Do Key Audit Matters Resolve Investors’ Concern over Audit Quality? Evidence from Auditor Changes in U.K.

• Main Authors: CHIEN, YU-CHIA, 簡鈺家
• Other Authors: CHIU, HSIEN-LIAN
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2019
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/9nyfnv

碩士 === 國立中正大學 === 會計與資訊科技研究所 === 107 === Using a sample drawn from companies listed in LSE, this study is to investigate whether auditor changes lead to concerns among investors and whether key audit matters resolve those concerns. Although we do not find that auditor changes lower earnings response coefficients for the full sample, our results show that earnings response coefficients decrease for downward-switching companies (switch from Big4 to non-Big4 auditors), suggesting that perceived audit quality gets worse after downward auditor switch. In addition, we do not find that key audit matters help resolve concerns due to auditor changes. However, our partial evidence indicates that the decrease of earnings response coefficients for downward-switching companies is more severe after key audit matters are required in the audit reports. It suggests that investors may discover potential deficiencies of non-Big4 successor auditors through the contents of key audit matters. Collectively, our results may shed light for the regulators to consider expand and enhance the information contained in key audit matters.