دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی روند کم هزینه در هزینه های حسابرسی و تاثیر آن در کیفیت خدمات - الزویر 2018

ABSTRACT

The 2008 financial crisis has transformed the business environment. The number of audited firms has fallen considerably since the crisis, leading to a reduction in the cost of auditing services as a result of fierce competition among auditors. This drop in audit fees is of great concern for audited firms because it may be correlated with a fall in audit service quality. Such a fall in quality ultimately harms the prestige of audited firms and therefore negatively affects their profits. Based on an application of fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), this paper analyzes the quality of audit services following a drop in the fees charged by auditors. The factors analyzed in the empirical study were audit fees, other fees charged by the auditor, and the inclusion of explanatory paragraphs, qualified opinions, and emphasis of matter in audit reports. The EBITDA of the audited firms was chosen as an indicator of the quality of the service. The results of the analysis reveal that the quality of the auditing service has remained steady despite the fall in audit fees, as confirmed by the fact that the EBITDA has evolved positively without being affected by the fall in fees.

5. Conclusions

This paper explores whether the reduction in audit fees due to the 2008 financial crisis has affected audit quality. The factors that were posited as potentially affecting audit quality were the audit fees, other fees charged by the auditor (e.g., consulting fees), explanatory paragraphs, audit report qualifications, and emphasis of matter. The latter three factors may be included in the auditor's report if deemed necessary. The indicator used to represent audit quality was the EBITDA. The empirical study was conducted using fsQCA, which was used to identify the factors that led to positive or negative changes in EBITDA. This method was chosen because it provided a perspective of complex causality, testing asymmetric relations among observations. Using fsQCA also made it possible to obtain valid results with small datasets (Fiss, 2007). This was the case in the present study, in which data for 37 Spanish firms in the IBEX 35 of the Madrid Stock Exchange were analyzed for the years 2008 and 2015.