This paper provides insight into the effect of the global financial crisis on auditors and the relationships between large international accounting firms, regulators, and standard setters. The paper summarizes a variety of reports and policy proposals related to the global financial crisis, including the number of times auditors are mentioned in each of the reports. The paper discusses issues related to bank audits, including discussion of fair value issues and going concern reports.
Humphrey, C., A. Loft and M. Woods. 2009. The Global Audit Profession and the International Financial Architecture: Understanding Regulatory Relationships at a Time of Financial Crisis. Accounting, Organizations and Society 34 (6-7): 810-825.
This study suggests that audit workpaper documentation decisions can significantly influence juror negligence verdicts and damage awards in cases where the auditor faces litigation. This is a particularly important finding for audit firms as this is an aspect of the litigation process that the auditor can directly control prior to facing litigation by considering how jurors might perceive this information when designing documentation procedures.
Backof, A. G. 2015. The Impact of Audit Evidence Documentation on Jurors’ Negligence Verdicts and Damage Awards. The Accounting Review 90 (6): 2177-2204.
This study provides an analysis of the effect of PCAOB Auditing Standard No. 5 (AS5) on internal control audit efficiency. The authors interpret their results as indicating that AS5 improved internal control audit efficiency by reducing audit fees without harming audit quality. The results of this study provide insight into the consequences of PCAOB standard setting, which is of interest to standard setters and businesses subject to their rules.
For more information on this study, please contact Dechun Wang.
Wang, D. and J. Zhou. 2012. The Impact of PCAOB Auditing Standard No. 5 on Audit Fees and Audit Quality. Accounting Horizons 26 (3): 493-511.
Whether or not the ISA should be adopted by the United States is a greatly contested topic. This study is helpful for regulators and standard-setting boards in the United States about the potential effects of the adoption of ISA and mandatory audit rotation for the United States. This information is also applicable for other countries when making these decisions as well.
Simunic, Dan A., M. Ye, and P. Zhang. 2017. “The Joint Effects of Multiple Legal System Characteristics on Auditing Standards and Auditor Behavior”. Contemporary Accounting Research 34.1 (2017): 7.
http://commons.aaahq.org/groups/e5075f0eec/summary
The first implication is a call for proportionality and flexibility to adopt an audit approach that meets the client-audit firm context. SMP auditors told us that they struggle with achieving proportionality by not performing some audit procedures such as entity-level analytical procedures for smaller clients, because they feel obliged to perform these procedures to comply with documentation requirements of the auditing standards or of regulators and oversight bodies. Such experiences may result in inefficient, ‘‘check-the-box’’ audits in order to satisfy perceived documentation requirements for review purposes.
The second implication is that standard setters should be aware that the type and/or scope of the assurance engagement might also vary by jurisdiction. For example, in a jurisdiction with a close book-tax alignment, the clients’ and users’ expectations about the type and scope of assurance may interact with the prescribed standards in shaping audit practice.
For more information on this study, please contact Niels van Nieuw Amerongen.
Van Buuren, J., C. Koch, N. v. Nieuw Amerongen, and A. M. Wright. 2014. The Use of Business Risk Audit Perspectives by Non-Big 4 Audit Firms. Auditing: A Journal of Practice and Theory 33 (3): 105-128
The study results are important to regulators and audit practitioners as they show the differential audit quality for participating auditors used in issuer audits. The results show that audit quality declines when audit engagements use participating auditors that are not experienced in auditing SEC issuers. This indicates that public disclosure of the principal and participating auditors in the audit report can provide useful information to evaluate audit quality.
Dee, C.C., A. Lulseged, and T. Zhang. 2015. Who Did the Audit? Audit Quality and Disclosures of Other Audit Participants in PCAOB Filings. The Accounting Review 90 (5): 1939-1967.
First, the authors present a long-term case study of the development of the idea of reliability in accounting literature and standard-setting which adds to histories of conceptual thinking in financial reporting. Hence, by following the decision-making of the standard setting bodies regarding the qualitative characteristics of their framework, this paper contributes to the scarce empirical literature on actual processes of standard-setting in accounting.
Erb, C., & Pelger, C. (2015). “Twisting words”? A study of the construction and reconstruction of reliability in financial reporting standard-setting. Accounting, Organizations & Society 40: 13-40.