控制权转让交易中的审计师声誉选择——来自中国A股上市公司的经验证据

On the Choice of Auditor Reputation during Corporate Control Transfer Deals: Empirical Evidences from China's A-Share Listed Corporations

在控制权转让过程中,审计师是决定交易成败的重要因素。以2007-2013年的控制权转让交易为研究样本,基于管理层自利的视角,对控制权转让交易中的审计师声誉选择成因进行实证研究。结果发现,受到自利动机的影响,管理层在控制权转让交易中存在着操纵审计师选聘的情况;在充分考虑了与审计师间的信任关系、信息优势以及市场反应之后,管理层更倾向于选择与年度审计声誉相近的审计师;当管理层收到非标准意见的年度审计报告后,将会丧失对审计师的信任,并且漠视由于审计师声誉变更而引起的不良市场反应,转而重视信息优势,进而在交易中选择更低声誉的审计师。研究结果为规范和监督上市公司的审计师选聘过程提供了理论依据。

Auditors are important fa ctors in the process of corporate control transfer that could determine whether the deal is a success or not. With the corporate control transfer deals from 2007 to 2013 as the research samples, from the perspective of management self-interest motivation, this paper conducts an empirical study of the causes of auditor reputation choice in the corporate control transfer deals. The results indicate that management may manipulate the choice of auditors in the control transfer deals under the influence of self-interest motivation. After full considerations are given to the trust relationship with auditors, the information superiority and the market reaction, management are more inclined to choose the auditors with close reputation in annual audits. Once the management receives the non-standard annual audit report, it will lose its faith in the auditors, ignore the adverse market reaction due to the changes of auditor reputation and concern more about information superiority, and then choose the auditors with lower reputation in the deals. The results of the study can provide theoretical basis for the regulation and supervision of the process of choosing auditors for listed companies.