An Australian Response to Recent Developments in the Market for Audit Services

Where the quality (both competence and independence) of an audit is tested, often in the circumstance of a corporate failure, auditors frequently have good defences as to their competency but rarely do they have equally convincing defences for the objectivity of their decisionmaking or the independence of their audit. This paper recommends that large audit firms establish an independence board with the authority to define, review and decide upon all threats and potential threats to independence. It would also have responsibility for quality-control and educational programs in respect of audit firm's independence decision-making.     

The CLERP 9 Audit Reforms: Benefits and Costs Through the Eyes of Regulators,Standard Setters and Audit Service Suppliers

Over the past decade or more Australia amongst other jurisdictions has experienced substantial reforms to auditing regulation in an effort to boost public confidence in the auditing profession. This paper aims to examine whether these changes in the Australian regulatory environment for audits have (a) provided enhanced confidence in reported financial data, (b) impacted audit costs and (c) not limited competition in the market for audit services. Using qualitative interview data, this study reports on the perceptions of auditors, auditing standard setters and regulators in relation to the CLERP 9 reforms to the Australian auditing regime in the later part of the 2000s. A theoretical framework is developed to evaluate whether these reforms are substantive enough in nature to effect public confidence in reported financial data and market competition in audits.     

Competition Issues in the Market for Audit and Assurance Services: Are the Concerns Justified?

Concerns regarding the perceived lack of competition in the market for audit and assurance services has been widely publicised in the popular press on many occasions over many years. The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) in the United Kingdom (UK) decided that competition problems in the audit market warranted a referral to the UK Competition Commission (OFT 115‐11, October 2011). The UK Competition Commission released its report before the end of 2013 for implementation in the near future. This exploratory study investigates in an Australian context the views of stakeholder groups (including regulators, standard setters, audit suppliers, purchasers and financial statement users) regarding the level of competition in the market for audit and assurance services, and what potential remedies could be implemented to deal with such concerns. The findings in this study do not fully support the acceleration in the global debate on audit concentration and competition. Only users of financial reports consider that competition in the audit services market is insufficient. The other stakeholder groups do not share this view, although regulators and standard setters did have concerns over the lack of choice for large company audits. We need to consider the structural benefits and the continued viability of each of these large players (the Big Four), when considering these ‘lack of choice’ concerns. The level of competition is discussed essentially at firm level; however, underlying all of this are the consequences for the efficiency of the capital market.     

Whistleblowing: A Restrictive Definition and Interpretation

Whistleblowing has been defined often and in differing ways in the literature. This paper has as its main purposes to clarify the meaning of whistleblowing and to speak for a narrow interpretation of it. A restrictive, general purpose definition is provided which contains six necessary elements: act of disclosure, actor, disclosure subject, target, disclosure recipient, and outcome.Whistleblowing is characterised as a dissenting act of public accusation against an organisation which necessitates being disloyal to that organisation. The definition differs from others in many ways but especially by its emphasis on dissent, by being based on the ethical dilemma of conflicting loyalties, and by the strict way that dilemma is formulated in terms of confidentiality and proprietary rights over information. These features result in a definition in which motive has no part, and which requires a free choice decision to make disclosure to an external party.     

A comparison of voluntary and mandated climate change-related disclosure

This study draws on legitimacy theory to investigate the relationship between mandatory disclosure of greenhouse gas emissions by companies that are subject to specific environmental legislation (the Australian National Greenhouse Energy Reporting Act 2007) and the level of voluntary environmental disclosures. Using a sample of 535 observations, we find that i) Overall, legislation-affected companies increase their disclosures compared with non-affected companies, ii) As many companies reduce their disclosures as increase them, iii) there is an increase in the level of emissions volume disclosures in legislation-affected companies compared with the same company pre-implementation, iv) legislation-affected higher emitters have higher levels of voluntary disclosures. These findings are consistent with legitimacy theory, which predicts differential disclosures in circumstances to avoid scrutiny.     

Does IFRS make analysts more efficient in using fundamental information included in financial statements?

This paper investigates the efficiency with which analysts use fundamental signals when forecasting one-year-ahead change in earnings per share (EPS) in Australian and European contexts and the impact of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) on this efficiency. Results reveal that adoption of IFRS seems to increase analysts’ awareness of fundamental signals useful for predicting future changes in EPS. However, overall, analysts remain only as efficient as they were pre-IFRS in using these fundamental signals. While their efficiency in using the earnings signal decreased, it increased for non-earnings signals in the post-compared to pre-IFRS period. Furthermore, analysts substantially underutilise the earnings signal in common compared to code law countries. These findings are likely to be of interest to analysts and market participants when making forecasts and investment decisions, and to standard setters and regulators in evaluating the impact of accounting standards.     

Auditor Selection: What Influences Decisions by Listed Companies?

Major business failures, including Enron and World Com in the United States and Harris Scarfe and HIH in Australia, and related alleged audit failures, have put the choice of auditor on the agenda. The choice of the "right" auditor has economic consequences for an auditee and implications for corporate governance. This paper discusses factors important to explaining auditor choice, including institutional factors (pertaining to the auditee and auditor) and newer emerging criteria as well as networking between directors and auditors. The paper discusses the relevant research and the policy implications for good corporate governance of auditor choice in publicly listed companies.     

Jurisdictional Differences in Contracting Out GBE Audits: The Impact on Audit Pricing

This paper examines audit costs for government business enterprises in various Australian jurisdictions, focusing on whether contracting private-sector suppliers induces competitive pricing and hence lower-priced audits. One jurisdiction (New South Wales) is shown to have low levels of contracting-out. It is argued that this lowers price competition and therefore, we predict, audit costs in NSW will be higher than elsewhere in Australia. An empirical comparison shows that, controlling for other factors, NSW is statistically significantly more expensive than other Australian jurisdictions. Alternative explanations relating to variation in audit quality, jurisdiction differences and relative cost are also discussed.     

Accounting Choice and Theory in Crisis: The Case of the Victorian Desalination Plant

This paper traces the financial developments of the desalination plant in the State of Victoria in Australia. The desalination plant was built via a public–private partnership (PPP) vehicle, and commissioned at a time when water storage levels in the state were low. Subsequent rainfall has meant that no water has yet been ordered by the Victorian Government from the plant. In the paper an analysis is undertaken of the impact of the manner in which accounting treatment has been used in valuing this infrastructure asset. It is concluded that the applied accounting policy choices and treatments for this infrastructure asset are not consistent with conventional accounting theory, the Conceptual Framework for accounting or generally accepted accounting principles.     

Regulatory impact on voluntary climate change–related reporting by Australian government‐owned corporations

This paper concerns voluntary climate change–related reporting of government‐owned corporations (GOCs). We investigate whether the Australian National Gresenhouse and Energy Reporting Scheme (NGERS), a regulation stipulating the disclosure of greenhouse gas emissions to government, subsequently made publicly available on a Website, has a positive impact on the voluntary disclosure of climate change–related information not required by the regulation. We find that implementation of NGERS has a positive effect on voluntary climate change‐related disclosures by GOCs. Hence, mandating disclosure of organisations’ negative environmental performance, such as greenhouse gas emissions, can influence voluntary disclosures of a broad range of related information particularly in organisations that are not subject to capital markets incentives. However, upon later but concurrent implementation of a Carbon Tax after a highly partisan and divisive political debate, climate change–related disclosures by GOCs reduce, consistent with the de Villiers and van Staden (2006) argument that when disclosures might increase awareness of sensitive issues, avoidance of attention to the issue might be the best strategy to retain legitimacy.