دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی کیفیت اطلاعات حسابداری و اعتبار حسابداری به عنوان تعیین کننده های اعتبار بخش برای SME ها - اشپرینگر 2017

Abstract

This study analyses whether loan officers’ perception of the accounting information quality (AIQ) and the trustworthiness of SMEs are associated with a better willingness to grant them credit. Empirical evidence is obtained from a survey of 471 bank loan officers in Spain, who are asked to answer in relation to audited and not-audited firms. Using a Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approach, the results obtained confirm that the loan officers’ willingness to facilitate SMEs’ access to credit is positively influenced by their general perception about the AIQ, but only if it is audited. In the case of not-audited firms, AIQ does not play a direct role in credit granting decision, but is relevant in trust formation. Besides, in the case of audited firms, only the Bcompetence^ dimension of trust is relevant, whereas in not-audited firms, both Bcompetence^ and Bhonesty^ have an impact on credit granting. BBenevolence^ does not have an influence in any case. The study has implications for SMEs, banks, policy makers and auditors.

5 Conclusions

This study empirically explores the association between loan officers’ perceptions of SMEs’ AIQ and trust and the disposition to grant them credit. Additionally, it takes into account the possible effect of external audit in the proposed research model for credit granting decision-making. We use original data on bank loan officers’ perceptions of the above-mentioned variables, collected using an online questionnaire.

5.1 Discussion and implications

From a theoretical point of view, we reach three major findings. Firstly, we find that for audited SMEs, the perception that the accounting information is high quality directly affects loan officers’ willingness to grant them credit. In the opposite case, that is to say, for not-audited SMEs, AIQ does not play a direct role in the credit decision, although it is relevant in trust formation. This result gives a first idea of the importance of providing the professional judgement of an auditor about the quality of the financial statements when trying to access bank financing. Definitely, loan officers perceive that AIQ is better if the financial statements are audited, and in that case, they are more willing to grant credit to the SMEs. In other words, external audit helps overcoming information asymmetry problems and increases the probability that loan officers allow SMEs to get credit. This way, we agree with previous research that states that the audit report is crucial when credit institutions make decisions about the provision of funds (GómezGuillamón and Vidal 2008; Huguet and Gandía 2014). In this case, we demonstrate the relevance of the audit service asking directly to the loan officers, whose answers provide evidence that the quality of the accounting information exerts a positive effect on credit granting in the case that the financial statements are audited.