perceived cost benefits as well as perceived improved access to specialised internal auditing resources. There are mixed findings on the impact of outsourcing of internal auditing services on quality, cost, independence and availability of resources. This study contributes to internal and external audit, corporate governance and outsourcing literature in general, by synthesising the existing research and providing a roadmap with which to understand the origins, development, present state and impact of outsourcing of internal auditing.     

Audit committee quality,auditor independence,and internal control weaknesses

In this paper we investigate the relation between audit committee quality, auditor independence, and the disclosure of internal control weaknesses after the enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. We begin with a sample of firms with internal control weaknesses and, based on industry, size, and performance, match these firms to a sample of control firms without internal control weaknesses. Our conditional logit analyses indicate that a relation exists between audit committee quality, auditor independence, and internal control weaknesses. Firms are more likely to be identified with an internal control weakness, if their audit committees have less financial expertise or, more specifically, have less accounting financial expertise and non-accounting financial expertise. They are also more likely to be identified with an internal control weakness, if their auditors are more independent. In addition, firms with recent auditor changes are more likely to have internal control weaknesses.     

The effect of auditor IT expertise on internal controls

Material weaknesses in internal controls related to information technology (IT) represent unique threats to organizations. Utilizing the external auditor as an example of an externally observable governance mechanism, we investigate if firms with revealed IT internal control deficiencies employ a strategy of disassociation with their current auditor. Our tests show that prior evidence of disassociation strategies hold in both IT and non-IT contexts. Of particular focus to our study, we document a positive association between firms that report IT material weaknesses and subsequent auditor dismissals or switching. We next investigate the potential internal control benefits of switching to auditors with greater expertise in environments that emphasize the importance of IT. We argue that greater audit firm IT expertise promotes improved internal controls for their clients, especially those controls that are dependent on IT. We find that clients that switch to auditors with greater IT expertise, relative to their former auditor, have a greater likelihood of material weakness remediation within one year of reporting control weaknesses. Complementing these findings, we find that audit IT expertise is negatively associated with both non-IT and IT material weaknesses in an ex ante reporting setting. Prior literature takes a longstanding interest in both the incentive for developing auditor expertise and the effects of that expertise. We contribute to this literature stream by providing additional evidence related to a specific type of expertise.     

Book Reviews

This paper examines factors affecting the owner-manager's voluntary decision to hire an auditor in small firms. Using a random sample of 412 small private companies in Finland responding to an Internet survey, we first probe the institutional boundaries of a prior UK study [Collis, J., Jarvis, R., and Skerratt, L., 2004. The demand for the audit in small companies in the UK. Accounting and business research, 34 (2), 87–100] and conclude that its main findings can be generalised to a different regulatory setting (Finland) typical of many Continental European countries. Second, we broaden the prior research by testing new hypotheses regarding the drivers of an audit among small companies. We hypothesise and find evidence that outsourcing of critical accounting functions creates information asymmetry between the owner-manager and the external accountant, which may arouse the need for monitoring the external accountant through a voluntary audit. In addition, we find, as hypothesised, that tax advisory services provided by the external accountant reduce the likelihood of a voluntary audit. Moreover, we hypothesise that receiving a qualified opinion from the auditor reduces the likelihood of hiring an auditor voluntarily, whereas firms experiencing financial distress would be more willing to have their financial statements audited. We find evidence consistent with these hypotheses.     

New Auditors’ Decisions for Released Firms from the Mandatory Auditor Designation Rule: Evidence From South Korea

This study examines the effect of the mandatory designation rule on audit fees charged and audit hours rendered by auditors for firms released from the mandatory auditor designation rule in the Korean audit market. Under the mandatory auditor designation rule, which took effect in 1991, problematic firms are assigned new auditors by the Financial Supervisory Service. Previous studies suggest that this regulation positively affects the quality of audits by promoting auditor independence. Thus, this study hypothesises that firms that have been subjected to mandatory auditor designation improve the quality of their financial reporting, and that auditors hired after the mandatory designation period account for reduced audit risks when determining audit fees and audit hours. This study shows that audit fees and audit hours of firms released from the mandatory auditor designation rule are lower than those of other initial audit engagements. Taken together, this study's findings reinforce the notion that auditors’ perceptions of changes in audit risk yield corresponding changes in the audit fees they charge and audit hours they render.     

How Effective Is Internal Control Reporting under SOX 404? Determinants of the (Non‐)Disclosure of Existing Material Weaknesses

We study determinants of internal control reporting decisions under Section 404 of the Sarbanes‐Oxley Act (SOX 404) using a sample of restating firms whose original misstatements are linked to underlying control weaknesses. We find that only a minority of these firms acknowledge their existing control weaknesses during their misstatement periods, and that this proportion has declined over time. Further, the probability of reporting existing weaknesses is negatively associated with external capital needs, firm size, non‐audit fees, and the presence of a large audit firm; it is positively associated with financial distress, auditor effort, previously reported control weaknesses and restatements, and recent auditor and management changes. These results provide evidence that detection and disclosure incentives play a role in whether existing material weaknesses are reported, which has implications for the effectiveness of SOX 404 in providing investors with advance warning of potential accounting problems.     

On the effort-saving effect of audit committee–auditor interlocking

Using unique data on audit hours from China, this paper investigates the effort-saving effect of the audit committee–auditor interlocking (AClk). We find that AClk is negatively associated with audit effort without any deterioration in audit quality. The results suggest that AClk has an effort-saving effect through information sharing between interlocked audit committee members and auditors. However, auditors retain the effort-saving benefits of AClk without sharing them with their client firms. Further analysis shows that the effort-saving effect of AClk is more pronounced for client firms whose auditors have industry expertise, for client firms that share the same individual auditor, or for client firms that share audit committee members with financial expertise.     

事务所战略、行业特征与客户选择

本文试图通过客户选择行为来研究事务所专门化经营战略及其实施的具体策略,以期为事务所从内涵发展方面实现做大做强提供有益的途径。研究发现,事务所的专门化经营战略促使客户偏好于集中选择事务所,而行业内的客户出于竞争驱动偏好于选择不同于竞争对手的事务所,从而促使其分散选择;说明专门化经营战略是有效的竞争战略,且更容易在竞争程度较低的行业内得到发展。这一结论将为我国事务所经营竞争战略和未来发展方向提供经验证据。     

Internal governance structures and earnings management

This paper investigates the role of a firm's internal governance structure in constraining earnings management. It is hypothesized that the practice of earnings management is systematically related to the strength of internal corporate governance mechanisms, including the board of directors, the audit committee, the internal audit function and the choice of external auditor. Based on a broad cross‐sectional sample of 434 listed Australian firms, for the financial year ending in 2000, a majority of non‐executive directors on the board and on the audit committee are found to be significantly associated with a lower likelihood of earnings management, as measured by the absolute level of discretionary accruals. The voluntary establishment of an internal audit function and the choice of auditor are not significantly related to a reduction in the level of discretionary accruals. Our additional analysis, using small increases in earnings as a measure of earnings management, also found a negative association between this measure and the existence of an audit committee.     

The impact of corporate governance on auditor choice: Evidence from China

As the largest and fastest growing emerging market, China is becoming more and more important to investors throughout the world. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants of firms’ auditor choice in China in respect of their corporate governance mechanism. Normally firms have to take a trade-off in their auditor choice decisions, i.e., to hire high-quality auditors to signal effective audit monitoring and good corporate governance to lower their capital raising costs, or to select low-quality auditors with less effective audit monitoring in order to reap private benefits derived from weak corporate governance and less-transparent disclosure (the opaqueness gains). We develop a logit regression model to test the impact of firms’ internal corporate governance mechanism on auditor choice decisions made by IPO firms getting listed during a bear market period of 2001–2004 in China. Three variables are used to proxy for firms’ internal corporate governance mechanism, i.e., the ownership concentration, the size of the supervisory board (SB), and the duality of CEO and chairman of board of directors (BoDs). We classify all auditors in China into large auditors (Top 10) and others (non-Top 10), assuming the large auditors can provide higher quality audit services. The empirical results show that firms with larger controlling shareholders, with smaller size of SB, or in which CEO and BoDs chairman are the same person, are less likely to hire a Top 10 (high-quality) auditor. This suggests that when benefits from lowering capital raising costs are trivial, firms with weaker internal corporate governance mechanism are inclined to choose a low-quality auditor so as to capture and sustain their opaqueness gains. On the other hand, with improvement of corporate governance, firms should be more likely to appoint high-quality auditors.     

The determinants of auditor switching from the perspective of corporate governance in China

This paper reports the association between firms' internal corporate governance mechanisms and their auditor switch decisions in the Chinese context. We identify two types of auditor switch, namely switching to a larger auditor and switching to a smaller auditor. Three variables are used to proxy for firms' internal corporate governance mechanism, including the ownership concentration (shareholding by the largest owner), the effectiveness of supervisory board (SB), and the duality of chairman of board of directors (CBoD) and CEO. We regressed the internal corporate governance variables over firms' audit switching types during a specific period of 2001-2004 when a bear market continued in China. The empirical results demonstrate that firms with larger controlling owners or in which CBoD and CEO are held by the same person are more likely to switch to a smaller auditor rather than to a larger one. However, the effect of the SB variable does not have a significant impact on auditor switching decisions. In general, the study findings suggest that firms with weak internal corporate governance mechanism tend to switch to smaller or more pliable auditors in order to sustain the opaqueness gains derived from weak corporate governance. On the other hand, with the improvement of corporate government, firms should be more likely to choose large (high-quality) auditors in making auditor switching decisions.     

The (mis)fit between the profile of internal auditors and internal audit activities

This study investigates whether there is a fit between the profile of internal auditors and the activities of the internal audit department (IAD). It also seeks to discover which type of internal auditors fit which type of internal audit (IA) activities. This is commonly referred to as the person-job (P-J) fit. Furthermore, this study investigates whether this (mis)fit is associated with the outsourcing/co-sourcing of IA activities and turnover within the IAD. Bringing strategic human resource management (SHRM) into IA can be considered as the key contribution of this paper. The results of this study are based on a questionnaire completed by 280 members of the Institute of Internal Auditors in Belgium. The results show that there is a fit between some characteristics of internal auditors working in an IAD and the activities of the IAD. The results also show that certain internal auditor characteristics fit with certain types of IA activities. However, the degree of fit varies. Furthermore, it was found that IADs that co-source/outsource were significantly more associated with a misfit between the profile of the internal auditors and the activities of the IAD, whereas a misfit was not significantly associated with a high turnover of internal auditors.     

Disclosure of outsourcing in the annual report: Causes and market returns effects

Firms increasingly are utilizing outsourcing to enhance or maintain their competitiveness. Prior research shows that capital markets value a firm's decision to outsource. This study uses a sample of firms announcing outsourcing arrangements in a press release to examine which factors are associated with the subsequent decision to voluntarily provide or withhold information about outsourcing in their annual report. The paper also examines whether annual report disclosure is a reliable signal of future market performance. We find that underperforming firms, larger firms, and firms experiencing negative outsourcing announcement market returns and negative long-term market returns are more likely to disclose outsourcing in their annual reports. There is also evidence that firms' disclosure of outsourcing in the annual report signals an improvement in market performance that is credible to the capital markets. We contend that the disclosure and subsequent firm performance issues we investigate apply to any type of outsourcing arrangement, and therefore our results are relevant to future information systems research on this subject. Our findings also suggest that regulatory standards could reduce private information search costs for investors by providing a common disclosure methodology for outsourcing activities.     

Audit committee diligence around initial audit engagement

Studies focusing on governance mechanisms argue that auditor monitoring is one of several governance mechanisms that exist in the firm, and these mechanisms supplement each other. Extending this argument, I examine whether firms support auditor monitoring with audit committee monitoring when auditor oversight is deemed to be weak. Prior auditing literature argues that audit quality is affected by auditors' lack of familiarity with their clients' activities. Since lack of auditor–client familiarity exists in the first year of auditor–client tenure, I examine whether firms increase their audit committee monitoring during the year of auditor change. For a sample of firms that changed auditors between 2006 and 2012, the findings show that audit committees meet more frequently in the first year of audit engagement. Further tests show that firms' past reporting behavior play a significant role in the demand for more audit committee meetings and the increase in the audit committee meetings in the initial year of auditor engagement positively affects reporting quality.     

To switch or not to switch? The effect of audit firms’ economies of scale on audit firm switches after audit price deregulation in China

We exploit the unique setting of China’s 2014 audit price deregulation policy to examine whether audit firms use their economies of scale (EOS) to compete for clients. We find a significant increase in client firms switching from a non-EOS auditor to an EOS auditor after the audit price deregulation policy was implemented. The additional analyses show that EOS audit firms are more likely to offer audit fee discounts than non-EOS audit firms while retaining audit quality. We also find that the auditors’ EOS effect is more pronounced for highly homogeneous industries and firms paying high abnormal audit fees, firms in financial distress, and firms receiving less capital market attention than for less homogeneous industries and firms paying low abnormal audit fees, financially stable firms, and firms receiving more capital market attention. Finally, we find that the presence of state-owned enterprises and political connections both separately and jointly moderate the effect of audit firm–client realignments from a non-EOS auditor to an EOS auditor after the audit price deregulation. Overall, our study provides important insights for policymakers and regulators reviewing and developing new policies on audit services.     

Audit committee quality indices,reporting quality and firm value

We investigate the relation between audit committee (AC) quality indices, financial reporting, internal control quality and firm value using a US dataset for the period 2002–12. The indices are developed by linking firm value with principal component analysis (PCA) factors based on a broad set of 82 AC variables, some of which influence the quality of the AC, but are not addressed in prior literature. Significant AC factors include ‘overlapping directors’, ‘busyness’ and ‘foreign director’, and we use these factors to develop ‘high’ and ‘low’ AC quality indices. We show that low AC quality firms are more likely to manage earnings, be external auditor dependent with respect to non‐audit tax services, and switch to a lower quality auditor. Low AC quality firms are also more likely to have internal control concerns disclosed by predecessor auditors, including accounting issues, financial restatements, audit opinion concerns and deficiencies that undermine internal control effectiveness. Further, they are more likely to receive an audit report containing additional explanatory notes. Conversely, high AC quality firms are significantly less likely to have these concerns. Our findings highlight the value of using AC quality indices in delivering greater oversight of the financial reporting process.     

Audit Effort and Stock Price Crash Risk

We examine how stock price crash risk is affected by audit effort, as measured by audit hours. Using a unique dataset of audit hours in China, we find that audit effort is negatively related to crash risk. The negative impact of audit effort on crash risk is more pronounced for listed firms that have higher inherent risks and weaker external monitoring of their information environment. Our findings are robust to various tests, including a two-stage regression analysis, controlling for listed firm-fixed effects and audit firm-fixed effects, and using alternative measures of crash risk. In addition to audit output measures, audit effort has an incremental influence on crash risk. The effects of audit effort on crash risk continue to hold after controlling for auditor industry expertise and auditor tenure.     

DETERMINANTS OF AUDIT FEES FOR QUOTED UK COMPANIES

This study reports further evidence as to the determinants of the audit fees paid by quoted companies in the UK. It outlines a framework based on the findings from semi-structured interviews with partners in four large audit firms and the results of previous research, and tests this framework by means of multivariate analysis using 1987 data for a large sample of quoted UK companies. A model explaining 87 per cent of the variation in audit fees is constructed. The principal explanatory variables are found to be auditee size, return on shareholders equity, the number of subsidiaries, the lag between the year end and the date of the audit report, the size of the auditor, a measure of auditee diversification, the ownership structure of the auditee, and whether the auditor was based in London, with the last three being new variables introduced in this study.     

Does auditor designation by the regulatory authority improve audit quality? Evidence from Korea

In Korea, the regulatory authority designates external auditors for firms that are deemed to have strong incentives and/or great potential for opportunistic earnings management, and mandates these firms to replace their incumbent auditors with new designated auditors and to retain them for a certain period, typically one to three years. We call this regulatory regime ‘auditor designation’. This paper investigates whether the auditor designation rule in Korea is effective in deterring managers from making income-increasing earnings management. Consistent with our hypothesis, we find that the level of discretionary accruals is significantly lower for firms with designated auditors than firms with a free selection of auditors. We also find that firms with mandatory auditor changes (i.e., auditor designation) report significantly lower discretionary accruals compared to firms with voluntary auditor changes. The above findings are robust to a battery of robustness checks. Overall, our results are consistent with the notion that the auditor designation enhances audit quality and thus the credibility of financial reporting.