关键审计事项:上市公司审计师责任感知与披露决策的实证分析

Critical Auditing:An Empirical Analysis of Auditor s Responsibility Perception and Disclosure Decision

关键审计事项准则自2018年1月1日起在A股上市公司中全面实施,审计师的应对策略成为各方关注的焦点。使用A股上市公司2017年报数据发现,公司的应计盈余管理水平或真实盈余管理水平越高,审计师披露的关键审计事项个数越多、篇幅越长;进一步验证发现,关键审计事项段篇幅越长,财务分析师的预测误差也越大;说明关键审计事项段的特征已经成为公司信息披露质量的“晴雨表”,审计师在做出披露决策时,考虑了公司的信息披露质量或经营中存在的问题,并非“人云亦云”。通过进一步考察发现,面对公司的盈余管理水平,关键审计事项段的披露并没有为分析师预测带来信息增量,说明审计师关于关键审计事项的披露决策主要是基于规避审计责任方面的考虑。

The new audit reporting standard will be implemented within all the listed companies of A-share from January 1,2018,and auditors coping strategies have become the focus of attention.Using the data of 2017 annual report of A-share listed companies,it is found that the higher the level of accrual earnings management or real earnings management,the more the number and length of critical audit matters(CAMs)disclosed by auditors;further verification shows that the longer the length of CAMs,the greater the prediction error of financial analysts;it shows that the characteristics of CAMs have become the“barometer”of the company s disclosure quality.This means that auditors do making CAMs disclosure decisions taking into account the quality of information disclosure or the problems existing in the operation of the company.Through further investigation,it is found that the disclosure of CAMs does not bring incremental information to analysts forecasts in the face of the company s earnings management level,which indicates that the auditor s disclosure decision on CAMs is mainly based on the consideration of avoiding audit responsibility.