董事会稳定性会影响审计师的风险决策吗?——来自民营上市公司的经验证据

Does Board Stability Affect Auditors'Risk Decision?Evidence from Private Listed Companies

本文以2007~2019年中国A股民营上市公司为研究对象,考察审计师如何看待民营上市公司的董事会稳定性以及采取何种应对之策。研究发现,董事会稳定性越低,审计师发表非标准审计意见的概率越大。从作用路径上看,审计师认为董事会稳定性较低的公司未来的经营风险更高、内部控制质量较低,从而更可能发表非标准审计意见。进一步研究发现,基于内部视角,董事会稳定性与审计师风险决策的这种关系在董事长变更、大股东代表变更、董事会会议频率较低、董事会规模过大或过小的上市公司中更加显著;基于外部视角,这种关系在市场化程度较低地区的上市公司中更加显著。

Using a sample of Chinese A-share private listed companies from 2007 to 2019,this paper investigates how auditors look upon the board stability of private listed companies and what kind of countermeasures they take.The result shows that the lower the board stability,the greater probability of modified audit opinions.From the perspective of the underlying mechanism,the auditors believe that the company with lower board stability has higher future operational risk and inefficient internal control,which makes that they are more likely to issue modified audit opinions.Further,we find that the relationship between board stability and auditor's risk decision is more pronounced in firms with chairman change,change of representative of major shareholders,lower board meetings frequency and smaller or larger board size based on internal perspectives and in firms located in regions of lower marketization based on external perspectives.