School of Accounting, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu, China.
School of Accounting, Chongqing Technology and Business University, Chongqing, China.
PLoS One. 2022 Nov 10;17(11):e0277567. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0277567. eCollection 2022.
In this study, we examine how the prosocial ethical culture in audit firms, measured as their philanthropic contributions over gross revenues, influences auditor independence. Using 5,246 audits in the Chinese market between 2010 and 2012, we find that the level of ethical culture in audit firms is significantly negatively associated with the magnitude of earnings management and the frequencies of financial restatements of their client firms. We also find this association is even stronger when auditors provide services to clients that are economically important or when signing auditors bear school ties with at least one top executive of the client. Further evidence show that the ethical culture can both act as a mechanism that attract auditors with a compatible internal norm, and great a group norm in audit firms that directly shape auditor behavior. Collectively, our study suggests that ethical culture of audit firms can significantly improve auditor independence.
在这项研究中，我们考察了审计公司的亲社会伦理文化（以其总收入衡量的慈善贡献来衡量）如何影响审计师的独立性。我们使用了 2010 年至 2012 年间中国市场的 5246 次审计，发现审计公司的伦理文化水平与客户公司的盈余管理程度和财务重述频率呈显著负相关。我们还发现，当审计师为经济上重要的客户提供服务，或当签字审计师与客户的至少一位高管有学校关系时，这种关联更为强烈。进一步的证据表明，伦理文化既可以作为一种机制，吸引具有相容内部规范的审计师，也可以在审计公司中形成一种直接影响审计师行为的群体规范。总的来说，我们的研究表明，审计公司的伦理文化可以显著提高审计师的独立性。
