-specialist audits on accrual management behavior of firms whose internal control is reported as ineffective by their external auditors … greater level than firms with effective internal control (non-ICW), specialist auditors influence accrual management decision … of the ICW firms and reduce the level of discretionary accrual adjustments. As a result, industry-specialist audits also …

accrual persistence, improved in the post-SOX period, and second, to examine the degree to which SOX-related improvement in … accrual persistence varies across companies depending on the degree of their auditor's independence ….Design/methodology/approach – The paper compares accrual persistence in the pre- and post-SOX periods to test the first question. Then, partitioning on …