The Impact of Internal Auditor Compensation and Role on External Auditors' Planning Judgments and Decisions*

This paper reports the results of an experiment that investigates how external audit planning is affected when internal auditors have incentives and the opportunity to bias their evaluations. Specifically, we draw on attribution theory to examine how internal auditor eligibility for incentive compensation and participation in consulting (i.e., two factors that provide incentives to bias audit evaluations) affect external audit planning. In addition, we examine the effects of incentive compensation and a consulting role across two routine internal audit tasks — an objective tests of controls task and a subjective inventory valuation task — to evaluate whether their effects are contingent upon task subjectivity (i.e., opportunity to bias audit evaluations). Seventy‐six external auditors from four Big 5 public accounting firms participated in an experiment that manipulated internal auditor compensation (fixed salary versus incentive compensation), the type of work that the internal auditors routinely perform (primarily auditing versus primarily consulting), and audit task subjectivity (objective tests of controls versus subjective inventory valuation). Our results suggest that the nature of internal auditors' compensation and work affect audit planning recommendations differently. The opportunity to receive incentive compensation results in less reliance on internal auditors' work and greater budgeted audit hours, but only for the subjective task. Although a consulting role decreases perceived internal auditor objectivity, it has a limited effect on planning recommendations. Specifically, consulting has no effect on reliance, and leads to greater budgeted audit hours only when incentive compensation is available. We discuss potential explanations for the results as well as implications for audit research, practice, and regulation.     

An Empirical Investigation of Audit Fees,Nonaudit Fees,and Audit Committees*

This study examines the association between audit committee characteristics and the ratio of nonaudit service (NAS) fees to audit fees, using data gathered under the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC's) fee disclosure rules. Issues related to NAS fees have been of concern to practitioners, regulators, and academics for a number of years. Prior research suggests that audit committees possessing certain characteristics are important participants in the process of managing the client‐auditor relationship. We hypothesize that audit committees that are independent and active financial monitors have incentives to limit NAS fees (relative to audit fees) paid to incumbent auditors, in an effort to enhance auditor independence in either appearance or fact. Our analysis using a sample of 538 firms indicates that audit committees comprised solely of independent directors meeting at least four times annually are significantly and negatively associated with the NAS fee ratio. This evidence is consistent with audit committee members perceiving a high level of NAS fees in a negative light and taking actions to decrease the NAS fee ratio.     

Outsourcing and Audit Risk for Internal Audit Services*

Some companies now outsource their internal audit function to public accountants. Internal auditors and accounting firms disagree about the merits of outsourcing. Each type of auditor claims to provide more cost‐effective services and appears to claim superior expertise. This paper uses agency theory to examine outsourcing and reconciles the outsourcing debate without resorting to differential auditor expertise. Under the assumptions that public accountants' “deep pockets” provide incentives to outsource and their higher opportunity cost provides a disincentive, we characterize the optimal employment contract with each auditor. We find that public accountants provide higher levels of testing, but possibly for a higher expected fee. This result supports both the internal auditor's claim as the lower cost provider, and the public accountant's claim of higher quality. We also find that incentives to outsource generally increase in various measures of risk, including the risk that a control weakness exists and the size of the loss that can result from an undetected control weakness.     

An Economic Analysis of Audit and Nonaudit Services: The Trade‐off between Competition Crossovers and Knowledge Spillovers*

In this paper, I present a model in which both markets for audit services and nonaudit services (NAS) are oligopolistic. Accounting firms providing both audit services and NAS will employ oligopolistic competition in each of these markets. In addition to auditors' gaining “knowledge spillovers” from auditing to consulting or vice versa, oligopolistic competition in one market will influence the counterpart in the other market ‐ what I call “competition crossovers”. Although scope economies due to knowledge spillovers (for example, cost savings) are always beneficial to auditors, such benefits can entice accounting firms to adopt strategies (for example, price reductions) to compete aggressively in the audit market so that some, or all, firms become worse off. A trade‐off arises between these two economic forces in the two oligopolistic markets. Given the trade‐off between competition crossovers and knowledge spillovers, accounting firms may not reduce their audit prices, even though supplying NAS enables firms to decrease auditing costs — a nontrivial impact of oligopolistic competition in two markets on audit pricing. The empirical implication of my results is that because of competition‐crossover effects between the auditing and consulting service markets, finding empirical evidence for knowledge‐spillover benefits is likely to be difficult. Control variables for “audit‐market concentration” concerned with competition‐crossover effects and “auditor expertise” concerned with knowledge‐spillover benefits should be included in audit‐fee regressions to increase the power of empirical tests. With regard to policy implications, my analyses help explain the impact of the Sarbanes‐Oxley Act on “market segmentation” and, hence, the profitability of accounting firms.     

The Riskiness of Large Audit Firm Client Portfolios and Changes in Audit Liability Regimes: Evidence from the U.S. Audit Market*

We investigate whether the financial riskiness of large U.S. audit firm clienteles varied with the changing audit litigation liability environment during the period 1975‐99. Partitioning the period of study into four distinct periods (a benchmark period (1975‐84), a period of increasing concerns about litigation liability (1985‐89), a period of lobbying for reform (1990‐94), and a post‐relief period (1995‐99)), we find some evidence of risk decreases during 1985‐89, strong evidence of risk decreases during 1990‐94, and strong evidence of risk increases during 1995‐99. However, we also find that over the period of our study, a time during which Big 6 market shares grew appreciably, the proportion of litigious‐industry clients in Big 6 client portfolios grew at about the same rate as the proportion of such clients in the population. Moreover, the Big 6 share of the financially riskiest clients in the economy did not grow as fast as the overall Big 6 market share. In sum, although our evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that the riskiness of Big 6 client portfolios responded to changes in the audit litigation liability environment, we find no systematic evidence of a "race to the bottom" or "bottom fishing" by these firms in a bid to increase their market shares.     

The Importance of Account Relations when Responding to Interim Audit Testing Results*

Auditors are expected to plan and adapt audit programs in response to changes in risk associated with each client. Results in the existing research have been mixed regarding whether auditors respond to changes in risk. Two possible explanations for the lack of responsiveness to changes in risk found in the existing research are that auditors succumb to profit pressure, and that researchers only analyze responses in the risky accounts without considering related accounts. This paper experimentally tests how auditors respond to changes in risk of material misstatement identified by means of interim audit testing results. The response to changes in risk of material misstatement is analyzed using planned audit hours across related financial statement accounts and at varying levels of profit pressure. Results indicate the following primary findings: (a) auditors respond to changes in risk of material misstatement by increasing planned audit hours in accounts related to the risky account, and (b) profit pressure does not affect the auditor's response to changes in risk. These results indicate that the relations between accounts must be considered in order to identify the auditors' response to changes in risk of material misstatement. In addition, the results are consistent with audit firms decreasing the emphasis on profit pressure due to the current importance that the market places on audit quality.     

Auditor Reputation,Auditor Independence,and the Stock‐Market Impact of Andersen's Indictment on Its Client Firms*

In this paper, we study a broad sample of Arthur Andersen clients and investigate whether the decline in Andersen's reputation, due to its criminal indictment on March 14, 2002, adversely affected the stock market's perception of its audit quality. Because these reputa‐tional concerns are more of an issue if an auditor's independence is impaired, we investigate the relationship between the abnormal market returns for Andersen clients around the time of the indictment announcement and several fee‐based measures of auditor independence. Our results suggest that when news about Andersen's indictment was released, the market reacted negatively to Andersen clients. More importantly, we find that the indictment period abnormal return is significantly more negative when the market perceived the auditor's independence to be threatened. We also examine the abnormal returns when firms announced the dismissal of Andersen as an auditor. Consistent with the audit quality explanation, we document that when firms quickly dismissed Andersen, the announcement returns are significantly higher when firms switched to a Big 4 auditor than when they either switched to non‐Big 4 auditors or did not announce the identity of the replacement auditor. Our empirical results support the notion that auditor reputation and independence have a material impact on perceived audit quality and the credibility of audited financial statements, and that the market prices this.     

Auditors' Responses to Workload Imbalance and the Impact on Audit Quality*

Using detailed data for fieldwork hours and audit hours by rank from audit engagements in Korea, we examine whether audits conducted under workload imbalance, proxied by busy‐season audits, impair audit quality, and how auditors adjust staff assignments for busy‐season audits. We generally find that busy‐season audits are associated with lower audit quality, and that audit firms reduce the involvement of senior auditors during busy‐season audits. In addition, the greater the involvement of senior auditors and junior auditors, the lesser the deterioration in audit quality. Finally, although there is no increase in interim audits in response to workload imbalance during busy seasons, increasing interim audits can mitigate the negative impact of busy‐season audits on audit quality. Our results are relevant to auditors and regulators, who have expressed concerns about the adverse effects of workload imbalance on audit quality.     

A Reexamination of Behavior in Experimental Audit Markets: The Effects of Moral Reasoning and Economic Incentives on Auditor Reporting and Fees*

This study uses experimental markets to investigate how moral reasoning influences auditor reporting under different levels of economic incentives. In each multiperiod market, auditor subjects could either (1) misreport low observed outcomes as high and thereby reap economic advantages at the expense of third‐party investors, or (2) truthfully report low observed outcomes as low but thereby forgo the economic advantages of misreporting. We extend the Calegari, Schatzberg, and Sevcik 1998 experimental‐markets setting to incorporate moral reasoning, and test hypotheses based on the economic model of Magee and Tseng 1990 and the neo‐Kohlbergian moral reasoning framework of Rest, Narvaez, Bebeau, and Thoma 1999. We document a significant effect of moral reasoning on auditor behavior. Specifically, we find that misreporting and premium fees are more likely with higher than with lower moral reasoning subjects, and the moral reasoning effect diminishes as economic penalties increase in the market. These findings provide valuable insights for specifying the determinants of auditor misreporting, the observable behaviors that signal its existence, and the institutions that can prevent its occurrence in the market. We conclude that the relation between moral reasoning and behavior is more complex than commonly assumed in the accounting literature, and identify directions for future research.     

The Effect of Deadline Pressure on Pre‐Negotiation Positions: A Comparison of Auditors and Client Management

This study compares auditors' and chief financial officers' pre‐negotiation judgments and considers the potential differential impact the end of the audit (deadline pressure) has on each party. General negotiation literature suggests that individuals change their behaviors as deadline pressure increases (i.e., when there is less time in which to conduct a negotiation) in order to increase the probability of reaching an agreement. In an audit context, the end‐of‐engagement deadline is often based on regulatory filing deadlines (e.g., SEC filings for public companies), which are not determined by either negotiating party. The audit context is also unique in that there are asymmetric consequences for each party (the auditor and client management) for failing to reach an agreement and different negotiation tactics used by the two parties potentially leading to differing levels of concessions. We predict that auditors, who are in a stronger negotiation position, will generally concede less than client management when determining their pre‐negotiation position and will tend to use more contentious strategies. However, such contentious strategies require time. Thus, we expect, based on negotiation theory, that as deadline pressure increases, auditors' concessionary behavior will be more affected than that of client management. Consistent with expectations, results of our experiment suggest that CFOs concede more than auditors in general; however, auditors are more reactive to deadline pressure and increase concessions when faced with high deadline pressure, while CFOs do not. We also measure planned strategy use and find results to be consistent with theory: when deadline pressure is high, auditors are less likely to use contentious tactics, while CFOs' strategy choices are unaffected by deadline pressure. These results suggest that characteristics of the unique auditor–client negotiation environment, such as deadline pressures, have potentially differential effects on both parties due to the differing negotiation strategies employed by these parties.     

调控我国内外均衡冲突的政策选择：基于政策搭配理论的研究

本文认为要解决当前我国以通货膨胀和国际收支顺差为特征的内外均衡冲突,在短期内,应该进行人民币升值,并与紧缩性财政政策和紧缩性货币政策进行配合;从长期看,应该进行外汇管理体制的改革,并且完善人民币汇率制度。     

数字经济对服务业优化升级的影响

在加快构建新发展格局的背景下,数字经济积极推进服务业优化升级,对于助力现代化经济体系建设、促进经济高质量发展具有重要意义。采用2014—2020年中国省级面板数据研究数字经济对服务业优化升级的影响机制。研究发现：数字经济有助于促进服务业优化升级;技术创新在影响过程中起部分中介效应;并且市场化水平正向调节了影响机制的直接效应和中介效应。