• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.8
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• pp.61-67
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• 2020

This paper examines whether the combination of risk management and audit committee functions are associated with audit report lag. Audit report lag is considered an important aspect of the financial reporting. The financial reports are the main source of information for shareholders through which they make their decisions and it assists in reducing the information asymmetry. As the internal control mechanisms substitute the external ones, the internal board committees formed by the board of directors can reduce the audit work and, consequently, reduces the audit report lag. A key committee is the risk management committee. This paper examines whether the combination of risk management and audit committee functions are associated with audit report lag. We posit that a combination of such functions in one committee refereed as audit committee affects the audit report delay. Data were obtained from 198 manufacturing companies listed on the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) for the years 2016-2018. A pooled OLS regression analysis shows that a combination of risk management and audit committee functions in a stand-alone committee named "audit committee" is associated with longer audit report lag. The outcomes suggest companies should prioritize the establishment of standalone risk management committee with activities separated from those of audit committees.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.37-40
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• 2015

Purpose - Investors, creditors, governments, and others make decisions using reasonable information provided by others. In many cases, the users of this information have goals and objectives conflicting with those of the information's producers, indicating the need for external auditors. Research design, data, and methodology - Competition in auditing has noticeably intensified globally, especially in developed countries. This means that auditors are striving to increase the efficiency of their methods. In recent years, risk-based auditing has become prominent among these efforts. In risk-assessment auditing, the auditor may directly affect the effectiveness and efficiency of the audit. Results - As a central framework, the risk assessment process improves audit quality and effectiveness such that the audit will lead to necessary changes. Previous studies have shown that risk assessment affects the nature, timing, and content of audit procedures. Conclusions - In the planning stage of an audit, audit risk assessment may identify any inappropriate or inefficient distribution of resources or determine whether the results of an audit will be ineffective or incorrect. Thus, assessing audit risk is a critical task.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.202-209
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• 2022

This study investigates the association between corporate international diversification and audit fees and audit hours. Korean firms' overseas investment has rapidly increased in recent years and the trend of international diversification is expected to accelerate in the future. Thus, it is important to investigate how auditors respond to globally diversified firms. Our empirical findings show that internationally diversified firms incur higher audit fees and audit hours. This suggests that auditors perceive global diversification as being a higher business risk and require higher external audit fees so that they can decrease audit risk arising from inherent organizational complexity. Further, auditors expand audit procedures to collect more audit evidences, exerting increased audit effort. This study provides empirical evidences that corporate global diversification results in higher audit fees and audit hours. Auditors may refer to these results when planning their audit and determining audit fees and audit hours.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.89-97
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• 2020

This study was conducted to examine how independent audit firms in Vietnam understand and use risk based audit approach (RBAA) in audit practice. To answer the research questions, the researchers used primary and secondary data collected from 2018 to 2019. The results from the interview survey showed that audit firms were aware of the advantages of adopting RBAA. However, RBAA is practiced to a moderate extent by audit firms in Vietnam. Big 4 audit firms use RBAA more popularly than Non-Big 4 audit firms. The causes of the difference are the disadvantages of adopting RBAA and client's characteristics such as relevant guideline, audit fees, auditors' knowledge and experience. Besides, the study investigated factors impacting on the RBAA adoption by distributing a questionnaire to 246 auditors of 126 audit firms in Vietnam. A set of statistical appropriate methods where used through SPSS software version 22.0. The results indicated that there were six factors influencing RBAA adoption including: Auditor's ability, Technological development, Audit fees, auditors' motivation, Audit time and client's risk. Of which, auditor's ability and technological development are factors that have the most significant and positive impacts on the adoption of RBAA. Additional implications were argued in the final section of this study.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.9-17
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• 2020

This study examines the effect of financial reporting opacity and audit quality on stock price crash risk using listed firms in Japan. This study is the first research to examine the effect of financial reporting opacity on crash risk using a Japanese listed company. Furthermore, the effect of audit quality on crash risk is verified. High level auditors can mitigate crash risk by playing a role as a corporate governance device mechanism to reduce agency costs. We use a logistic regression and linear regression model to test whether financial reporting opacity and audit quality affect crash risk using listed firms in the Japanese stock exchange market during the fiscal years 2015 January through 2017 February. The results of this study suggest that the financial reporting opacity variable shows a positive relationship with CRASH, which states that a firm with more opaque financial reporting increases crash risk. The results suggest also that the firms audited by Big4 auditors experience less crash risk, implying that the audit quality in Japan can be one of the factors mitigating firm's crash risk. This study provides implications for financial reporting and audit quality to external stakeholders who wants to avoid losses.

• Journal of East Asia Management
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.23-51
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• 2023

We investigate whether the association between management overconfident tone and the level of audit effort measured by audit fees and hours differs depending on the level of earnings management. Prior studies suggest that firms led by overconfident managers are likely to initiate risky investments, report low quality financial statements, and have material weaknesses in internal control system. These characteristics, combined together, result in higher audit risk. At the same time, auditors assess audit risk based on the quality of financial reporting, measured by level of earnings management. As a result, the assess audit risk is likely to reflect the combined effect of management overconfidence and the level of earnings management. In this paper, we investigate whether auditors differentiate the effects of real earnings management (REM) and accrual-based earnings management (AEM) when they assess the audit risk related management overconfident. Using the CEO's letter published in 2018, we measure the CEO's tone representing the degree of overconfidence (i.e., activity). Based on this measure, we find that the positive association between managerial overconfident tone and audit effort is more pronounced as the level of REM is higher. However, we find that the baseline association does not vary depending on the level of AEM. These results suggest that auditors consider the managerial overconfident severer when such characteristic accompany the higher level of REM, which can be outcome of aggressive business decisions possibly leading to the higher audit risks. We further find that these results are stronger for Big 4 auditors and continuing auditors. This paper contributes to the literature and practice as follows. First, we provide contextual evidence on how auditors reflect managerial characteristics in the audit process by documenting that auditors actively increase their audit efforts only when overconfident managerial characteristics are highly likely to lead to audit risk. This result suggests that auditors conduct external auditing considering both the efficiency and effectiveness of the audit process. Second, we suggest that auditors use information obtained from a wide range of sources to identify audit risks. Our results provide evidence of how the auditing standards, which do not provide detailed guidelines for audit risk assessment, are being applied in practice. Finally, our results also enhance the understanding of how audit fees are determined. Combined with the studies related to audit pricing, we provide the important reference for discussion between the auditor and the auditee about the audit fee that has created acute tension after the enforcement of the new External Audit Act.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.343-352
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• 2021

This study aims to identify the impact of the audit approach based on business risks (i.e., external environment risk, operations risk, information risk) in reducing unsystematic risks (i.e., operational risk, credit risk, liquidity risk, capital risk, and administrative risk) in Jordanian banks. To reduce the effect of unsystematic risks and, thus, improve banking performance, an audit approach based on business risks has emerged. To achieve the objectives, this study relied on descriptive statistics and the regression approach to study twenty-five Jordanian banks. The researcher used the intentional sampling method represented by employees of the accounting, financial and control departments in Jordanian banks. Seventeen banks contributed to the study, with a percentage of 68%, totaling 356 employees. A questionnaire was designed to obtain the data, and due to homogeneity among the sampling members, a purposive sample was drawn and 300 questionnaires were distributed. The results of the study found a statistically significant effect of the audit approach based on business risks with its combined dimensions on reducing unsystematic risks in Jordanian banks. The results of the study also found a statistically significant effect of the business risk-based audit approach with its combined dimensions on reducing operational risks in Jordanian banks.

• Journal of Convergence for Information Technology
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.111-118
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• 2022

This study is an analysis of auditor's response to audit risk. Specifically, audit risk is measured by the amount of correction of the current financial statements, and auditor's response is measured by the rate of change of audit hour in next auditing. The amount of correction can be viewed as audit risk recognized by auditor because the degree of auditor's correction will increase as the company's financial statement preparation ability is lower or the profit management amount is larger. Auditor's response is measured as the rate of change of audit hour because audit risk would be incorporated in audit plan. Although auditing is performed by a team, auditor's response would differ depending on their roles. It is expected the leaders who establish the audit plan and manage the audit quality would respond more sensitively to audit risk than the other auditors. The results show that when the amount of correction is greater than a certain level, auditors recognize it as audit risk and increase total(and leaders') audit hour in next year audit.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.7
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• pp.525-532
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• 2021

This study examines the association between a firm's business strategy and audit report lags. This study employs 5,072 firm-year observations from 2015 to 2019. Our sample comprises all of the firms listed on the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) market and Korea Securities Dealers Automated Quotation (KOSDAQ). We perform OLS regression analysis to test our hypothesis. The OLS regression analysis was conducted through the SAS and STATA programs. We find that business strategy is positively associated with audit report lags. Especially, we find that defender firms are negatively associated with audit report lags. The findings of this study suggest that prospector-like firms would increase their performance uncertainty as well as audit risk. Therefore, prospector-like firms interfere with the efficient audit procedures of auditors. On the other hand, our findings indicate that defender-like firms would decrease their performance uncertainty as well as an audit risk because they focus on simple product lines and cost-efficiency. For this reason, auditors will be able to carry out the audit procedures much more easily. Our results present that a prospector-like business strategy degrades audit effectiveness as it exacerbates a company's financial risk, willingness to accept uncertainty, and the complexity of organizational structure.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.593-604
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• 2022

This study examines how auditors respond to labor investment inefficiency, specifically its impact on audit fees and audit hours. Using a sample of Korean firms listed on the Korea Stock Exchange from 2003 to 2018, our empirical results indicate that firms involved in inefficient investment in labor incur higher audit fees and audit hours. This implies that auditors consider inefficient labor investment to cause considerable business risk, thus requesting higher external audit fees to compensate for higher audit risk. Furthermore, auditors expend more time and effort while auditing those firms by expanding the audit procedures to reduce the audit risk to an acceptable level. Finally, this study provides empirical evidence on whether the investment inefficiency in labor, an important factor in firms' competitiveness, incur higher audit fees as well as audit hours.