Workplace Mindfulness and its Effect on Staff Auditors' Audit Quality-Threatening Behavior

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
David N. Herda ◽  
Nathan H. Cannon ◽  
Randall F. Young
Keyword(s):  
Indirect Effect ◽  
Audit Quality ◽  
Review Process ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Financial Statement ◽  
Work Setting ◽  
Effective Technique ◽  
Staff Level

ABSTRACT This study investigates the effect of staff auditors' workplace mindfulness on premature sign-off—a serious audit quality-threatening behavior that can go undetected through the review process. We also examine whether supervisor coaching is an effective means to engender workplace mindfulness. Using a sample of 115 auditors, we predict and find that (1) auditors who are coached by supervisors to appreciate the importance of their work to external financial statement users are more likely to be mindful in their work setting, and (2) greater workplace mindfulness about financial statement user considerations is associated with a reduced likelihood of auditor sign-off on an audit procedure not completed. We also find that supervisor coaching has an indirect effect on premature sign-off through workplace mindfulness. The results underscore the importance of workplace mindfulness in reducing audit quality-threatening behavior and indicate that supervisor coaching may be an effective technique in eliciting mindfulness among staff-level auditors. Data Availability: Contact the authors.

scholarly journals The Effects of Supervisor Coaching and Workplace Mindfulness on Audit Quality-Threatening Behavior among Staff Auditors

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. P1-P6
Author(s):  
David N. Herda ◽  
Nathan H. Cannon ◽  
Randall F. Young
Keyword(s):  
Audit Quality ◽  
Review Process ◽  
Financial Statement ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Staff Level ◽  
Academic Study

SUMMARY This article summarizes a recent academic study (Herda, Cannon, and Young 2019) that investigates the effects of supervisor coaching and staff auditors' workplace mindfulness on premature sign-off—a serious audit quality-threatening behavior that can go undetected through the review process. Our study predicts and finds that staff auditors who are coached by supervisors to consider the impact of their work on external financial statement users are more mindful (i.e., more attentive and aware) during an audit and less likely to engage in premature sign-off. The results highlight the importance of workplace mindfulness in an audit environment and suggest that supervisor coaching is a practical technique to elicit workplace mindfulness among staff-level auditors.

PCAOB Inspections and Large Accounting Firms

2011 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryan K. Church ◽  
Lori B. Shefchik
Keyword(s):  
Audit Quality ◽  
Linear Trend ◽  
Dominant Role ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Financial Statement ◽  
Public Companies ◽  
Accounting Firms ◽  
Big 4 ◽  
Second Tier ◽  
Over Time

SYNOPSIS The purpose of this paper is to analyze the PCAOB's inspection reports of large, annually inspected accounting firms. The inspection reports identify audit deficiencies that have implications for audit quality. By examining the inspection reports in detail, we can identify the nature and severity of audit deficiencies; we can track the total number of deficiencies over time; and we can pinpoint common, recurring audit deficiencies. We focus on large accounting firms because they play a dominant role in the marketplace (i.e., they audit public companies that comprise approximately 99 percent of U.S.-based issuer market capitalization). We document a significant, downward linear trend in the number of deficiencies from 2004 to 2009. We also identify common, recurring audit deficiencies, determine the financial statement accounts most often impacted by audit deficiencies, and isolate the primary emphasis of the financial statement impacted. Our findings generally are consistent comparing Big 4 and second-tier accounting firms, though a few differences emerge. In addition, we make comparisons with findings that have been documented for small, triennially inspected firms. Data Availability: The data are available from public sources.

Investors' Response to Revelations of Prior Uncorrected Misstatements

2012 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 167-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas C. Omer ◽  
Marjorie K. Shelley ◽  
Anne M. Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Audit Quality ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Financial Statement ◽  
Current Period ◽  
Insight Into

SUMMARY This study examines investors' response to the disclosure of prior-period waived misstatements under Staff Accounting Bulletin (SAB) No. 108, Considering the Effects of Prior Year Misstatements When Quantifying Misstatements in the Current Year. Misstatement correction decisions typically are not observable, and financial statement users have little insight into the disposition of identified misstatements, a dimension of audit and financial statement quality. We find that investors respond negatively to the disclosure of SAB No. 108 misstatements, and this response is associated with the current-period auditor initially waiving the misstatement and client importance. Although SAB No. 108 misstatements were waived under prevailing materiality guidance, our findings suggest that investors interpret SAB No. 108 misstatements as indicating lower perceived audit quality. Data Availability: Data are available from the sources indicated in the text.

scholarly journals Integration of Internal Control and Financial Statement Audits: Are Two Audits Better than One?

2018 ◽  
Vol 94 (2) ◽  
pp. 53-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lori Shefchik Bhaskar ◽  
Joseph H. Schroeder ◽  
Marcy L. Shepardson
Keyword(s):  
Financial Reporting ◽  
Internal Control ◽  
Audit Quality ◽  
Internal Controls ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Financial Statement ◽  
Auditor Judgment ◽  
Public Company ◽  
Better Than

ABSTRACT The quality of financial statement (FS) audits integrated with audits of internal controls over financial reporting (ICFR) depends upon the quality of ICFR information used in, and its integration into, FS audits. Recent research and PCAOB inspections find auditors underreport existing ICFR weaknesses and perform insufficient testing to address identified risks, suggesting integrated audits—in which substantial ICFR testing is required—may result in lower FS audit quality than FS-only audits. We compare a 2007–2013 sample of small U.S. public company firm-years receiving integrated audits (accelerated filers) to firm-years receiving FS-only audits (non-accelerated filers) and find integrated audits are associated with higher likelihood of material misstatements and discretionary accruals, consistent with lower FS audit quality. We also find evidence of (1) auditor judgment-based integration issues, and (2) low-quality ICFR audits harming FS audit quality. Overall, results suggest an important potential consequence of integrated audits is lower FS audit quality. Data Availability: Data are publicly available from the sources identified in the text.

Office-Client Balance and Metro Area Audit Market Competition

2020 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 113-141
Author(s):  
Michael L. Ettredge ◽  
Matthew G. Sherwood ◽  
Lili Sun
Keyword(s):  
Relative Abundance ◽  
Audit Quality ◽  
Market Competition ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Financial Statement ◽  
Audit Market ◽  
Metro Area ◽  
Big 4 ◽  
Jel Classifications

SUMMARY We propose a new audit supplier competition construct, the Office-Client Balance (OCB), which consists of the relative abundance of competing audit offices and audit clients in a metropolitan (metro) area. From this construct, we derive a metro level audit competition proxy reflecting surpluses or shortfalls of total metro audit office numbers relative to the national metro OCB norm: the OCB_TOT. Consistent with the predictions of Porter's Five Forces theory, we find that OCB_TOT is associated with lower fees, more auditor turnover, and more (less) office exits (entrances) in metro audit markets. These findings validate OCB_TOT as a proxy for audit market competition. Our results indicate that greater metro level competition among auditors (more positive OCB_TOT) is associated with higher audit quality, proxied by fewer financial statement misstatements. Several additional analyses suggest that OCB_TOT is useful in explaining clients' choices of local (versus remote) audit offices and Big 4 (versus non-Big 4) offices. Data Availability: Data used in this study are available from public sources. JEL Classifications: G18; L10; M42.

Client Deadline Concentration in Audit Offices and Audit Quality

2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 55-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith Czerney ◽  
Daun Jang ◽  
Thomas C. Omer
Keyword(s):  
Audit Quality ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Financial Statement ◽  
Relevant Research ◽  
Quality Outcomes ◽  
Audit Failure ◽  
Public Company ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Prior Literature

SUMMARY This research investigates the effect on audit quality of concentrated public company financial statement filing deadlines in audit offices. Audit offices must effectively manage their resources to meet clients' audit service requirements. When an audit office has deadlines that are more concentrated in time, effective resource management is of greater importance to reduce the likelihood of audit failure. Drawing on relevant research from the auditing and management literatures, we hypothesize and find that audit quality is lower when an audit office's clients' financial statement deadlines concentrate in time, which we term client deadline concentration. The significant, negative effect of client deadline concentration on audit quality is incremental to the effects of other resource-based constraints from the prior literature and to controls for unobservable differences in audit offices that explain a significant amount of the variation in audit quality outcomes. JEL Classifications: M40; M41; M42; M48. Data Availability: Data are available from public sources identified in the text.

scholarly journals Comments by the Auditing Standards Committee of the Auditing Section of the American Accounting Association on the PCAOB Rulemaking Docket Matter No. 34: PCAOB Release No. 2011-003, Concept Release on Possible Revisions to PCAOB Standards Related to Reports on Audited Financial Statements.

2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. C1-C14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph F Brazel ◽  
Paul Caster ◽  
Shawn Davis ◽  
Steven M Glover ◽  
Diane J Janvrin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Audit Quality ◽  
Exposure Period ◽  
Financial Statements ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Financial Statement ◽  
The Public ◽  
Additional Information ◽  
Public Company ◽  
Auditing Standards ◽  
Auditor Reporting

SUMMARY Recently, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB or Board) issued a concept release to solicit public comment on the potential direction of a proposed standard-setting project on the content and form of reports on audited financial statements. The objective of the concept release was to discuss several alternatives for changing the auditor's reporting model that could increase its transparency and relevance to financial statement users, while not compromising audit quality. To that end, the alternatives included (1) a supplement to the auditor's report, in which the auditor would be required to provide additional information about the audit and the company's financial statements (an “Auditor's Discussion and Analysis”), (2) required and expanded use of emphasis paragraphs in the auditor's report, (3) auditor reporting on information outside the financial statements, and (4) clarification of certain language in the auditor's report. The PCAOB provided for a 102-day exposure period (from June 21 to September 30, 2011) for interested parties to examine and provide comments on the conceptual approaches to rulemaking that might complement the application of Section 105(c)(6). The Auditing Standards Committee of the Auditing Section of the American Accounting Association provided the comments in the letter below to the PCAOB on the PCAOB Release No. 2011-003, Concept Release on Possible Revisions to PCAOB Standards Related to Reports on Audited Financial Statements. Data Availability: Information about and access to the release is available at: http://pcaobus.org/Rules/Rulemaking/Docket034/Concept_Release.pdf

The Effect of the Social Mismatch between Staff Auditors and Client Management on the Collection of Audit Evidence

2012 ◽  
Vol 88 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Bradley Bennett ◽  
Richard C. Hatfield
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Audit Quality ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Email Communication ◽  
The Social ◽  
Audit Evidence ◽  
Client Management ◽  
Materials Used ◽  
Staff Level

ABSTRACT: This study provides both survey and experimental evidence to consider how social interactions between staff-level auditors and client management may affect staff auditors' perceptions and influence their decisions regarding the collection of audit evidence. During fieldwork, staff-level auditors have extensive interaction with client management. Survey evidence suggests that these staff-level auditors are often “mismatched” with client management, in terms of their experience, age, and accounting knowledge. Experimental results indicate that staff-level auditors may reduce the extent to which they collect evidence to avoid these interactions. Finally, the use of email communication with client management helped to mitigate the reduction in evidence collected caused by avoiding in-person interactions. Interestingly, when not collecting all the evidence, approximately half of the participants documented their findings in a vague or inappropriate manner, which would likely reduce the likelihood that reviewing auditors would identify a problem. Given the extent of audit evidence collected by young staff auditors, these findings have direct implications for workpaper and audit quality. Data Availability: Data and materials used in this study are available upon request.

Accelerated Filing Deadlines, Internal Controls, and Financial Statement Quality: The Case of Originating Misstatements

2015 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 551-575 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colleen M. Boland ◽  
Scott N. Bronson ◽  
Chris E. Hogan
Keyword(s):  
Internal Control ◽  
Internal Controls ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Financial Statement ◽  
Similar Increase ◽  
Section 404 ◽  
Regulatory Changes ◽  
Rule Change ◽  
Initial Decrease

SYNOPSIS We examine whether regulations requiring accelerated filing deadlines and internal control reporting and testing affect financial statement reliability. Unlike prior research, we examine whether these regulatory changes are associated with an increase in the likelihood that misstatements originate in the period following the respective change. If the implementation of these rules causes a misstatement, then the misstatement would most likely occur in the period immediately following the rule change. We provide evidence that accelerated filers (AFs) experience an increase in the likelihood of an originating misstatement following the acceleration of filing deadlines from 90 to 75 days. Large accelerated filers (LAFs), however, do not experience a similar increase following this acceleration or the subsequent acceleration from 75 to 60 days. After the implementation of the SOX Section 404 internal control requirements, we find that the likelihood of an originating misstatement declined for AFs but not for LAFs. Taken together, the findings suggest that, although AFs experienced an initial decrease in financial statement reliability, this decrease was temporary. Data Availability: Data are publicly available from the sources identified in the text.

Audit Market Concentration, Audit Fees, and Audit Quality: Evidence from China

2015 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ting-Chiao Huang ◽  
Hsihui Chang ◽  
Jeng-Ren Chiou
Keyword(s):  
Indirect Effect ◽  
Audit Quality ◽  
Earnings Quality ◽  
Audit Fees ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Market Concentration ◽  
Legal Environment ◽  
Positive Relation ◽  
Audit Market ◽  
Lower Likelihood

SUMMARY We investigate the effects of audit market concentration on audit fees and audit quality in China, where competition is intense and the legal environment is relatively weak compared with developed countries. Analyzing 12,334 firm-year observations for the period 2001 to 2011, we find a significant positive relation between concentration and audit fees. Path analysis shows that concentration improves client earnings quality and reduces the need for auditors to issue modified audit opinions through increased audit fees. Additional analysis indicates that the increased audit fees and client earnings quality resulting from increased concentration are associated with a lower likelihood of executives and auditors being sanctioned by regulators for audit failures. Together, our results suggest that concentration improves audit quality indirectly through increased audit fees and this positive indirect effect offsets the negative direct effect of concentration on audit quality. By separating the direct and the indirect effect of concentration on audit quality, our study would explain why previous studies that do not have a separation document mixed evidence. Our findings inform regulators that actions taken to eliminate the indirect effect of concentration, for example restricting the upper bound of audit fees, could produce unintended outcomes such as decreased audit quality.

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