重要客户损害了审计独立性吗?——来自中国证券市场的经验证据

审计独立性的经济理论认为审计师牺牲独立性的动机与客户的重要性有关。本文选取了2001—2002年间1297家收到标准无保留意见的上市公司为研究样本,使用审计师是否从事了审计意见购买行为作为审计独立性的衡量指标,考察了重要客户与审计独立性之间的关系。研究发现,重要客户的确对审计独立性造成了损害,而当审计师预期到其丧失独立性的行为在事后被发现的可能性较大时,审计独立性受到损害的可能性较小。

Do Client Importance Impair Auditor Independence: Evidence from Chinese Stock Market

The economic theory of auditor independence (DeAngelo 1981) suggests that auditors' incentive to compromise their independence are related to client importance. Using auditor's behavior of opinion shopping as a proxy for auditor independence, we analyze the relationship between client importance and auditor independence based on a sample of 1297 clean opinion audit reports for Chinese listed companies from 2001 to 2002. We find that client importance impairs auditor independence in China, and that auditors facing important clients are less likely to compromise independence when they expect that the risk of being detected is high.