{"title":"慈善审计师提供更高质量的审计服务吗?来自中国的证据","authors":"Danping Li, Zhifeng Yang, Keyuan Zhang, Min Zhang","doi":"10.1142/s1094406022500147","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Synopsis The research problem This study investigates whether auditors who participate in philanthropic activities (hereafter “philanthropic auditors”) have stronger incentives to deliver high-quality audits than the auditors who do not participate. Motivation Prior studies call for research that examines the difference in audit quality across individual auditors. In recent years, regulators in developed markets, such as the United States and the European Union, have also promulgated new regulations requiring audit firms or public companies to disclose the names of engagement partners. Another growing body of literature examines the effect of economic agents’ personal traits on their decisions and/or firm policies and practices. By examining the impact of individual auditors’ unobservable personal traits on audit quality, measured through their philanthropic actions, we link and contribute to both streams of the above literature. The test hypotheses We test a null hypothesis in this study: individual auditors’ philanthropic activity is not related to their audit quality. Target population Stakeholders of high-quality auditing including accounting regulators, audit firm partners, and company managers. Adopted methodology Ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions and archival data. Analyses In a sample of more than 19,000 Chinese firm-years from 2008 to 2017, we identified 9.40% of the observations were signed by at least one auditor who contributes either money or time to a charitable activity. We used two measures of audit quality: the propensity to issue modified audit opinions (MAOs) and unsigned abnormal discretionary accruals. Findings First, we find that philanthropic auditors are significantly more likely to issue MAOs than are their non-philanthropic counterparts. Second, they are more likely to issue MAOs to distressed companies but not to financially healthy companies. The higher propensity of philanthropic auditors to issue MAOs indicates higher audit quality rather than a higher level of audit conservatism. Third, financial statements audited by philanthropic auditors contain significantly lower discretionary accruals (DACC). Fourth, to mitigate the concern that endogeneity drives our findings, we implement the propensity score matching (PSM) approach and the client fixed effects model. Our finding that philanthropic auditors provide higher-quality audit services than other auditors holds. Fifth, the main results are robust to the inclusion of other individual auditor characteristics, such as gender, educational background, and political affiliation, and to several proxies for individual auditors’ wealth.","PeriodicalId":47122,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Accounting","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.0000,"publicationDate":"2022-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Do Philanthropic Auditors Provide Higher-Quality Audit Services? Evidence From China\",\"authors\":\"Danping Li, Zhifeng Yang, Keyuan Zhang, Min Zhang\",\"doi\":\"10.1142/s1094406022500147\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"Synopsis The research problem This study investigates whether auditors who participate in philanthropic activities (hereafter “philanthropic auditors”) have stronger incentives to deliver high-quality audits than the auditors who do not participate. Motivation Prior studies call for research that examines the difference in audit quality across individual auditors. In recent years, regulators in developed markets, such as the United States and the European Union, have also promulgated new regulations requiring audit firms or public companies to disclose the names of engagement partners. Another growing body of literature examines the effect of economic agents’ personal traits on their decisions and/or firm policies and practices. By examining the impact of individual auditors’ unobservable personal traits on audit quality, measured through their philanthropic actions, we link and contribute to both streams of the above literature. The test hypotheses We test a null hypothesis in this study: individual auditors’ philanthropic activity is not related to their audit quality. Target population Stakeholders of high-quality auditing including accounting regulators, audit firm partners, and company managers. Adopted methodology Ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions and archival data. Analyses In a sample of more than 19,000 Chinese firm-years from 2008 to 2017, we identified 9.40% of the observations were signed by at least one auditor who contributes either money or time to a charitable activity. We used two measures of audit quality: the propensity to issue modified audit opinions (MAOs) and unsigned abnormal discretionary accruals. Findings First, we find that philanthropic auditors are significantly more likely to issue MAOs than are their non-philanthropic counterparts. Second, they are more likely to issue MAOs to distressed companies but not to financially healthy companies. The higher propensity of philanthropic auditors to issue MAOs indicates higher audit quality rather than a higher level of audit conservatism. Third, financial statements audited by philanthropic auditors contain significantly lower discretionary accruals (DACC). Fourth, to mitigate the concern that endogeneity drives our findings, we implement the propensity score matching (PSM) approach and the client fixed effects model. Our finding that philanthropic auditors provide higher-quality audit services than other auditors holds. Fifth, the main results are robust to the inclusion of other individual auditor characteristics, such as gender, educational background, and political affiliation, and to several proxies for individual auditors’ wealth.\",\"PeriodicalId\":47122,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"International Journal of Accounting\",\"volume\":null,\"pages\":null},\"PeriodicalIF\":2.0000,\"publicationDate\":\"2022-08-30\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"0\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"International Journal of Accounting\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"1085\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://doi.org/10.1142/s1094406022500147\",\"RegionNum\":0,\"RegionCategory\":null,\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"Q2\",\"JCRName\":\"BUSINESS, FINANCE\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"International Journal of Accounting","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1142/s1094406022500147","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"BUSINESS, FINANCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
Do Philanthropic Auditors Provide Higher-Quality Audit Services? Evidence From China
Synopsis The research problem This study investigates whether auditors who participate in philanthropic activities (hereafter “philanthropic auditors”) have stronger incentives to deliver high-quality audits than the auditors who do not participate. Motivation Prior studies call for research that examines the difference in audit quality across individual auditors. In recent years, regulators in developed markets, such as the United States and the European Union, have also promulgated new regulations requiring audit firms or public companies to disclose the names of engagement partners. Another growing body of literature examines the effect of economic agents’ personal traits on their decisions and/or firm policies and practices. By examining the impact of individual auditors’ unobservable personal traits on audit quality, measured through their philanthropic actions, we link and contribute to both streams of the above literature. The test hypotheses We test a null hypothesis in this study: individual auditors’ philanthropic activity is not related to their audit quality. Target population Stakeholders of high-quality auditing including accounting regulators, audit firm partners, and company managers. Adopted methodology Ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions and archival data. Analyses In a sample of more than 19,000 Chinese firm-years from 2008 to 2017, we identified 9.40% of the observations were signed by at least one auditor who contributes either money or time to a charitable activity. We used two measures of audit quality: the propensity to issue modified audit opinions (MAOs) and unsigned abnormal discretionary accruals. Findings First, we find that philanthropic auditors are significantly more likely to issue MAOs than are their non-philanthropic counterparts. Second, they are more likely to issue MAOs to distressed companies but not to financially healthy companies. The higher propensity of philanthropic auditors to issue MAOs indicates higher audit quality rather than a higher level of audit conservatism. Third, financial statements audited by philanthropic auditors contain significantly lower discretionary accruals (DACC). Fourth, to mitigate the concern that endogeneity drives our findings, we implement the propensity score matching (PSM) approach and the client fixed effects model. Our finding that philanthropic auditors provide higher-quality audit services than other auditors holds. Fifth, the main results are robust to the inclusion of other individual auditor characteristics, such as gender, educational background, and political affiliation, and to several proxies for individual auditors’ wealth.
期刊介绍:
The aim of The International Journal of Accounting is to advance the academic and professional understanding of accounting theory, policies and practice from the international perspective and viewpoint. The Journal editorial recognizes that international accounting is influenced by a variety of forces, e.g., governmental, political and economic. Thus, the primary criterion for manuscript evaluation is the incremental contribution to international accounting literature and the forces that impact the field. The Journal aims at understanding the present and potential ability of accounting to aid in analyzing and interpreting international economic transactions and the economic consequences of such reporting. These transactions may be within a profit or non-profit environment. The Journal encourages a broad view of the origins and development of accounting with an emphasis on its functions in an increasingly interdependent global economy. The Journal also welcomes manuscripts that help explain current international accounting practices, with related theoretical justifications, and identify criticisms of current policies and practice. Other than occasional commissioned papers or special issues, all the manuscripts published in the Journal are selected by the editors after the normal double-blind refereeing process.