9.毕业论文英文文献翻译
2020-03-02 00:03:27 来源：范文大全收藏下载本文
Audit Office Size, Audit Quality, and AuditPricing Jong-Hag Choi, Chansog (Francis) Kim, Jeong-Bon Kim, and YoonseokZang SUMMARY: Using a large sample of U.S.audit client firms over the period 2000–2005,this paper investigates whether and how the size of a local practice office within anaudit firmhereafter, office size is a significant, engagement-specific factor determiningaudit quality and audit fees over and beyond audit firm size at the national level andauditor industry leadership at the city or office level.For our empirical tests, audit qualityis measured by unsigned abnormal accruals, and the office size is measured in twodifferent ways: one based on the number of audit clients in each office and the otherbased on a total of audit fees earned by each office.Our results show that the officesize has significantly positive relations with both audit quality and audit fees, even aftercontrolling for national-level audit firm size and office-level industry expertise.Thesepositive relations support the view that large local offices provide higher-quality auditscompared with small local offices, and that such quality differences are priced in themarket for audit services.Keywords:audit office; office size; audit quality; audit pricing.Data Availability:Data are publicly available from sources identified in the paper.The way we think about an accounting firm changes dramatically when we shift the unit of analysisaway from the firm as a whole, to the analysis of specific city-based offices within a firm.In termsof DeAngelo’s1981b argument, a Big 4 accounting firm is not so big when we shift to theofficelevel of analysis.For example, while Enron represented le than 2 percent of Arthur Ander-sen’s national revenues from publicly listed clients, it was more than 35 percent of such revenues in the Houston office.
INTRODUCTION
As alluded to in the above quote, the size of a city-based audit engagement office could bea more crucial determinant of audit quality and thus audit feesthan the size of anational-level audit firm because the city-based office is a semi-autonomous unit withinan audit firm with its own client base.It is an office-based engagement partner or audit team, notnational headquarters, who actually administers and implements individual audit engagement con-tracts, including the delivery of audit services and the iuance of an audit opinion.In this regard,Wallman(1996) and Francis (2004) argue that the aement of auditor independence needs tofocus more on the individual office level rather than the entire firm level because most of the auditdecisions with respect to a particular client are made within each individual office.The anecdotalevidence on the collapse of Enron, which was audited by the Houston office of Arthur Andersen,is a good example that demonstrates the importance of office-level audit quality.However, much of extant audit research has focused its attention on two national-level audit firm characteristics asfundamental determinants of audit quality, namely: audit firm size (e.g., Simunic and Stein 1987 ;Becker et al.1998 ; Francis and Krishnan 1999; Kim et al.2003; Choi and Doogar 2005), andauditor industry leadership (e.g., DeFond et al.2000 ; Balsam et al.2003 ; Krishnan 2005).These studies find, in general, that large audit firms with international brand names (i.e., Big4 auditors ) or industry expertise provide higher-quality audit services than small audit firms which lack such brand names or industry expertise.Implicit in this line of research is the aumptionthat audit quality is homogeneous acro offices of various sizes located in different cities withinthe same audit firm.As a result, we have little evidence on cro-office differences in audit quality,and in particular, whether and how the size of a local engagement office has an impact on auditquality and/or audit pricing.A natural question
to
ask
is:
Is
the
office
size
an additionalengagement-specific factor determining audit quality and thus audit pricing over and beyond auditfirm size and industry leadership? We aim to provide direct evidence on this unexplored question.Several recent studies provide indirect evidence suggesting that audit quality may differacro different engagement offices within an audit firm.For example, in the first U.S.study thatuses each engagement office as the unit of analysis, Reynolds and Francis (2000, 375) find thatwhen client size is measured at the office level using office-specific clienteles, “Big 5 auditorsreport
more
conservatively
for
larger clients.”Further,Ferguson et al.(2003) and Francis et al.(2005) find that city-specific, office-level industry leadership, when combined with the national-level leadership, generates the highest audit fee premiums and thus, by inference, higher auditquality in the Australian and U.S.audit markets, respectively, while national-level industry lead-ership alone has no effect.Subsequently, Francis et al.(2006) document that client earningsquality proxied by abnormal accruals is higher when auditors are city-level industry leaders alone,or they are both city-level and national-level industry leaders.Put differently, their results indicatethat national-level industry leadership alone has no significant impact on audit quality.Morerecently, Choi et al.(2007) show that the geographical proximity of the city-based engagementoffice to clients’ headquarters is positively aociated with the accrual quality of clients, suggest-ing that the geographical location of the auditor’s office is an important engagement-specificdeterminant of audit quality.The above findings, taken together, suggest that city-based, office-level characteristics may play an important role in determining audit quality and thus audit pricing.It should be pointed out, however, that none of these studies has paid attention to the question ofwhether the size of a local engagement office is systematically aociated with audit quality andfees paid to auditors.To bridge this gap in our knowledge, we investigate a hitherto under-researched question ofwhether, and how, the size of a local engagement office hereafter, office sizeis aociated withaudit quality and audit pricing.We first hypothesize that office size is systematically aociatedwith audit quality even after controlling for audit firm size at the national level and auditorindustry expertise at the office level.As will be further elaborated in the next section, one would observe a positive aociation if the audits by large offices are of higher quality than the audits bysmall offices.Second, we also examine the aociation between the office size and audit fees.Previous research shows that audit quality is priced in the market (Choi et al.2008; Craswell et al.1995; Ferguson et al.2003 ; Francis et al.2005 ).To the extent that the office size is positivelyaociated with audit quality, one can predict that the larger is the office size, the higher is theaudit quality, and thus the greater is the audit fee.Therefore, a positive aociation between theoffice size and audit fees could be viewed as evidence corroborating the positive aociationbetween the office size and audit quality.In testing our hypotheses, we aert that biased earnings reporting can be used to drawinferences about audit quality, and we use the magnitude of abnormal accruals as a proxy for auditquality.To measure abnormal accruals, we rely on two alternative models developed by Ball andShivakumar(2006)and Kothari et al.(2005).In addition, we estimate the size of a local engage-ment office using the Audit Analytics database, which provides the identity of audit engagementoffices for all SEC registrant clients.We measure office size in two different ways: one based onthe number of audit clients in each office, and the other based on a total of audit fees earned byeach office.Briefly, our results reveal that in the U.S.audit market, both audit quality and audit fees arepositively aociated with office size after controlling for audit firm size at the national levelproxied by a Big 4 dummy variable , industry leadership at the local office level proxied by anindustry specialist dummy variable), and other relevant factors.These results are robust to abattery of sensitivity checks we perform.Our study contributes to the existing literature in several ways.First, our paper is one of fewstudies which document that audit quality is not homogeneous acro local offices within an auditfirm.To our knowledge, our paper is one of the first studies that provide direct evidence that thesize of an
audit
engagement
office
is
an
important engagement-specific determinant of auditquality in the U.S.The results of our study suggest that future research on audit quality differentiation needs to pay more attention to office-level auditor behavior as the unit of analysis and tothe size of a local engagement office.Second, this paper is the first to consider office size as acritical factor in audit pricing.Given that no previous research has examined whether audit feesare influenced by the size of a local office, our evidence helps us better understand the nature ofauditor-client relationships in the context of audit pricing.Finally, the findings in this study provide both regulators and practitioners with useful insightsinto what determines audit quality and thus audit fees.Our results suggest that regulators wouldhave a better aement of audit quality if they shift the level of quality comparison to smallversus large auditors at the office level, and away from Big 4 versus non-Big 4 auditors at thenational level.Economic theory on quality premiums claims that producing goods and services ofa uniform quality for various markets and consumers over time is crucial for maintaining qualitypremiums(e.g., Klein and Leffler 1981; Kreps and Wilson 1982 ; Shapiro 1983).Similarly, ourevidence suggests that large, Big 4 auditors should take care to maintain a similar level of auditquality acro offices of different sizes because a systematically poor-quality audit service per-formed by a local office could potentially cause damage to the reputation for the entire audit firm.HYPOTHESIS DEVELOPMENT Office Size and Audit Quality A growing body of audit research emphasizes the importance of analyzing the behavior ofauditors in city-based, local engagement offices.However, none of these studies has paid atten-tion to the size of a local office in the context of audit quality.Why does the office size matter inaudit quality over and beyond two well-known audit firm characteristics, i.e., audit firm size orbrand name(Big 4 versus non-Big 4) and industry expertise? In DeAngelo’s(1981b) framework, an auditor’s incentive to compromise audit quality withrespect to a particular client depends on the economic importance of the client relative to theauditor’s client portfolio.Her analysis indicates that large auditors are likely to provide higher-quality audit services to a particular client than small auditors because an auditor’s economicdependence on that client is negligible for large auditors, and large auditors have more to lose (i.e.,bear higher reputation lo ) in case of audit failures, compared with small auditors.DeAngelo’s(1981b) theory can also be applied to the analysis of audit quality differentiationbetween large versus small offices, because a local engagement office can be viewed as a semi-autonomous unit in terms of its audit decisions, client base, revenue sources, and other factors (Francis 2004; Francis et al.2006; Wallman 1996) .Large local offices are le likely to depend ona particular client than small local offices because the former have deeper office-level clientelesand thus are le economically dependent on a particular client.In other words, large offices arele likely to acquiesce to client preure for substandard reporting than small offices.Further, local offices, whether small or large, may not bear the full amount of reputationloes aociated with an audit failure because a substantial portion of the reputation loes arelikely borne by the national-level audit firm itself.While the reputation loes in the event of auditfailures are likely to be greater for large audit firms (DeAngelo1981b ), the loes are not necearily greater for large local offices than for small local offices, because these costs are morefirm-wide in nature rather than office-specific.This means that local offices may be more concerned with the economic importance of a particular client than a potential litigation risk fromaudit failures, in particular, when the offices are small in size.The above arguments lead us topredict that large local offices with relatively deep local clienteles are le likely to compromise audit quality with respect to a particular client, and thus that they are likely to provide higher-quality audit services, ceteris paribus, compared with small local offices with relatively thin localclienteles.In such a case, one would observe a positive aociation between office size and auditquality.We call this prediction the economic dependence perspective .SUMMARY AND CONCLUDING REMARKS While previous auditing research has examined whether and how audit fees and audit qualityare influenced by audit firm size at the national level and auditor industry leadership at both thenational level and the city level, this line of research has paid little attention to the effect of thesize of a local engagement office within an audit firm (i.e., office size) in the context of auditquality and audit pricing.Unlike previous research, the focus of this paper is on whether the officesize is an additional, engagement-specific factor determining audit quality and audit pricing overand beyond national-level audit firm size and office-level industry leadership.Our results can besummarized as follows.First, we find that the office size is positively aociated with audit quality proxied by un-signed abnormal accruals.Our finding is consistent with what we call the economic dependenceperspective: large (small) local offices with deep office-level clienteles are le (more) likely to depend on a particular client, and thus are better (le) able to resist client preure on substandardor biased reporting.Second, we find that large local offices are able to charge higher audit fees totheir clients than small ones, which is consistent with the view that large offices provide higher-quality audits than small offices, and this quality differential is priced as a fee premium in themarket for audit services.However, the above finding is at odds with the view that large officeshave a cost advantage in producing audit services of similar quality and thus are able to chargelower billing rates compared with small offices.Taken together, our results highlight that officesize is one of the most important engagement-specific determinants of audit quality and auditpricing.Last, while we use two alternative, advanced accrual models to alleviate a concern overthe limitations inherent in the Jones (1991) model estimates of abnormal accruals, our measures ofaudit quality, namely unsigned abnormal accruals, may suffer from nontrivial measurement errors.We therefore cannot completely rule out the poibility that the estimated coefficients on our testvariables are biased.However, given that a contemporaneous study of Francis and Yu (2009) documents the same positive aociation between audit quality and audit office size using twoadditional proxies for audit quality, i.e., auditors’ tendency to iue going-concern opinion andclient firms’ likelihood to meet earnings benchmarks, we believe that our results are unlikelydriven by poible measurement errors.Overall, our results suggest that both regulators and audit firms should pay more attention tothe behavior of small offices because they are more likely to be economically dependent on aparticular client, and thus to compromise audit quality.In particular, Big 4 audit firms may need toimplement strategies for providing a more homogenous level of audit services acro offices ofdifferent sizes because a poor-quality audit by a small office could significantly damage thereputation of the entire firm.In today’s global busine environment, the iue of maintaining“uniform quality” should be an even more important concern to reputable auditors because theirbusine becomes increasingly internationalized in terms of locations and client profiles.Forexample, it may be more difficult for Big 4 audit firms to maintain uniform quality of service atthe office level acro different jurisdictions around the world.Further, local offices in differentjurisdictions (e.g., European Union and China) have their own client bases and are likely to bemore autonomous in making audit-related decisions than those within the U.S.It is thereforepoible that the size of a local practicing office plays a more significant role in determining thequality of audit services in other non-U.S.jurisdictions than in the U.S.Given the scarcity ofinternational evidence regarding the effect of audit office size on audit quality and audit pricing,we recommend further research on the iue using international samples from different jurisdic-tions.审计办事处规模，审计质量与审计定价
Jong-Hag Choi, Chansog (Francis) Kim, Jeong-Bon Kim, and YoonseokZang 摘要：此论文使用2000-2005年间对美国审计事务所大量取样的所得数据，以此调查审计事务所中当地办事处规模大小对审计质量和审计价格。实证检验中，审计质量是由异常应计来衡量的，办事处规模则有两种衡量方法：一个是基于每个办事处的审计客户数量，另一个是基于每个办事处挣得的审计费用总额。调查结果显示，办事处规模大小对审计质量与审计费用都有着明显的正相关关系，即使控制了国家级审计公司的规模以及办公水平行业，结果也是如此。这正相关关系印证了规模大的本土办事处相对规模小的办事处来说，能过提供更高质量的审计。质量上的差异在审计市场中有价码的差别。 关键字：审计事务所，办事处规模，审计质量，审计定价 数据可用性：数据皆为公开可用，论文中有指明数据来源。
当我们把对事务所整体的分析转变为对特定的城市中的办事处的分析时，我们对审计事务所的看法同时也有了剧烈的变化。根据迪安哥罗在1981年的论证，当分析办事处规模时，四大会计师事务时也就没有那么大了。举例来说，如果安然公司代表安达信会计事务所上市客户小于2%的收入，那他代表的就是休斯敦办事处大于35%的利润。
简介
正如前文所说，相对于国家级办事处来说，市级审计办事处的规模对审计质量有着更为重要的决定作用。因为市级办事处是半自治的单位，在审计公司中有他专属的客户群。真正管理和执行审计委托合同（包括审计服务的交付和审核意见的发表）的并不是全国总部，而是办事处合作伙伴。就这点而言，威廉与弗兰西斯提出观点，审计独立性的评估需要更多地关注办事处的程度而不是整体公司的程度。因为特定客户的大多数的审计决定都是由单独的办事处制定的。由安达信会计师事务所休斯敦办事处所审计的安然集团的倒闭便是一个很好的例子，证明办事处级别的审计质量的重要性之高。然而，现在许多审计研究都把焦点集中于国家级审计公司的特点，认为两个审计质量基本的决定性因素是审计公司规模和审计行业领导。
研究发现，一般而言，拥有国际知名商标的大审计公司（比如四大）或是有行业专长的公司比非有名及缺乏行业专长的小公司拥有更高质量的审计服务。这个研究隐含的假设是同一公司在不同城市的不同规模的办事处的审计质量是平均的。因此，我们几乎没有收集到不同办事处的审计质量的差别，特别是本土办事处的规模是否影响到审计质量或是审计定价。所以有一个问题：办事处规模是不是决定审计质量的另一个因素因此审计定价比审计公司规模和行业领先地位的高。我们只在为这个还没解决的问题提供直接的证据。 最近有几项研究都提供直接证据证明同一公司的不同办事处的审计质量有所不同。例如，最初美国的雷诺和弗朗西斯使用单独的办事处作为研究的单位，他们发现当用具体办事处的客户来衡量客户规模时，“五大审计师对大客户更为谨慎。”此外，弗格森和弗朗西斯等发现，在澳大利亚和美国审计市场中，当市级行业领先水平与国家级领先水平联合时，审计收费是最高的。而单独国家级行业领先水平则没有这样的效果。随后，弗朗西斯等证实如果审计师是市级行业领导者或同时为国家级与市级领导水平时，非正常应计所代理的客户收益相对较高。换句话说，研究结果表明单独的国家级领先水平对审计质量没有特别显著的影响。最近，崔等人指出办事处与总部的地理集中程度和客户的应计质量成正相关，说明审计办事处的地理位置对审计质量是有决定性影响的。整合以上的发现，说明本地办事处规模对审计质量以及审计定价的决定起很重要的作用。这里需要指出的是，尽管如此，却没有研究者关注过本地办事处的规模是否与审计质量以及审计收费有系统性联系这个问题。
为了填补这一知识空缺，我们决定调查这个迄今还未被研究过的问题，即办事处规模是否与审计质量和定价有关系以及如何联系。首先我们假设办事处规模与审计质量有系统性关联，即使控制了国家标准的审计公司规模和行业专长这两个变量。如果大公司的审计质量比小公司高，则说明是正相关关联，这我们在下文会做进一步阐述。接着，我们还检验了办事处规模与审计定价之间的关系。之前有研究指出审计质量在市场上被标价。办事处规模与审计质量正相关，以此来看，我们可以推测，办事处规模越大，审计质量越高，因此审计费用也会越多。所以，我们可以由办事处规模和审计定价的正相关关系推出办事处规模和审计质量的正相关关系。
为了检验之前的假设，我们用有偏向性的收益报告来作关于审计质量的推论，另外我们用非正常应计的级数来代表审计质量。衡量非正常应计时，我们使用由保尔和库玛和科萨里等人开发的两个备择模型。此外，我们用审计分析数据库来估量本地办事处的规模，此数据库为美国证券交易委员会注册的客户提供审计办事处的身份认证。
衡量办事处规模大小的方法有多种，一种是基于每个办事处的审计客户数量，另一种是基于每个办事处所挣得的审计费用。
简单来说，研究结果指出在美国的审计市场，（控制审计公司规模为国家标准，行业领先水准为国家标准以及其他相关因素）审计质量和审计费用都与办事处规模呈正相关。这样的结果与我们所做的一连串灵敏度测试一致。
我们的研究完善了现存的文献，体现在几方面。第一，该论文论证了同一审计公司的不同办事处的审计质量并不是相同的。就我们所知，在美国，我们的论文是最先有直接证据证明审计办事处的规模是决定审计质量的重要因素。研究结果指出，今后有关审计质量差异的研究应多关注办事处审计师行为以及本地办事处的规模。其次，本文最先提出办事处规模是影响审计定价的关键因素。先前从未有研究验证审计费用是否被本地办事处规模所影响，我们的证据可以让人们更好地了解在审计定价下审计师与客户的关系。
最后，该研究结果为调查者和从业者提供了实用的关于审计质量和审计定价的见解。我们的研究结果建议调查者如果把质量等级比较改为大小公司审计员之分的比较，则该有一个更好的对于审计质量的评估。质量溢价的经济理论要求为不同的市场提供统一质量的产品和服务，消费者始终是维持质量溢价的关键。同样的，我们的证据显示，四大会计师行应该在不同规模的办事处维持相近水准的审计质量，因为一个当地办事处所犯的系统性低质量的服务错误能导致整个审计公司的名誉损失。
假说发展
越来越多的审计调查强调在本地公司或当地办事处工作的审计师的分析行为的重要性。但是，却没有一份调查是关注当地办事处规模大小背景下的审计质量。为什么公司规模对审计质量的影响超过另外两种著名审计公司的特征，也就是审计公司的品牌（四大和非四大）和工业的专门技能。
在迪安哥拉的体系中，一个审计师的动机对于审计质量的妥协是关于个别客户的经济意义决定并且和审计师的客户的投资组合有关。他的分析指出高级审计师比低级审计师更倾向于提供更高质量的审计服务给个别客户。因为对于审计师来说，他的经济观受客户的影响是可以忽略不计的，还有相比于低级审计师来说，高级审计师有更多可以去输（比方说，承受更高荣誉的损失）以防审计失误。 迪安哥拉的理论还可以应用于造成大公司和小公司之间的审计质量的不同。因为当地的审计公司根据它的审计决定，客户群，收入来源还有其它事实可以看做是一个半自治的联盟。大的审计公司相对于小的审计公司来说更没可能依靠某些个别的客户因为前者有更为广泛的客户源，因此在经济上依赖个别客户的可能性更小。换言之，大公司更不可能像小公司一样在个别客户的施压下默认一些不符合标准的报告。
更进一步的说，本地审计公司，不管是大的还是小的，都不想因为审计失误而承受全部名誉的损失因为对于国家级别的公司来说它们只是更可能只是损失了一部分的名誉。万一因为审计失误发生荣誉损失，对于大公司来说更容易承受，这样的损失对大公司来说更好承担一些。因为这些代价对于特定的某些公司和一些大公司来说是不一样的。特别来说，这就意味着当地公司的规模比较小的时候会更多的考虑个别客户的经济的重要性而不是潜在可能造成官司的审计失误。上面的讨论可以让我们预测，在其它条件相同时，相对于客源小的公司，有一定的大范围的客户的大审计公司是更不可能对某些个别的客户在审计质量上由于尊重而妥协。因此他们更可能提供高水准的审计服务。在这种情况下，客户会对公司规模大小和审计质量产生乐观的联系。我们把这称之为经济信赖观点。
总结与评注
前面所述调研主要研究国家级审计办事处规模和市级或国家级的审计行业趋势是否对审计费用和审计质量造成影响，以及如何影响。此处声明，在审计质量和审计费用一定的情况下，此研究不考虑审计公司内部审计部门的影响。此论文主要探究办事处规模是否是除国家级审计公司规模和公司级审计行业标准外，影响审计质量和审计费用的一个额外的、有条件的因素。
首先，我们发现办事处的规模大小是与审计质量正相关,表现为无符号的异常收益。这个结果于我们所说的经济意义相一致；拥有忠实的公司级客户群的高级（或低级）办事处很少依赖于个别几个客户，因此，这些办事处就很少因为客户施压而虚假上报。其次，我们发现当地的高级办事处收费比小型的办事处要高。这也是和我们发现的高级办事处的审计质量普遍要高于小型办事处的结论，同时这种高质量的服务在市场上是作为审计溢价计算的。但是，以上结论却于另一种理论相矛盾。该理论认为大型办事处的优势在于提供与小型办事处相似的服务却有更高的收费，因而计费费率也较低。总而言之，我们的结论强调办事处规模是影响审计质量和审计费用的其中一个重要因素。最后一点，当我们使用这两种可互换的先进模型来减少在琼斯模型中对不正常收益的估计缺陷时，我们可能犯了一些很重要的计算错误。因此，我们无法排除在测试中所估算出的系数有偏差的可能性。但是，在根据Francis 和Yu的论述：审计质量和审计办事处规模成正相关，也就是说，审计师将越来越关注这两者的关系同时客户公司也将从中获取不少好处。我们自信这个结论没有任何破绽。
总的来说，我们的结论是：鉴于个别客户对小型审计办事处来说，经济意义更大，通常这类公司会更加注重审计质量。因此，审计监察部门和审计公司应该多加关注小型办事处的相关做法，从而提高自身的审计质量。特别是四大会计师事务所在处理相似的审计服务时，更应该实施跨规模的措施，因为任何一个审计部门的审计失误都将使公司名声扫地。在全球化的今天，各大跨国公司遍布全球各地，拥有国际化的客户，保障“始终如一的高质服务”是所有跨国公司的高级审计师越来越关注的问题。例如，由于各会计事务所所在国家或地区的不同，所需遵循的司法体系也有很大不同，如何在这样的环境中“保持始终如一的高质服务”对四大会计师事务所来说无疑是一种挑战。再者，处于不同司法体系下的事务所又拥有不同的客户群，这些事务所在制定审计方法方面需要比在美国当地的分公司有更大的自主权。因此，当地事务所对审计质量的影响可能要比在美国相同规模的事务所大。鉴于，国际上很少有人论证审计办事处规模对审计质量和审计费用的影响，我们希望大家能从这个角度共同来探究不同体系下的国际案例。
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