事务所转制是否影响审计定价策略——来自我国上市公司的经验证据

Will the Change of Organizational Form Affect the Audit Pricing Strategy——Empirical evidence from Chinese listed companies

本文以我国财政部推动的会计师事务所向"特殊普通合伙组织形式"转制契机,采用事务所转制前后审计的同批客户公司为样本,探究事务所转制是否影响审计定价策略。研究发现:整体而言,事务所转制后的审计费用率没有显著上升,即转制并未普遍增加公司审计费用负担;然而,针对高风险客户的审计费用率在转制后显著上升,尤其是在转制导致法律责任直接强化的合伙人审计中,而且这在本土事务所或法制建设水平较高的地区更加明显;但针对低风险客户的审计定价策略,则不存在上述变化。就此而言,"特殊普通合伙"转制增强了事务所的法律责任与风险意识,优化了审计定价策略,这将有助于改善我国审计市场竞争环境,促进会计师事务所持续做大做强,推动审计行业的长期健康发展。

China＇s Ministry of Finance has drived audit firms to shift the organizational form to the pattern of Limited Liability Partnership （LLP）. Under such condition, this paper investigated the effect of LLP changing on audit pri- cing strategy, after sampling listed companies with same audit firms. It finds that the ratio of audit fee doesn＇t rise significantly after the LLP changing program, which means that companies do not face an overall increase in audit fee. However, ratios of audit fee of high-risk clients rise significantly afterwards, especially where audit partners＇ le- gal liabilities are enhaced directly because of the organizational change. This phenomenon is obvious in local audit firms or in areas with good legal conditions. But ratios of audit fee of low-risk clients don＇t change. For that matter, audit firms＇ legal liability and risk awareness are both strengthened by the LLP changing program. What is more, the improvement of audit pricing strategy would improve competition environment of our audit market, then audit firms would be bigger and stronger so as to promote the sustainable development of audit profession.