不患寡而患不均:合伙人客户资源差距与审计质量

Inequality rather than Want:Client Resource Gap among Audit Partners and Audit Quality

强化会计师事务所内部治理和提高会计师事务所的执业质量对资本市场环境的净化作用和强化注册会计师对上市公司的监督作用至关重要。基于事务所内部治理的视角,采用2014-2019年会计师事务所合伙人及其审计的上市公司为样本,考察了会计师事务所合伙人客户资源差距对审计质量的影响。研究发现:会计师事务所合伙人客户资源寡少不但不会损害合伙人的审计独立性,反而会提高审计质量,即“不患寡”;合伙人之间的客户资源不均会损害审计质量,同时公平感知与相对落差感会削弱合伙人客户资源寡少对审计质量的积极影响,即“患不均”。拓展性分析发现:内部治理机制完善的大事务所、分析师的外部监督作用能缓解合伙人之间客户资源不均对审计质量的消极影响,但大事务所业务拓展压力大也会削弱合伙人客户资源寡少与审计质量的正相关关系。

To strengthen the internal governance of accounting fi rms and improve the practice quality of accounting firms is of vital importance in strengthening the clean-up effct of the capital market environment and strengthening the role of the certified public accountants in supervising the listed companies.From the perspective of the internal governance of audit firms,this paper takes the partners of accounting firms and the listed companies audited by them from 2014 to 2019 as the samples to investigate the impact of client resource gap between the partners of accounting firms on audit quality.The results show that the audit independence of the partners would not be eroded by more or less of the numbers of the client resources of the partners of accounting firms,on the con-trary,the audit quality will be improved.When the client resources among the partners are unequal,the audit quality will be harmed.Meanwhile,the faimess perception and the relative sense of uneven-ness would weaken the positive impact of the numbers of client resources of the partners on audit quality.The results of the extensibility analysis show that the big audit firms with perfect internal governance mechanism and the external supervision effect of analysts can relieve the negative impact of unequal client resources between the partners on audit quality,but the heavy pressure of business expansion on the big firms will also weaken the positive correlation between the numbers of client resources of the partners and the audit quality.