内部控制审计中存在审计意见购买行为吗?——来自中国上市公司内部控制审计的经验证据

Does Audit Opinion Shopping Exist in the Internal Control Audit? ——Empirical Evidence from Internal Control Audit of China's Listed Companies

内部控制审计是监管层规范公司内部控制并保障投资者利益的一项重要监管措施和制度安排,然而由于内部控制审计意见的形成具有不可预测性,从而给内部控制审计意见购买带来便利。研究发现:中国的内部控制审计中存在一定程度的审计意见购买行为,且在非国有控股企业中更加显著。升级高行业专长审计师可以抑制内部控制审计意见购买行为。进一步分析发现内部控制审计师并不能帮助公司修正内部控制缺陷,说明内控审计意见的改善存在审计意见购买行为。研究增加了中国内部控制审计意见购买的经验证据,同时对投资者和监管层的投资决策和制定监管政策具有一定的现实意义和参考价值。

Internal control audit is an important regulatory measure and institutional arrangement for the administrator level to regulate internal control of the company and to safeguard the interests of the investors. However,due to the unpredictability in the formation of the internal control audit opinions,it is conducive to the occurrence of internal control opinion shopping. The empirical results suggest that there does exist certain scope of audit opinions shopping in China’s internal audit control,and it is more significant in non-stateowned companies. The shopping behavior can be restrained by upgrading high auditor industry specialization. Further analysis finds that internal control auditor can not help the company to correct internal control deficiencies,which shows that there is audit opinion shopping in the improvement of internal audit control. This paper enriches the empirical evidence for internal control opinion shopping in China and is also of great realistic significance and reference value for investors and regulators to make investment decisions and formulate relevant policies.