{"title":"The Effect of Auditing on Corporate Social Responsibility","authors":"Yiqing Tan","doi":"10.1111/ijau.12384","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ijau.12384","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Debate on whether firms' corporate social responsibility (CSR) is driven by agency problems or value enhancement is ongoing. This work examines the influence of the implementation of key audit matter (KAM) standards on corporate social activities and finds that after the adoption of KAMs, companies enhance their overall social performance through environment, employee, community and product categories. The enhancement of social activities is mostly due to improvements in advantages rather than reductions in disadvantages. This research also identifies information transparency is one possible explanation for the positive relationship between the adoption of KAMs and CSR performance. The findings of this study support the value maximization perspective.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":47092,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Auditing","volume":"29 4","pages":"557-573"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2025-05-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145228006","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Shareholder Governance and Crowding-Out of External Auditing: Evidence From China","authors":"Chenxi Xu, Xu Li, Qian Xin","doi":"10.1111/ijau.12383","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ijau.12383","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>This paper examines the relationship between shareholder governance and auditor choice. By exploiting a setting where non-state-owned shareholders are allowed to purchase shares and have delegates in the management team and the board of directors and supervisors of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in China, we find that non-state-owned shareholder ownership and engagement in firm operations significantly reduce the propensity of SOEs to hire a Big 4 external auditor. This relation is further found to be more pronounced for firms with stronger alternative governance mechanisms and for firms with higher agency costs. Overall, our findings support the notion that non-state-owned shareholder governance partially substitutes external auditing.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":47092,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Auditing","volume":"29 4","pages":"541-556"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2025-05-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145228007","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Professional Staff Turnover and Organizational Performance in Public Accounting Firms","authors":"Kyu-An Jeon, So Yean Kwack, Cheong H. Yi","doi":"10.1111/ijau.12380","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ijau.12380","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The study of the potential relationships between employee turnover and organizational performance has been important for researchers, practitioners and audit regulators. However, limited evidence exists regarding the association between staff turnover and organizational performance in professional accounting firms. The present study aims to fill this gap in the literature by using a unique hand-collected dataset from Korea. We find that the collective turnover rate of professional staff is negatively associated with public accounting firms' profitability and productivity. When considering the turnover rates of partners and senior certified public accountants (CPAs) separately, we observe that although both partner and senior CPA turnover are negatively associated with profitability and productivity, partner turnover is more strongly associated with these outcomes. Additionally, we find that <i>audit</i> partner turnover is associated with an increase in the percentage of <i>auditing</i> enforcements and a decrease in the <i>audit</i> client retention rate, which may reflect challenges in maintaining audit quality and audit client relations at the accounting firm level. We further find that the negative associations of professional staff turnover with profitability and productivity are less pronounced for Big 4 accounting firms, but the negative association with audit client retention is more pronounced for these firms. Overall, the results suggest that, although turnover is negatively associated with the organization-level outcomes of public accounting firms, the turnover–performance relationship depends on moderators such as job level and organization size.</p>","PeriodicalId":47092,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Auditing","volume":"29 4","pages":"513-540"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2025-05-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ijau.12380","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145228004","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Effects of Audit Tenure Disclosures on Investor Judgements","authors":"Ting-Chiao Huang, Robyn Moroney, Soon-Yeow Phang","doi":"10.1111/ijau.12381","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ijau.12381","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Disclosures of audit firm tenure have been mandated in some countries and are being considered in others. We investigate whether and how the form of firm tenure disclosures and the inclusion of partner tenure combine to affect investor judgements. We find that investors perceive the auditor as more independent and their investment as more attractive when firm tenure is disclosed in brief rather than detailed form, and this effect is stronger when partner tenure is disclosed along with firm tenure than when it is not. A mediation analysis shows that perceived auditor independence explains the joint effect of firm tenure disclosure form and partner tenure disclosures on the investment judgement. Audit regulators should consider our findings when assessing whether and how auditor tenure disclosures should be mandated and whether it is beneficial to standardize disclosures.</p>","PeriodicalId":47092,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Auditing","volume":"29 4","pages":"499-512"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2025-05-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ijau.12381","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145227977","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Stephen Kwaku Asare, Herman van Brenk, Barbara Majoor
{"title":"Evidence on the Effects of Network Status and Perspective-Taking on Component Auditors' Decision Quality","authors":"Stephen Kwaku Asare, Herman van Brenk, Barbara Majoor","doi":"10.1111/ijau.12382","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ijau.12382","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>The use of component auditors in the audit of multinational companies raises important questions about group audit quality. This study examines how the network status of component auditors and a prompt to adopt the group auditor's perspective jointly influence the quality of audit decisions. We hypothesize that a perspective-taking prompt will enhance the decision quality of unaffiliated component auditors, while potentially impairing the decision quality of affiliated auditors. This is based on the expectation that unaffiliated auditors anticipate greater scrutiny from the group auditor and adjust their decision-making strategies accordingly. Our experimental results reveal that in the perspective-taking condition, unaffiliated component auditors deliver greater audit testing effectiveness compared to their affiliated counterparts. Additionally, when affiliated component auditors are prompted to adopt the group auditor's perspective, their audit testing effectiveness declines compared to those who are unprompted. These findings have policy implications, as group auditors often favour affiliated auditors and presume consistent audit quality within the same network. To maintain high group audit quality in multinational audits, countervailing policies and incentives may be helpful when relying on affiliated component auditors. Perspective-taking prompts for unaffiliated component auditors may offer a practical tool for enhancing group audit quality, though their use should be balanced against potential coordination complexities.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":47092,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Auditing","volume":"29 4","pages":"482-498"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2025-05-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145228163","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Cost of Auditing Service Performance Information","authors":"Xikai Chen, Tom Scott","doi":"10.1111/ijau.12379","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ijau.12379","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This paper adds to prior literature by examining whether requiring the assurance of non-financial information increases audit fees. Specifically, we use a sample of New Zealand not-for-profits (charities) newly required to prepare statements of service performance (SSP), following accounting standards and assured per auditing standards. We find evidence of a significant increase in audit fees, although there is no change in audit or filing lag. There is some evidence that adopting the New Zealand-specific auditing standard for SSPs can reduce the increase in audit fees for smaller not-for-profits. Overall, our results suggest mandating non-financial information should be viewed as having increased costs. These results are particularly salient considering the ever-increasing push for non-financial and sustainability information throughout the world.</p>","PeriodicalId":47092,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Auditing","volume":"29 3","pages":"454-474"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-04-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ijau.12379","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144524789","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"How Sustainability Audits Impact Audit Effort Choices","authors":"Martin Klösch, Anna Kasmanhuber","doi":"10.1111/ijau.12378","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ijau.12378","url":null,"abstract":"<p>We analyse how the introduction of mandatory audits of sustainability reports conducted by the auditor of the financial report changes audit effort and quality choices. In our model, the auditor decides on effort allocation between a financial audit and a sustainability audit. Our analysis reveals that, in a competitive market, legislators may not consistently drive higher financial (sustainability) audit efforts solely through increased litigation payments for financial (sustainability) audit errors. Based on the cost structure, there exists either a substitutive effect or a complementary effect; that is, increasing litigation for errors in the financial audit increases the financial audit effort while simultaneously increasing or decreasing the sustainability audit effort and vice versa. In both scenarios, an overall improvement in audit quality is observed with increased litigation. We extend our analysis to a two-provider setting, where the above results hold structurally under some conditions. The overall audit quality can be higher or lower than in the one-provider setting. These findings represent novel insights not previously explored in the existing literature.</p>","PeriodicalId":47092,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Auditing","volume":"29 3","pages":"436-453"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-04-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ijau.12378","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144525121","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Valerie C. Simmons, Dana R. Hermanson, Velina K. Popova
{"title":"Non-GAAP Reporting Decisions and the Enhanced Fraud Triangle: The Role of Capability","authors":"Valerie C. Simmons, Dana R. Hermanson, Velina K. Popova","doi":"10.1111/ijau.12377","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ijau.12377","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Based on an experiment with 92 US public company financial executives, we use the enhanced fraud triangle framework (pressure, opportunity and capability) to understand controllers' response to CFO pressure to opportunistically manipulate non-GAAP earnings. Overall, we find that capability factors are associated with controllers' behaviour in our experimental setting, with some evidence of pressure effects as well. Specifically, we find that controller bonus type, perceptions of the CEO's role in pressure from the CFO, the perceived ethicality of the action, the fairness of the decision process and whether participants have seen a similar situation in practice are significantly related to controllers' decisions. Overall, our results and other recent research findings point to the important role of capability in understanding and assessing fraud risk. We hope that the findings will be useful to auditors, and we encourage auditing standard setters to consider emphasizing capability in their fraud-related standards.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":47092,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Auditing","volume":"29 3","pages":"421-435"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-03-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144525100","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Internal Audit Structure and Risk Management: Evidence From Public US Universities","authors":"Han Yan","doi":"10.1111/ijau.12376","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ijau.12376","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>In the context of the 2019 US college admissions scandal, I investigate whether internal audit functions (IAFs) in public US universities design risk-based audit plans. Specifically, I test the association between internal audit structure (i.e., centralized, decentralized and hybrid) and internal auditors' reactions to emerging admissions risk. The statistical results suggest that the IAFs of public US universities responded to admissions risk after the scandal. However, the responses vary among IAFs with different structures. Centralized IAFs emerged as early reactors to admissions risk, whereas decentralized IAFs promptly reacted to admissions risk post-scandal. Hybrid IAFs demonstrated a tendency to address admissions risk both pre- and post-scandal. This study leverages hand-collected internal audit plans and reports to examine risk-based audit plans in higher education. The findings provide empirical evidence that IAFs in higher education engage in risk-based audit planning.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":47092,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Auditing","volume":"29 3","pages":"400-420"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-03-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144525099","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Why Regulate Auditing? Externalities and the Limits of Regulation","authors":"Jere R. Francis","doi":"10.1111/ijau.12374","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ijau.12374","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Good audits have benefits to the broader economy (externalities) that transcend the private benefits to companies that contract for audits. Because companies will only pay for the private benefit of an audit, there is a potential market failure in which audit quality is underproduced relative to the theoretical social optimum, which is Pigou's classic argument for regulation to correct the market failure. While Pigou's framework can identify the need for regulation, it cannot determine the optimum level of regulation. This means regulators must focus on the net benefits of regulations on a case-by-case basis, and not presume regulation is needed because of externalities, per se. Careful assessment of costs and benefits is necessary to prevent overregulation that has potentially harmful consequences for audit firms and clients. However, this assessment is challenging given the difficulty in defining and measuring the benefits of higher quality audits, suggesting a need for restraint in regulatory policy-making.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":47092,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Auditing","volume":"29 3","pages":"366-375"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-03-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144525160","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}