Audit Partner Tenure and Independence in a Low Litigation Risk Setting

We investigate whether long audit partner tenures impair auditor independence, as proxied by the opinion of the audit report, with a sample of Spanish companies for the period: 2002–2010. The Spanish audit market constitutes an ideal setting in which to address this issue, as it is characterized by unusually lengthy engagements with the audit firm. The motivation relies, on the one hand, on the current discussion about the necessity to reinforce the independence of auditors and, on the other hand, on the very limited available research at the partner level. The main result is the lack of significant effects of partner tenure on independence. This finding is robust to various checks. Unlike prior research, we also address the joint effects of firm and partner tenure on independence. Results indicate that partner tenure does not compromise independence, even under long or extremely long audit firm tenures. These findings might have some interesting policy implications, in particular for the intense current debate on auditor rotation regimes which is taking place within the European Union.     

Auditor rotation and the appearance of independence: Evidence from non-professional investors

We examine the impact of audit firm versus partner rotation on non-professional investors’ independence-related perceptions, extending prior research on auditor rotation and independence in fact. Arguments for mandatory audit firm rotation continue to be made by regulators and investor groups based, in part, on the idea that firm rotation will incrementally strengthen independence in appearance relative to audit partner rotation. We report the results of two experiments. The first examines 5-year audit firm versus partner rotation under relatively weak or strong audit committees. We find no statistically significant difference in beliefs about how much of an income reducing audit difference management will record, or in beliefs about auditor independence, between the two auditor rotation conditions. On the other hand, we find that non-professional investors do believe more of the audit difference will be recorded, and the auditors will be more independent, under a strong audit committee than a relatively weak audit committee. The second experiment provides further evidence on audit firm versus partner rotation by examining a setting involving a 26-year audit firm–client relationship. Again, no statistically significant differences between the two auditor rotation conditions were found. These findings suggest that compared to audit partner rotation, audit firm rotation does not strengthen independence in appearance among non-professional investors and that non-professional investors recognize the value of strong audit committees.     

Is non-audit services a suitable proxy for auditor independence in the post-SOX period?

Before implementation of the Sarbanes Oxley Act (SOX) in 2002, researchers frequently used fees from non-audit services (NAS) as a surrogate for auditor independence. NAS is still used in this way, even though SOX has restricted the types of NAS that auditors may provide to their clients. Therefore, we pose the following question: What does the literature say about the continuing adequacy of NAS as a surrogate for auditor independence in the post-SOX era? This question is relevant to research in accounting regulation because, if NAS is no longer an adequate surrogate, then research on auditor independence may provide biased results. Overall, we find that many post-SOX studies using NAS have insignificant or counterintuitive results, whereas pre-SOX studies using NAS predominantly have significant results suggesting that NAS impairs auditor independence. Is this shift in findings because NAS is no longer an adequate proxy for independence? We discuss this issue and provide our conclusions, citing relevant research where applicable.     

Client importance and audit partner independence

We use data from Taiwan where audit partners are required to sign audit reports to examine whether audit partners compromise their independence for economically important clients. Uniquely, we include both listed and unlisted clients in audit partners’ client portfolios and separately study these clients for Big N and non-Big N auditors. We employ multiple proxies for auditor independence, including various abnormal accruals measures, the propensity of audit partners to issue modified audit opinions, and the probability that clients meet or just beat earnings targets. We fail to find evidence that Big N audit partners compromise their independence for economically important clients; however, we find such evidence for non-Big N auditors. Our results are robust to a battery of sensitivity analyses. While our inferences are limited to the Taiwanese capital market, our study may be of interest to market participants and regulators in other well developed capital markets.     

The effects of audit firm rotation on perceived auditor independence and audit quality

Our study explores loan officers’ perceptions of auditors’ independence and audit quality under three experimental audit firm rotation scenarios. We use a case experiment with a between-subjects design to determine whether rotation of the audit firm impacts financial statement users’ perceptions of auditor’s independence and quality. Findings based on 212 useable responses indicate that loan officers do perceive an increase in independence when the company follows an audit firm rotation policy. However, the length of auditor tenure within rotation fails to significantly change loan officers’ perceptions of independence. Findings also indicate that neither the presence of a rotation policy nor the length of the auditor tenure within rotation significantly influences the loan officers’ perceptions of audit quality.     

A parsimonious model to forecast financial distress,based on audit evidence

This paper provides evidence that audit reports convey relevant evidence for inferring the existence of underlying, unrevealed, financial imbalances. Unlike previous works, which studied US listed-firms bankruptcy, our research deals with Spanish non-financial SMEs under financial stress. Our results indicate that the audit of distressed SMEs has several distinctive features: higher auditor rotation, more qualified reports, and non-compliance with deadlines to approve and file the annual financial statements. We use this evidence to build and test a parsimonious and reliable forecast model. Several implications for auditors’ independence, information quality, and failure forecast are discussed.     

The 'Independence' of Expert Opinions in Corporate Takeovers: Agreeing With Directors' Recommendations

Abstract:   The impact of non‐audit services on auditor independence has been the recent focus of regulators worldwide. Using expert reports provided in Australian takeovers, this study investigates a context where the audit independence issue is reversed. As approximately a quarter of expert reports are prepared by the target firm's auditor, concerns have been expressed over the independence of the opinion provided. This paper finds that, relative to other experts, there is no difference in the rate at which experts with other business dealings with the target, including the target's auditor, provide an opinion that agrees with that of directors. However, the capital market reaction around the release of the report indicates that reports produced by auditors are viewed as non‐independent.     

Coskewness and cokurtosis in futures markets

The contribution of the third and fourth moments in explaining the return-generating process in futures markets remains unresolved. This study attempts to resolve this issue by using a four-moment model and by sampling 28 futures contracts and nine market proxies. Such sampling provides wide representation of futures markets and lends a high degree of robustness to the results. Our results show that the second, third and fourth moments are all important in explaining futures returns. Evidence from regression tests show increases in explanatory power as the third and fourth moments are included. The results are robust to the market proxy used.     

Does an Agency‐Type of Audit Model Fit a Stewardship Context? Evidence from Performance Auditing in Dutch Municipalities

The degree of auditor independence is an important issue in the performance auditing literature. However, little attention has been paid to the influence of the context in which an audit body operates. This paper investigates how an audit model with a high degree of auditor independence, which is consistent with agency theory's rather formal view of relationships in organizations, functions in a context with more informal relationships, as implied by stewardship theory. Based on two case studies and a survey, the paper concludes that Dutch councilors are more satisfied with audit reports if in their municipality there is a fit between context and audit model.     

EC Green Paper Proposals and Audit Quality

In order to restore confidence in financial statements the European Commission proposes different measures to enhance audit quality. This paper examines potential effects of selected proposals on audit quality in the light of prior research findings. It concludes that an increased emphasis on substantive audit procedures may not be beneficial and that joint audits potentially improve competition and audit quality, but might increase audit fees. An appointment by a third party would strengthen auditor independence. The overall impact of a mandatory rotation of audit firms is unclear due to opposite effects on auditor competence and auditor independence. The provision of non-audit services might affect independence in appearance negatively. However, a total ban would not be necessary. Finally, a limit to the proportion of fees an audit firm can receive from a single client as well as a capping of non-audit fees seem to be desirable.     

Rotate back or not after mandatory audit partner rotation?

Many countries have implemented rules that require an audit partner to rotate off the audit of a specific client after a certain period of time in the belief that rotation will improve independence and will allow for a fresh look at the audit. The rules are either silent on whether or when a partner can rotate back or else they specify a cooling-off period after which the rotated-off partner can resume the audit. Using archival data from China, a country with a 2-year cooling-off period, this paper explores the determinants of whether the audit partner rotates back or not when the cooling-off period expires, and whether audit quality is weakened by the audit partner rotation-back practice. We find that the audit partner rotation-back practice can be explained by factors relating to switching costs, agency conflicts, client desirability, and the audit partner’s capacity constraint considerations. Interestingly, we find that clients suffering greater audit adjustments immediately prior to the expiration of the cooling-off period are more likely to be associated with subsequent audit partner rotation-back. Furthermore, we find that rotation-back partners tend to treat former clients more favorably than non-rotation-back cases using modified audit opinions as our proxy for audit quality. Overall, our findings offer preliminary explanations for and shed light on the consequences of rotation-back practice arising from mandatory audit partner rotation requirements and lend support to regulatory concerns on rotation-back practice among audit partners.     

Puzzling,powering and perpetuating: Long-term decision-making by the Dutch Delta Committee

Long term policy issues like climate change adaptation are considered wicked in the sense that uncertain knowledge and volatile societal understandings associated to the issue might jeopardize long term sustainment of adaptation policies. Uncertainty or sudden societal opposition might politically be employed to dismantle earlier made policies or investments and therefore threaten long term adaptive capacity. This article highlights how successful long-term decision-making can be understood as a matter of puzzling over uncertainty and powering for getting things done, but above all requires sustainment of these decisions on the long term. For doing so the paper analyses the decision-making process of the Dutch Delta Committee in 2008, which firmly put the climate adaptation issue on the Dutch political agenda and subsequently sustained the issue on the policy agenda through the creation of a Delta Commissioner, a Delta Fund and a Delta Act. Our analysis illustrates how the crucial actors in and around the Second Delta Committee deployed strategies of puzzling, powering, and what we define as perpetuation to deal with the long-term policy issue of climate adaptation. The latter is especially important for policy issues that require a long-term continued effort by policy-makers, or will only manifest themselves on the long term. Then, it is not only important to create meaning and organize power now, but also to maintain and ensure that meaning and power for time to come.     

Corporate governance and earnings management at large U.S. bank holding companies

This paper examines whether corporate governance mechanisms affect earnings and earnings management at the largest publicly traded bank holding companies in the United States. We first find that performance, earnings management, and corporate governance are endogenously determined. Thus, OLS estimation can lead to biased coefficients and a simultaneous equations approach is used. We find that CEO pay-for-performance sensitivity (PPS), board independence, and capital are positively related to earnings and that earnings, board independence, and capital are negatively related to earnings management. We also find that PPS is positively related to earnings management. Finally, PPS and board independence are positively related and the relationship is bidirectional. While both PPS and board independence are associated with higher earnings, our results indicate that more independent boards appear to constrain the earnings management that greater PPS compels.     

Forecasting market turbulence using regime-switching models

We propose an early warning system to timely forecast turbulence in the US stock market. In a first step, a Markov-switching model with two regimes (a calm market and a turbulent market) is developed. Based on the time series of the monthly returns of the S&P 500 price index, the corresponding filtered probabilities are successively estimated. In a second step, the turbulent phase of the model is further specified to distinguish between bullish and bearish trends. For comparison only, a Markov-switching model with three states (a calm market, a turbulent bullish market, and a turbulent bearish market) is examined as well. In a third step, logistic regression models are employed to forecast the filtered probabilities provided by the Markov-switching models. A major advantage of the presented modeling framework is the timely identification of the factors driving the different phases of the capital market. In a fourth step, the early warning system is applied to an asset management case study. The results show that explicit consideration of the models’ signals yields better portfolio performance and lower portfolio risk compared to standard buy-and-hold and constant proportion portfolio insurance strategies.     

Audit report information content and the provision of non-audit services: Evidence from Spanish lending decisions

This study examines whether auditor economic independence affects the information content of going concern audit reports in the European setting. We conduct an experiment where 80 experienced Spanish loan officers from the second largest European commercial bank review a loan request under two lending scenarios: (1) a potential borrower receiving an unqualified but modified going concern opinion, and (2) a potential borrower receiving a qualified going concern opinion. Auditor economic independence, measured by the provision of non-audit services (NAS), is manipulated (absence vs. presence of significant NAS). We find that a qualified going concern audit report is interpreted as a primary warning signal (death penalty). However, the provision of NAS acts as a second order mechanism that only activates loan officers’ professional skepticism in the case of an unqualified but modified going concern report scenario. Therefore, we find evidence suggesting that the potential negative impact of a perceived lack of auditor independence depends on the nature of the audit report. Our findings have important implications for the European regulator, which is currently considering establishing an auditor independence regulation framework similar to that in the United States of America.     

How Do Various Forms of Auditor Rotation Affect Audit Quality? Evidence from China

The Enron/Arthur Andersen scandal has raised concerns internationally about auditor independence, audit quality, and the need for regulatory action such as mandatory auditor rotation. China's unique institutional features provide a setting in which we can compare comprehensively the various forms of auditor rotation at different levels (partner vs. firm) and in different settings (voluntary vs. mandatory). In addition, institutional conditions vary dramatically across China, which provides us with an opportunity to test whether the development of market and legal institutions affects the impact of rotation on audit quality. We expect that auditors are less (more) constrained by market forces and less (more) self-disciplined to maintain audit quality in regions with less (more) developed market and legal institutions. Therefore, mandatory rotation may play a more (less) important role in less (more) developed regions. Using auditors' propensity to issue a modified audit opinion (MAO) as a proxy for audit quality, we find that firms with mandatory audit partner rotations are associated with a significantly higher likelihood of an MAO than are no-rotation firms. However, this effect is restricted to firms located in less developed regions. We find similar evidence for voluntary audit firm rotation although the significance level is much weaker than for mandatory partner rotation. Other forms of auditor rotations (i.e., mandatory audit firm rotation and voluntary audit partner rotation), have no effect on MAOs.     

Field Dependence Cognitive Style as a Moderating Factor in Subjects' Perceptions of Auditor Independence

This paper reports the findings of a laboratory experiment designed to assess the moderating role of field dependence cognitive style in the effects of management consultancy services and qualified audit reports on subjects' perceptions of auditor independence. Using an ANOVA repeated-measures experimental design, 22 accountants were administered a questionnaire which contained four scenarios, each representing one of four possible combinations of levels of the two exogenous variables. To measure levels of confidence in the auditors' independence in each of the scenarios, subjects were requested to respond to a seven-point scale. In addition, subjects were classified as field dependent or field independent on the basis of the Group Embedded Figures Test. Results showed that field dependence cognitive style interacted to moderate the effects of management consultancy services and qualified audit reports on subjects' perceptions of auditor independence. The findings suggest that cognitive style is an important moderating variable that affects subjects' perceptions of auditor independence.     

Can clients of economically dependent auditors benefit from voluntary audit firm rotation? An experiment with lenders

This study utilizes a nationwide random selection of 111 lenders in a 2?×?2 between-subjects experiment to determine whether the level of an auditor's economic dependence on a client and type of auditor rotation affect lenders’ independence and reliability perceptions and decisions to lend money to a potential borrower. Previous literature shows that financial statement users use client importance as a measure of audit quality when revenue streams are not equal across clients. This can negatively affect perceptions of independence and financial statement reliability. As United States regulators look for ways to improve audit quality under the current partner rotation mandate, this study explores whether an audited entity that voluntarily adopts a policy of firm rotation can mitigate the negative effects of the auditor's dependence on the client. Findings suggest that lenders view clients of economically dependent auditors (CEDA) as less independent from its auditor and perceive its financials as less reliable than clients without a dependent auditor (non-CEDA). Lenders are less likely to grant a loan to CEDA. However, under firm rotation, there is not only an increase in lenders’ perceptions of reliability of CEDA financials, but also no difference in perceptions of reliability of CEDA and non-CEDA financials.     

The effect of inspections,rotations and client preferences on staffing decisions

With increased regulatory focus on audits and concerns about whether audit regulation is achieving its stated aims, it is timely to investigate how regulator inspection of audit files and partner rotations may be affecting staffing decisions. This is an important issue, which affects all audits, as the calibre of staff allocated across engagements impacts the quality of audit work delivered. This study reports the results of an experiment where auditor participants allocate staff across two audits, where regulation anticipated (none, inspection, rotation) and a client request for the best staff (absent, present) are manipulated between‐subjects. We find that auditors allocate lower calibre staff when neither an inspection nor rotation is anticipated than when either is anticipated. When an inspection is anticipated, auditors allocate staff with more knowledge and compliance skills. When a rotation is anticipated, auditors allocate staff with more people skills. A client request for the best staff only has an effect when a partner is due to be rotated, where auditors allocate staff with more people skills in response to the client request. Our findings provide greater understanding of staffing decisions, which may affect audit quality if concerns around audit inspections and partner rotations are perceived by auditors as more important than the underlying risk or complexity of an engagement when allocating staff.     

Non-audit Services and Auditor Independence: New Zealand Evidence

Abstract:  This paper examines evidence in New Zealand about whether auditors providing more non-audit services are less independent. Three sets of tests are used to address the issue. The first examines whether there is a relation between non-audit fees and audit fees, the second examines whether there is a relation between non-audit fees and audit report qualification or modification, and the third examines whether there is a relation between non-audit fees and stability of audit tenure. The results suggest a potential for the impairment of auditor independence in appearance when auditors provide non-audit services but no evidence of any impact on independence of mind.