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Author: Keith A. Houghton Publisher: ISBN: Category : Auditing Languages : en Pages : 34
Book Description
While auditing literature has investigated the main effect of auditor industry specialization on audit fees and planning decisions, the underlying processes explaining differential pricing between specialists and other auditors are largely unexplored. This study seeks to fill a portion of this gap by examining the interaction between auditor industry specialization and auditee risk. Using data derived from a sample of public sector audits, this study examines distinctions in how different auditors price risk. Building upon the differentiation between "premium" and "discount" specialists investigated in Houghton, Dolley, Jubb and Monroe (2000) and possibly found in DeFond, Francis and Wong (2000), the results of this study demonstrate that, in response to increased auditee risk, premium specialists price risk relatively less than other auditors. In contrast, discount specialists increase fees relatively more than other auditors. These results may reflect differences in the skill sets and work processes that underlie specialization for these two specialist sub-groups. The results are also consistent with increased competencies of premium specialist auditors in the audit of risky clients.
Author: Keith A. Houghton Publisher: ISBN: Category : Auditing Languages : en Pages : 34
Book Description
While auditing literature has investigated the main effect of auditor industry specialization on audit fees and planning decisions, the underlying processes explaining differential pricing between specialists and other auditors are largely unexplored. This study seeks to fill a portion of this gap by examining the interaction between auditor industry specialization and auditee risk. Using data derived from a sample of public sector audits, this study examines distinctions in how different auditors price risk. Building upon the differentiation between "premium" and "discount" specialists investigated in Houghton, Dolley, Jubb and Monroe (2000) and possibly found in DeFond, Francis and Wong (2000), the results of this study demonstrate that, in response to increased auditee risk, premium specialists price risk relatively less than other auditors. In contrast, discount specialists increase fees relatively more than other auditors. These results may reflect differences in the skill sets and work processes that underlie specialization for these two specialist sub-groups. The results are also consistent with increased competencies of premium specialist auditors in the audit of risky clients.
Author: Kimberly Dunn Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 29
Book Description
We examine the relation between audit firm industry specialization and client disclosure quality. Our motivation for conducting this research arises from the claims made by each of the Big5 public accounting firms that industry specialization enables each to provide superior service and quality to clients in its target industries.We document a positive association between industry-specialized audit firms and analysts' rankings of disclosure quality in unregulated industries, but no relation in regulated industries. Alternative measures of auditor industry specialization support our conclusions. Our results suggest industry-specialized audit firms add value to clients in unregulated industries in the form of improved disclosure quality.
Author: Mohamed Samy Eldeeb Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 36
Book Description
The effect of the economic financial crisis worldwide has increased the need for auditors to provide a high quality services to their clients. An important element considered by clients for selecting their auditors is whether the audit firm has specialization in particular industry. Audit firm industry specialization provides clients with value for money services to help management achieve efficiency and effectiveness in their operations. Other benefits for audit firms may include increased market share, audit tenure, better financial reporting and less earnings management, audit quality with less restatements of financial information, appropriate audit fees, less exposure to litigation risk, less enforceable action by supervisory bodies and ability to compete in highly competitive environment. Specialization was also seen as critical for the survival of the auditing profession. This research analyzes the effects of audit firm industry specialization on the retention of the audit firm and growth in its business. Factors such as whether the firm is a big 4, with international affiliation, local firm, type of industry and growth were also studied for audit firm retention and growth. The sample studied includes the top 100 publicly held companies' annual reports in the Egyptian stock market during the period 2007-2011 which are analyzed to determine the audit firms' retention and growth. The results support that industry specialization has an important effect on the auditor's retention especially for industry where capital investment is significant such as building, construction, financial services and housing and real estate. Big 4 audit firms retained their clients due to their industry specialization and brand name. The findings provided evidence that good knowledge of accounting & auditing standards resulted in audit firms with international affiliation competing with big 4 for clients' retention & growth in business. The result also showed some evidence that the auditing profession in Egypt is dominated by the big 4 and the Central Audit Organization.
Author: Debra C. Jeter Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages :
Book Description
As audit quality is paramount in returning the profession to the “priesthood” in the wake of accounting scandals such as Enron and bank failures, perhaps the most important question with respect to industry specialization is whether or not industry specialists provide truly superior quality audits. Research in industry specialization by auditors has focused to date primarily on addressing this question; the pricing of audits by specialists is a related issue also examined in a number of studies. Research suggests that specialists are associated with higher earnings quality for their auditees, whether due to intervention in the reporting process, or because management anticipates such intervention and constrains opportunistic earnings management. The role of industry specialization in audit pricing has been frequently addressed in the literature, and yet remains largely unresolved. Some studies present evidence of specialist premiums, while others find no premiums or premiums only for certain subsets of clients. In its 2003 report, the GAO expressed some concern that auditor choice was limited for large national and multinational companies requiring industry-specific expertise, noting that an auditor who audits a number of smaller companies within an industry may not have the necessary expertise to handle the larger clients in that industry. Most researchers, however, find little evidence of adverse impacts such as oligopolistic pricing as a result of the increased audit market concentration resulting from the audit firm mergers and demise of Arthur Andersen. Industry specialization, if pursued as a means of enhancing the knowledge and understanding necessary to conduct superior audits, should result in benefits to both client and auditor. Industry specialists may be able to provide higher levels of assurance because they are more likely to assess risks, and to detect financial reporting errors and irregularities, and are thus equipped to deliver better planned and more effective audits.
Author: Jagan Krishnan Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages :
Book Description
This study compares the earnings response coefficients of clients of industry specialist and non-specialist auditors. Prior work (e.g., DeAngelo 1981) has suggested that auditors offer different levels of audit quality, in response to client variations in the demand for different levels of audit quality (Watts and Zimmerman 1986). One component of the quality difference across auditors is industry specialization (Craswell et al. 1995). Empirical evidence on the effect of industry specialization on audit quality proxies such as audit fees, auditor litigation and compliance with accounting standards is mixed. This study examines the hypothesis that industry specialization leads to a better quality of audit by comparing the earnings response coefficients of clients audited by industry specialists with those of clients not audited by industry specialists. Teoh and Wong (1993) argue that audit quality is positively associated with the client's quality of earnings and therefore the earnings response coefficient (ERC), which is the responsiveness of the stock market to information about unexpected earnings. They present evidence that one measure of audit quality, auditors' brand-name (Big 6 or not), is positively associated with the ERC. This paper extends this argument by examining the effect of another facet of audit quality, auditor industry specialization, on the ERC. The results suggest that, after controlling for previously established correlates of the ERC, as well as industry affiliation, clients of industry specialist auditors have higher ERCs than clients of non-specialist auditors.
Author: Miguel Minutti-Meza Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages :
Book Description
This study examines whether auditor industry specialization, measured using the auditor's within-industry market share, improves audit quality and results in a fee premium. After matching clients of specialist and non-specialist auditors on a number of dimensions, as well as only on industry and size, there is no evidence of differences in commonly used audit-quality proxies between these two groups of auditors. Moreover, there is no consistent evidence of a specialist fee premium. The matched-sample results are confirmed by including client fixed effects in the main models, examining a sample of clients that switched auditors, and using an alternative proxy that aims to capture the auditor's industry knowledge. The combined evidence in this study suggests that the auditor's within-industry market share is not a reliable indicator of audit quality. Nevertheless, these findings do not imply that industry knowledge is not important for auditors, but that the methodology used in extant archival studies to examine this issue does not fully parse out the effects of auditor industry specialization from client characteristics.
Author: Cory A. Cassell Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 47
Book Description
Using a measure of office-level industry concentration/specialization (as opposed to a market-based measure), we identify situations in which auditor industry specialization could be detrimental for audit outcomes. In stable environments, industry specialist auditors should be able to apply their unique experience and knowledge in ways that yield better audit outcomes. However, during periods of heightened industry-specific risk, specialist auditors from the affected industry could struggle to secure and allocate sufficient resources to mitigate the heightened risk in the affected industry because, by construction, specialists in the affected industry have a client portfolio that is concentrated in the affected industry (i.e., there is insufficient resource slack). We test our predictions by investigating the effects of the recent financial crisis on audits of clients from the banking industry. We find that, during the period before the financial crisis, banking auditor industry specialization is associated with higher audit quality and more timely audits. However, during the financial crisis, the results indicate that banking auditor industry specialization is associated with lower audit quality and less timely audits. Collectively, our results suggest that auditor office-level industry specialization can be detrimental in certain circumstances and that audit firms and audit regulators should consider whether the audit market, audit firms, or audit offices have become too specialized to handle the resource allocation problems that crisis situations present.
Author: Kenneth L. Bills Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages :
Book Description
This study examines the audit pricing effects when auditors specialize in industries conducive to transferable audit processes. Our results indicate that specialists charge incrementally lower audit fees in industries with homogenous operations and in industries with both homogenous operations and complex accounting practices. Moreover, we discover that audit quality is no lower for clients audited by these specialists offering fee discounts, consistent with our conclusion that the reduction in fees indicates cost efficiencies rather than lower quality audits. Our results are somewhat surprising given they suggest auditors pass along cost savings to the client in certain settings. However, further analysis indicates that the shared economies of scale only occur in a subsample of client firms with relatively high bargaining power. When considered in conjunction with prior research using a survivorship approach, our results indicate that certain industries lend themselves to specialization because auditors generate cost-based competitive advantages without compromising service quality.
Author: Sophie Audousset-Coulier Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages :
Book Description
In this research note, we examine the validity of the measures of auditor industry specialization in empirical archival audit research. Industry specialist auditors are auditors who have developed a specific expertise and are therefore able to provide high quality and more efficient services to their clients. Over the years, research scholars have developed a multiplicity of measures of industry specialization (ISP). We compare 30 ISP measures and find that the use of different ISP proxies results in inconsistent classifications of auditors as specialists. Using audit fee and earnings quality models, we further show that these inconsistencies have a significant effect on the inferences drawn from the models using ISP measures. We conclude that ISP measures exhibit a low degree of internal and external construct validity. This represents an important measurement challenge for researchers and casts some doubts on the robustness of prior empirical evidence found in auditor industry specialization research.
Author: Keith A. Houghton
Author: Keith A. Houghton
Author: Kimberly Dunn
Author: Mohamed Samy Eldeeb
Author: Debra C. Jeter
Author: Jagan Krishnan
Author: Miguel Minutti-Meza
Author: Leonard W. Weiss
Author: Cory A. Cassell
Author: Kenneth L. Bills
Author: Sophie Audousset-Coulier