Big 4 Auditors and Audit Quality in Non-Listed Companies
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digitales archiv ZBW – Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics Matonti, Gaetano Book Big 4 auditors and audit quality in non-listed companies Provided in Cooperation with: Open Access Documents This Version is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/11159/4536 Kontakt/Contact ZBW – Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft/Leibniz Information Centre for Economics Düsternbrooker Weg 120 24105 Kiel (Germany) E-Mail: [email protected] https://www.zbw.eu/econis-archiv/ Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Dieses Dokument darf zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken This document may be saved and copied for your personal und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie and scholarly purposes. You are not to copy it for public or dürfen dieses Dokument nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle commercial purposes, to exhibit the document in public, to Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, aufführen, vertreiben perform, distribute or otherwise use the document in public. If oder anderweitig nutzen. Sofern für das Dokument eine Open- the document is made available under a Creative Commons Content-Lizenz verwendet wurde, so gelten abweichend von diesen Licence you may exercise further usage rights as specified in Nutzungsbedingungen die in der Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. the licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/it/deed.it Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft zbw Leibniz Information Centre for Economics 10365.13_365.1049 29/03/18 11:22 Pagina 1 10365.13 G. Matonti BIG 4 AUDITORS AND AUDIT QUALITY IN NON-LISTED COMPANIES This research monograph aims to investigate audit quality in Italian non- Gaetano Matonti listed companies. More specifically, it addresses the question of whether Big 4 auditors perform high-quality audit in non-listed companies. The key findings are that (i) Big 4 auditors provide high-quality audit compared to other auditors in terms of both accounting and real earnings management; BIG 4 AUDITORS (ii) such auditors are more independent than other auditors. The findings provide an analysis of the drivers of real and accrual-based earnings mana- AND AUDIT QUALITY gement, thereby producing some compelling evidence on audit quality in the context of the Italian non-listed companies. IN NON-LISTED COMPANIES Gaetano Matonti is a Researcher of Accounting at the Department of Mana- Empirical Evidence gement & Innovation Systems, the University of Salerno. His research skills are in evidence in the fields of financial and management accounting, with a parti- from Italy cular emphasis on audit quality, earnings management detection models, acti- vity-based costing in the healthcare organizations. He was visiting researcher at University of West of England and he has joint research with Prof. Jon Tucker of University of West of England – Bristol, UK. FrancoAngeli La passione per le conoscenze Il presente volume è pubblicato in open access, ossia il file dell’intero lavoro è liberamente scaricabile dalla piattaforma FrancoAngeli Open Access (http://bit.ly/francoangeli-oa). FrancoAngeli Open Access è la piattaforma per pubblicare articoli e mono- grafie, rispettando gli standard etici e qualitativi e la messa a disposizione dei contenuti ad accesso aperto. Oltre a garantire il deposito nei maggiori archivi e repository internazionali OA, la sua integrazione con tutto il ricco catalogo di riviste e collane FrancoAngeli massimizza la visibilità, favorisce facilità di ricerca per l’utente e possibilità di impatto per l’autore. Per saperne di più: http://www.francoangeli.it/come_pubblicare/pubblicare_19.asp I lettori che desiderano informarsi sui libri e le riviste da noi pubblicati possono consultare il nostro sito Internet: www.francoangeli.it e iscriversi nella home page al servizio “Informatemi” per ricevere via e-mail le segnalazioni delle novità. Copyright © 2018 by FrancoAngeli s.r.l., Milano, Italy. ISBN 9788891772985 COPY 15,5X23 1-02-2016 8:56 Pagina 1 Gaetano Matonti BIG 4 AUDITORS AND AUDIT QUALITY IN NON-LISTED COMPANIES Empirical Evidence from Italy Università di PISA, 15-16 settembre 2016 Copyright © 2018 by FrancoAngeli s.r.l., Milano, Italy. ISBN 9788891772985 Il presente volume è stampato con il contributo del Dipartimento di Scienze Aziendali-MIS dell’Università di Salerno. Copyright © 2018 by FrancoAngeli s.r.l., Milano, Italy. Pubblicato con licenza Creative Commons Attribuzione-Non Commerciale-Non opere derivate 3.0 Italia (CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0 IT) L’opera, comprese tutte le sue parti, è tutelata dalla legge sul diritto d’autore. L’Utente nel momento in cui effettua il download dell’opera accetta tutte le condizioni della licenza d’uso dell’opera previste e comunicate sul sito http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/it/legalcode Copyright © 2018 by FrancoAngeli s.r.l., Milano, Italy. ISBN 9788891772985 To my father To my family Copyright © 2018 by FrancoAngeli s.r.l., Milano, Italy. ISBN 9788891772985 Copyright © 2018 by FrancoAngeli s.r.l., Milano, Italy. ISBN 9788891772985 TABLE OF CONTENT Book Review p. 9 Acknowledgements » 13 Preface » 15 PART ONE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ON AUDITING 1. Introduction » 19 1.1. Background and research motivations » 19 1.2. The structure of the research » 21 2. The Auditing theories » 23 2.1. The Auditing » 23 2.2. The demand for an audit » 25 2.2.1 The Agency theory » 26 2.2.2. Other theories explaining the demand for an audit » 28 2.3. The role of the auditing » 30 2.4. The Auditor incentives in performing audit quality » 33 3. Audit Quality » 37 3.1. Preface » 37 3.2. The perception of the auditing: the Audit Expectation gap » 38 3.3. The definition of Audit quality » 40 3.3.1. The Level of assurance of financial statements » 42 7 Copyright © 2018 by FrancoAngeli s.r.l., Milano, Italy. ISBN 9788891772985 3.3.2. The Level of compliance with accounting stand- ards p. 43 3.3.3. Financial reporting quality » 44 3.3.4. The Francis framework on audit quality » 44 3.3.5. Other definitions of audit quality » 45 3.4. The measurement of Audit quality » 46 PART TWO THE EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS 4. The Audit quality in non-listed Italian companies » 53 4.1. The auditing in non-listed companies » 53 4.2. The Italian auditing environment for non-listed compa- nies » 57 4.3. The research hypotheses » 61 4.3.1. The auditor’s competence in detecting earnings management » 62 4.3.2. The auditor independence » 67 5. The Research methodology » 72 5.1. Sample selection » 72 5.2. Definition of earnings management and earnings man- agement techniques » 74 5.2.1. The estimation of accruals-based earnings man- agement » 77 5.2.2. The estimation of real activity-based earnings management » 81 5.3. Hypothesis test: the empirical models » 85 5.3.1. Auditor’s competence (H1) » 85 5.3.2. Auditor’s independence (H2) » 92 5.4. Descriptive statistics » 96 5.5. Correlation analysis » 99 5.6. Hypotheses test and discussion » 103 5.6.1. Earnings management activities and auditor’s competence (H1a and H2b) » 103 5.6.2. Auditor independence (H2a and H2b) » 109 6. Conclusions » 113 References » 117 8 Copyright © 2018 by FrancoAngeli s.r.l., Milano, Italy. ISBN 9788891772985 BOOK REVIEW “Big 4 Auditors and Audit Quality in Non-Listed Companies: Empirical Evidence from Italy”, Dr. Gaetano Matonti This research monograph aims to investigate audit quality in Italian non- listed companies. More specifically, it addresses the question of whether Big 4 auditors perform high-quality audit in non-listed companies. The key find- ings are that (i) Big 4 auditors provide high-quality audit compared to other auditors in terms of both accounting and real earnings management; (ii) such auditors are more independent than other auditors. The introduction in Chapter 1 provides a useful context for the topic of audit quality as it applies to non-listed companies, and to the Italian setting, as well as explaining the structure of the monograph. Chapter 2 outlines the theoretical framework of auditing with reference to the rich literature in this field. It commences with the broad theoretical and legal context, and goes on to explain well the demand for an audit, grounded upon agency theory but extended into the wider theoretical discussion. Based on this, the role of auditing as a key monitoring mechanism for stakeholders is clearly explained, extended with reference to the information and insur- ance hypotheses, as well as its inherent impact on management efficiency. The chapter goes on to explore the incentives of auditors themselves to per- form a quality audit with reference to both auditor independence and com- petence, under the pressures of potential litigation, reputation and regulatory risk. The monograph provides some insightful context here to account for the particular characteristics of the non-listed company. Chapter 3 provides an examination of the concept of audit quality. Percep- tions of auditing are very well explained in terms of the audit expectations gap and the desire of auditors to prove their credibility though their duties and 9 Copyright © 2018 by FrancoAngeli s.r.l., Milano, Italy. ISBN 9788891772985 responsibilities. Audit quality is then defined which is itself a complex task given competing definitions and schools of thought in the extant literature. The chapter provides some excellent synthesis here with regard to the level of as- surance of the financial statements and the level of compliance with account- ing standards, in addition to the strict legal view on what constitutes audit fail- ure or otherwise, and alternative views on audit quality drivers. Once the con- cept of audit quality is firmly established, the chapter then logically turns to the measurement of audit quality. The chapter discusses both input and output based measures of such quality in a structured and useful manner, going on to explore the particular context of non-listed companies. Chapter 4 examines audit quality in non-listed Italian companies by first of all explaining the specific nature and characteristics of non-listed companies, and then adding the Italian context which has some fascinating legal, institu- tional and accountability attributes.