Search results for " AUDIT"
showing 10 items of 463 documents
Nonaudit services provided by incumbent auditors and earnings management: Evidence of auditor independence from an EU country
2011
ABSTRACTThis paper examines whether the joint provision of audit and non-audit services undermines auditor independence by testing for an association between the provision of consulting services and auditor independence measured by discretionary accruals. For the most part, previous literature has studied the issue in countries with an Anglo-American business environment. This study analyzes the possible impairment of auditor independence in the context of a continental European Union country (Spain). A cross-sectional regression is estimated to test the relationship between non-audit fees and reporting quality. Based on publicly available information for Spanish listed companies, the evide…
Audit quality and the going-concern decision-making process: Spanish evidence
2004
In this study, we attempt empirically to investigate the relationship between audit quality and the probability that a financially distressed company would receive a going-concern opinion. Auditor decision-making in the presence of going-concern uncertainties may be characterized as a two-stage process. The first stage is the identification of a potential going-concern problem and the second stage is to determine whether the particular company should receive a qualified going-concern opinion. A sample of 1,199 non-financial Spanish company-years has been obtained from the database issued by the Stock Exchange National Commission for the fiscal years ending between December 1991 and December…
The association between microfinance rating scores and corporate governance: A global survey
2014
Abstract The global microfinance industry has experienced high growth rates over the past decades, and the World Bank foresees a future market with billions of customers. However, the industry's continued growth is contingent on its ability to create a governance structure that supports microfinance institutions' long-term performance. Because microfinance institutions' performance is multidimensional and difficult to measure, prior research has not been successful in establishing consistent associations between governance structures and microfinance institutions' performance. We apply microfinance rating scores – a unique innovation of the microfinance industry – as a summary performance m…
Are Audit Firms’ Compensation Policies Associated With Audit Quality?
2020
We examine how compensation policies of audit firms are associated with audit quality. Specifically, we investigate the effects of the ratio of variable to fixed compensation and the size of the basis for profit sharing (i.e., whether partners share profits in a small or in a large profit pool). For our analyses, we use detailed mandatory disclosure of the compensation policies in German audit firms. We document that compensation policies vary considerably across audit firms. We find that profit sharing in a small profit pool and high variable compensation are two characteristics of auditor compensation associated with lower audit quality. We also find some evidence suggesting that audit qu…
Audit fees and earnings management: differences based on the type of audit
2020
In spite of the extensive research about the impact of audit fees on audit quality, there is no research examining if the association between voluntary audits and audit pricing affects audit quality. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to empirically examine whether the effect of audit fees on audit quality, measured by the level of earnings management, is affected by the type of audit (voluntary vs mandatory), as well as whether the effect of audit fees on audit quality is different depending on the type of audit. Using a sample of Spanish SMEs composed of both voluntarily and mandatorily audited companies, we find that voluntary audits have higher quality when audit fees are lower, but th…
Audit fees and cost of debt: differences in the credibility of voluntary and mandatory audits
2019
Despite the extensive research on audit fees, few studies have examined the effect of audit fees on the cost of debt. Based on the credence goods theory, we examine whether the effect of audits on the cost of debt is affected by the type of audit (voluntary or mandatory) and the audit fees, as well as whether there is a combined effect of voluntary audits and audit fees, so that the effect of voluntary audits on the cost of debt is affected by audit fees. Using a sample of Spanish SMEs, we find an asymmetric effect of audit fees on the cost of debt: higher audit fees are associated with a lower cost of debt for voluntarily audited companies, while the association is not significant for mand…
Beyond the audit expectations gap
1992
In seeking to encourage a broader, European dimension to research on auditing and audit expectations, this paper examines the recent history of auditing and its regulation in Spain within the context of international developments in the accounting profession. The more expansive role being assigned to the audit function in Spain following the implementation of the Fourth and Eighth European Company Law Directives is generally viewed by Spanish writers as a progressive step, with largely positive effects. Such views stand in some contrast to the history of auditing in Britain, where the prevalence of an ‘audit expectations gap’ suggests a rather more problematic state of affairs. In exploring…
Do women directors behave more ethically than men directors of the audit committees with respect to the quality of the accounting information?
2018
In this analysis, we aim at investigating how audit committees (ACs) gender diversity impacts on the quality of financial information, calculated with the opinion that external auditors give firms in the audit report. We hypothesize that there is a negative relation between gender diversity on ACs and the likelihood of receiving a qualification with errors, non-compliance and the omission of information, and a positive association between gender diversity on ACs and the probability of disclosing qualifications with uncertainties. The results show a negative association between the proportion of women directors on ACs, the proportion of institutional women directors on ACs and ACs chaired by…
Internal Quality Assurance for Higher Education Study Programme
2015
<p>Quality assurance for study programme is necessary precondition to realize qualitative higher education. Quality assessment is important part of quality assurance cycle. There are used different methodologies, assessment criteria and indicators to assess the higher education quality. It is clear that the assessment results which study programme will be better or worse are detected by the choice of criteria. It is difficult to find objective criteria which could be used universally for all study programme types. The aim of the research is to investigate quality assurance cycle for study programme quality and pay main attention to assessment part. The aim of assessment part is to sel…
ISO 9000‐based quality assurance approaches and their relationship with strategic analysis
2003
Many organisations use the ISO 9000 series as a reference framework to establish their quality assurance system. In doing so, most of them overlook the process of interpreting and adapting these standards to their own characteristics and capabilities. As a result, there is a misunderstanding with respect to the objectives of the standards. The correct implementation of the ISO 9000 series requires a preliminary analysis that facilitates the adaptation of them to the particular circumstances of a company. Therefore, this paper pays attention to the relationship existing between ISO 9000 implementation and the use of strategic diagnosis tools. The employment of such tools could be studied as …