基于质量控制和客户关系双重视角的审计项目负责人更换分析

Audit Partner Rotation Analysis from the Perspectives of Audit Quality Control and Client Relationship

文章考察了会计师事务所配置审计业务项目负责人过程中所考虑的因素。基于中国上市公司审计业务项目负责人的数据,我们发现上市公司审计项目负责人没有按照质量控制的原则进行更换,表现为低审计质量、审计质量出现下滑,以及出具过松审计意见的项目负责人没有被及时更换。进一步地,文章从客户关系的视角探讨了事务所未出于质量控制的考虑更换审计质量较差的项目负责人的原因。文章发现,客户关系较强的项目负责人被更换的概率显著低于关系较弱的项目负责人。这说明项目负责人—客户关系是事务所没有合理更换低质量项目负责人的原因之一。文章的结果表明,会计师事务所对市场竞争的关注大过对审计质量的把控,尽最大努力留住客户才是其最重要的目标。

This paper investigates factors considered in the process of the allocation of audit partners in accounting firms. Based on the data of audit partners of listed companies in China, this paper concludes that audit partners of listed companies do not change in accord- ance with the principle of quality control, namely partners with low audit quality, declining audit quality or loose audit opinions do not timely change. Furthermore, from the perspective of client relationship, this paper discusses the reasons for the phenomenon that partners with poor audit quality do not change in accordance with quality control. It comes to the conclu- sion that the change rates of partners with strong client relationship are significantly lower than the ones of partners with weak client relationship, showing that partners-client relation- ship provides a reason for no reasonable change of partners with low audit quality. It indi- cates that the attention to market competition is greater than audit quality control in account- ing firms, and to make the greatest efforts to retain clients is their most important aim.