Search results for "Chief audit executive"
showing 10 items of 13 documents
Struggle over joint audit: on behalf of public interest?
2012
International audience; European Commission (EC 2011) has recently suggested joint audit - broadly defined as an audit where two independent auditors are jointly liable for the audit report - as a way a way to increase audit quality after the financial crisis and to mitigate audit market concentration, by enlarging the audit offer. Big 4 audit firms have fought this proposal by arguing its unbearable cost while 2nd Tier audit firms have supported it by arguing its added quality. This conflicting position leads us to question their claim of public interest concern. As group-interest economic regulation theories predict that the absence of any effect of a new regulation (here: joint audit) is…
The Impact of Audit Committee Characteristics on the Enhancement of the Quality of Financial Reporting: an empirical study in the Spanish context
2007
The purpose of this paper is to analyse the relationship between the likelihood that a company will receive a qualified audit report (as a measure of the quality of financial information) and the existence and characteristics of the audit committee (AC). For listed companies that voluntarily created an AC in the period following the publication in 1998 of the Spanish Code of Corporate Governance, known as the Olivencia Code, we find that ACs size, the percentage of independent members in ACs, company size, losses reported in either or both of the previous two years, receiving the same qualified audit opinion as in the previous year and ownership concentration affect the likelihood of receiv…
Disciplinary Sanctions and Audit Quality: Empirical Evidence from an External Oversight System
2010
This paper provides empirical evidence on the impact of disciplinary sanctions on audit quality, based on the external oversight system set up in Spain in the early nineties. Specifically, we examine the effects of the sanctions imposed by the Institute of Accounting and Auditing (ICAC), a government regulatory agency independent from the auditing industry. To proxy for audit quality, two client-specific earnings quality indicators are considered; i.e. the likelihood of loss reporting and abnormal accruals. According to our results, the Spanish external oversight system does not penalise isolated but structural audit malpractice, since sanctioned auditors exhibit lower average audit quality…
Academic Practitioner Auditors
2016
Academic practitioner auditors engage in academic research on top of their audit activities. Based on constructive learnings theory and evidence-based management theory, we argue that engaging in research helps lead auditors to deliver higher audit quality. Moreover, we expect that this engagement enables lead auditors to develop their professional reputation and, hence, to generate higher audit fees. Using data from Germany, where lead auditors frequently engage in research, we find empirical evidence for these conjectures. Our study contributes to the current AAA and AICPA debate about the value of bridging the gap between academia and audit practice.
The effects of the provision of consulting services on audit reporting quality
2012
The growing complexity of the global business environment is leading innovative firms to demand further external counselling to better handle rapid change and increasing uncertainty. Likewise, the implementation of new information systems is usually carried out with the help of external advisors. This paper examines whether the provision of consulting services undermines audit reporting quality by testing for an association between advisory services and audit reporting. A cross-sectional logistic regression is estimated to test the relationship between consulting fees and the audit outcome. The evidence suggests that there is no statistically significant association between non-audit fees a…
The corporate image of auditors in a developing audit market within the EU: the case of Spain
2004
This paper examines the images of audit firms in Spain. Spain offers a valuable research context in that it is a relatively new audit market and one where the top company audits are not totally dominated by the large multinational audit firms, allowing for a comparison of the images of such firms against those associated with smaller, national audit firms. The findings of this survey are pertinent given the current level of debate internationally over the role, regulation and quality of auditing services and concerns over the potential impact of recent corporate scandals on auditor reputation. Our study shows that the images of audit firms in Spain have differed on a number of dimensions, m…
The relationship between non-audit fees and audit quality: dealing with the endogeneity issue
2015
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore whether the provision of non-audit services (NAS) by public accounting firms undermines audit quality. The study addresses this question by testing for an association between the provision of consulting services and auditor independence in listed companies. Design/methodology/approach – The authors study if the magnitude of non-audit fees explains variations in earnings management by looking at the joint determination of non-audit fees, audit fees, and abnormal accruals using the SURE-regression estimation method. Findings – Evidence from tested models suggests that audit services quality is uncompromised by the provision of NAS. In other w…
Was the European Commission Green Paper Right? An Evaluation of the French Experience with Joint Auditing
2012
The Green Paper entitled “Audit policy: Lessons from the crisis” (European Commission, 2010) recommends the introduction of joint audit for European listed companies, based on the French experience, to limit the market dominance of the Big 4 and to promote audit quality. However, the regulation passed by the European Parliament in April 2014 does not require, but only encourages the use of two auditors for public-interest entities (European Parliament, 2014). Since many groups of interests tried to influence the European Commission during the consultation process, it is relevant to evaluate the costs and benefits for investors of the unique joint audit system that persists among the occiden…
What Dimensions of Lead Auditor Expertise Matter for Audit Quality and Audit Fees?
2015
This study investigates the effects of lead auditors’ technical and managerial knowledge on audit quality and audit fees. The German institutional environment enables us to track auditors over their careers and measure their various personal attributes. We find that lead auditors’ technical knowledge is more important for audit quality than their managerial knowledge; however, their managerial knowledge is a more influential driver of audit fees than their technical knowledge. The results of various identification strategies including firm-fixed effects models, propensity-score matching, and instrumental variables approaches suggest that the observed relations are treatment rather than sele…
Main drivers of consultancy services: A meta-analytic approach
2016
Abstract This meta-analysis incorporates the results from 34 separate studies examining fee models for consultancy services whereby the consulting firm provides both audit and advisory services to its customers. The findings indicate a number of key determinants of consultancy bills: client size, audit fees, auditors being from a “Big Audit Firm,” client's financial difficulties, and prior experience with the legal auditors. Conversely, the meta-results fail to correlate the variable of interest with several constructs commonly used in consultancy models such as the auditee's inherent risk, the client's financial debt, or the audit opinion. The study also explores the influence of three mod…