Industry Specialist Auditors and Audit Fees in Family Firms PDF Download
Are you looking for read ebook online? Search for your book and save it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Download Industry Specialist Auditors and Audit Fees in Family Firms PDF full book. Access full book title Industry Specialist Auditors and Audit Fees in Family Firms by Fei Kang. Download full books in PDF and EPUB format.
Author: Fei Kang Publisher: ISBN: 9781267419200 Category : Languages : en Pages : 87
Book Description
I examine whether and how family firms' unique ownership structure and agency problems affect their choice of industry-specialist auditors and the level of audit fees. Following prior literature, I define family firms as those in which members of the founding family continue to hold positions in top management, sit on the board, or are blockholders. Compared to non-family firms, family firms are subject to less severe Type I agency problems due to family owners' long-term horizon and close monitoring of managers, but face more severe Type II agency conflicts due to the concentrated ownership and excess of control rights over cash flow rights held by family owners. Using data from the S & P 1500 firms, I find that family firms are more likely to appoint industry-specialist auditors and incur lower audit fees than non-family firms. The results suggest that family firms have strong incentives to hire industry specialists to signal the quality of their financial reporting due to the Type II agency problems, and that they have lower assessed audit risk and less demand for external audit services due to the mitigated Type I agency problems. My additional analysis shows that, compared to family firms without dual-class shares, family firms with dual-class shares have higher demand for industry-specialist auditors to signal firms' disclosure quality. Furthermore, my results indicate that, when family members serve as CEOs, firms have a stronger tendency to hire industry specialists and to pay lower audit fees. In addition, although family firms have a higher likelihood of hiring industry-specialist auditors than non-family firms, I find no evidence that family firms purchase more non-audit services from their incumbent auditors.
Author: Fei Kang Publisher: ISBN: 9781267419200 Category : Languages : en Pages : 87
Book Description
I examine whether and how family firms' unique ownership structure and agency problems affect their choice of industry-specialist auditors and the level of audit fees. Following prior literature, I define family firms as those in which members of the founding family continue to hold positions in top management, sit on the board, or are blockholders. Compared to non-family firms, family firms are subject to less severe Type I agency problems due to family owners' long-term horizon and close monitoring of managers, but face more severe Type II agency conflicts due to the concentrated ownership and excess of control rights over cash flow rights held by family owners. Using data from the S & P 1500 firms, I find that family firms are more likely to appoint industry-specialist auditors and incur lower audit fees than non-family firms. The results suggest that family firms have strong incentives to hire industry specialists to signal the quality of their financial reporting due to the Type II agency problems, and that they have lower assessed audit risk and less demand for external audit services due to the mitigated Type I agency problems. My additional analysis shows that, compared to family firms without dual-class shares, family firms with dual-class shares have higher demand for industry-specialist auditors to signal firms' disclosure quality. Furthermore, my results indicate that, when family members serve as CEOs, firms have a stronger tendency to hire industry specialists and to pay lower audit fees. In addition, although family firms have a higher likelihood of hiring industry-specialist auditors than non-family firms, I find no evidence that family firms purchase more non-audit services from their incumbent auditors.
Author: Javad Izadi Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
PurposeThe main aim of this paper is to examine auditor choice and audit fees in family firms on the Tehran Stock Exchange.Design/methodology/approachThe hypotheses set are tested by analysing all firms except financial firms listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange for the period of 10 years, using a sample of 1,050 firm-year observations. Probity and ordinary least squares regression (OLS) is used to investigate the associations proposed in the research hypotheses.FindingOur findings show that in family firms, in contrast with non-family firms, the large auditor is less often selected as the firm's auditor. The findings also show that family firms pay higher fees for their audits in comparison with non-family firms and show that the choice of a large auditor reduces the relationship between family ownership and audit fee. The additional analysis shows that choosing industry specialist auditors is less likely in family firms compared to non-family firms.Practical implicationsThe importance of this research is in the increased awareness for researchers and users about family ownership and the selection of auditors and audit fees in the emerging market capitalization of Iran. This research contributes to the accounting literature by providing empirical evidence of the effects of family control and ownership on audit pricing and auditor choice in a developing economy context. Also, this research can provide a new route for research on this issue in developing countries, e.g., Iran.Originality/valueThese findings were discovered by means of the financial data in the particular environmental conditions of Iran which differ from the features and conditions for institutional investors in developed countries.
Author: Steven F. Cahan Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 35
Book Description
Audit clients' investment opportunity sets (IOS) include firm-specific opportunities that are unique to the client, as well as opportunities generalizable to the client's industry and opportunities even more generically available to all firms. Prior research does not examine the variation in audit fees related to firm-specific IOS nor how firm-specific IOS affects the premiums charged by industry specialist auditors. We find that firm-specific IOS plays a distinct role in the pricing of audit services, leading to higher fees as the auditor demands compensation for the investment in firm-specific knowledge necessary to conduct the audit or for increased audit risk. Further, we find that the ability of an industry specialist auditor to charge fee premiums is reduced in the case of clients that are highly differentiated based on firm-specific IOS. We contribute to the literature by showing that industry specialist premiums are not constant for firms in the same industry; rather, they reflect a trade-off between firm- and industry-specific knowledge.
Author: Chiraz Ben Ali Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages :
Book Description
Family businesses are an important part of the world economy (Anderson and Reeb, 2003) and differ considerably from non-family firms with regard to corporate governance. However, despite their difference, family businesses have received relatively little research attention. Our study contributes to this growing research by empirically investigating the relationship between family shareholding and audit pricing. Using a sample of 3,291 firm-year observations of major U.S. listed companies, for the 2006-2008 period, our results demonstrate that audit fees are negatively associated with family shareholding after taking into account time-varying effects and industry effects as well as traditional control variables. The empirical results are robust to alternative family shareholding measures and estimation model specifications. Our results are consistent with the convergence-of-interests hypothesis suggesting that family firms face lower manager/shareholders agency costs. Auditors charge lower fees for family firms because of lower information asymmetry and risk given that the controlling family is well informed about the firm and is better able to monitor managerial decisions.
Author: Joanna L.Y. Ho Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages :
Book Description
We examine auditor choice and audit fees in family firms using data from Standard & Poor's (S&P) 1500 firms. We find that, compared to non-family firms, family firms are less likely to hire top-tier auditors due to the less severe agency problems between owners and managers. Our results also show that family firms, on average, incur lower audit fees than non-family firms, which is driven by family firms' lower demand for external auditing services and auditors' perceived lower audit risk for family firms. Our additional analysis indicates that the tendency of family firms to hire non-top-tier auditors and to pay lower audit fees is stronger when family owners actively monitor their firms.
Author: Anwer S. Ahmed Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages :
Book Description
We provide evidence on the determinants of the choice of an industry specialist auditor and the effect of this choice on cost of equity for a sample of firms that are audited by Big N auditors. We find that firms with more severe conflicts of interest between managers and shareholders are more likely to use an industry specialist auditor. Furthermore, we document that firms that use an industry specialist auditor have a significantly lower cost of equity after controlling for firms' endogenous decision to use an industry specialist auditor.
Author: Arifur Khan Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 40
Book Description
Despite the dominance of family-owned publicly listed companies in developing economies, prior research has paid relatively little attention to this area, and the socio-economic context of these countries has been mostly ignored. This study contributes to the accounting literature by providing empirical evidence of the effects of family control and ownership on audit pricing and auditor choice in a developing economy context. Using 1,058 firm-year observations of publicly listed companies in Bangladesh, where family firms are the most dominant form of public companies, we determine that in comparison with non-family firms, our sample family firms pay significantly lower audit fees and tend to choose lower quality auditors. However, for export oriented industries, family firms seem to pay significantly higher audit fees and recruit better quality auditors compared to non-family firms, indicating stakeholder power. Collectively, our findings have important implications for audit markets in emerging economies in which the sustainability of family firms is crucial for overall economic development.
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: Steven F. Cahan Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages :
Book Description
A report issued by the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) in 2003 identified auditors' industry expertise as a critical factor for firms choosing an auditor, and highlighted the rather extreme levels of auditor concentration in some industries. We posit that the investment opportunity set (IOS) plays a fundamental role in determining whether an industry is an attractive target for auditor specialization. When industry-specific IOS is high, specialist auditors make costly investments in industry-specific knowledge, allowing them to offer a differentiated product and to create entry barriers for other audit firms. When the IOS of firms within an industry is relatively homogeneous, auditors can transfer such knowledge across clients in the industry more easily, resulting in cost savings and scale economies. However, greater homogeneity of IOS in an industry can also increase a client's aversion to sharing an auditor with its competitors because of concerns about transfers of proprietary information, suggesting that industries with relatively homogeneous IOS are less likely to be dominated by a single auditor. We show that auditor concentration in an industry relates positively to both the level and homogeneity of IOS in the industry, while auditor dominance relates negatively to industry IOS homogeneity. Further, we examine the effects of industry IOS on audit pricing.
Author: Chee Yeow Lim Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 59
Book Description
Recent studies on whether the provision of non-audit services impairs audit quality document mixed results, depending on the proxy for auditor quality used. We posit that the effect of non-audit fees on audit quality is conditional on auditor industry specialization in that audit quality is less likely to be impaired in the case of industry specialist auditors providing non-audit services. Our premise is that industry specialist auditors are more likely to be concerned about reputation losses and litigation exposure, and to benefit from knowledge spillovers from the provision of non-audit services. We find some evidence that audit quality (as measured by increased propensity to issue going-concern opinion, increased propensity to miss analysts' forecasts, as well as higher earnings-response coefficients) is less likely to be reduced for firms that acquire non-audit services from industry specialist auditors compared to non-specialist auditors. Implications are discussed.
Author: Fei Kang
Author: Fei Kang
Author: Javad Izadi
Author: Steven F. Cahan
Author: Chiraz Ben Ali
Author: Joanna L.Y. Ho
Author: Anwer S. Ahmed
Author: Arifur Khan
Author: Keith A. Houghton
Author: Steven F. Cahan
Author: Chee Yeow Lim