Auditor Competencies, Organizational Learning, and Audit Quality: Spillover Effects of Auditing Cross-Listed Clients

Abstract

This paper employs a difference-in-differences approach to study whether a Chinese audit firm improves its competencies through organizational learning after one of its audit teams has a client cross-listed in the US. Among a group of companies that are listed only in China, we define those audited by firms that have cross-listed clients as the treatment group, and companies audited by other firms as the control group. We find an improvement in audit quality for the treatment group after their audit firms have cross-listed client experience in the US. A large-scale survey of auditors corroborates these findings and sheds light on specific actions undertaken by audit firms to facilitate learning. Both the empirical and survey results highlight the benefits of auditing cross-listed clients in the US and its positive externality on improving the audit quality of non-US-listed companies.