An important aspect of the audit environment is the financial reporting that needs to be verified. In May 2015, the International Accounting Standards Board [IASB] issued an exposure draft [ED] for a new conceptual framework [CF] of financial reporting under International Financial Reporting...

This study examines the effect of individual auditor quality (below the partner level) on overall audit quality. We aggregate audit employee-level performance evaluations to create a measure of auditor quality at the office level. We find that high quality audit offices are associated with a...

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of auditor workload compression on the likelihood of changes to the busy season client portfolio of an audit firm. We find evidence of a positive association between workload compression and the likelihood of changes to the constituents of...

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the market for audit services for publicly traded companies operating in the US for-profit (FP) healthcare sector. Complex national and local healthcare laws and regulations suggest the importance of assessing fee effects of joint national-level and city...

This study investigates whether workload pressures, as proxied by the audit busy season (i.e., December fiscal year-end date) and auditor workload compression (i.e., relative concentration of companies with the same fiscal year-end date in an auditor's client portfolio), affect audit quality....

We investigate potential differences in audit reporting outcomes between Circular A-133 audits performed by governmental auditors vs. those performed by certified public accounting (CPA) firms. Specifically, we investigate the association between auditor type and the likelihood of...

This study investigates the impact of the busy season and concomitant concentrated demands on audit resources on the likelihood of auditor switching. Hereafter, we refer to the concentration of companies with the same fiscal year-end date within an auditor's client portfolio as “workload...

We argue that audit quality has direct and indirect effects on the cost of equity capital. Direct effects are consistent with auditor reputation effects reflecting insurance and/or assurance roles. However, if audit quality is at least in part a reflection of expected assurance levels, then we...

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) recently suggested that auditors' lack of specific fraud planning documentation has led auditors to devote insufficient attention to fraud risks in subsequent audit work. Guided by Support Theory, we experimentally investigate how the...

We examine the issue of auditor independence in a unique setting. Specifically, we test for auditor independence impairment among (1) private client firms, for which the risk of auditor reputation loss is lower than for publicly traded firms, and (2) in a low litigation environment (i.e.,...