审计师关心年报前瞻性文本信息吗?

Do Auditors Care about Annual Reports' Forward-looking Text Information?

此前研究主要关注历史信息与审计师决策,本文考察年报前瞻性文本信息对审计定价的影响。研究发现,年报前瞻性文本信息与审计定价显著负相关。机制检验发现,年报前瞻性文本信息能传递企业未来持续经营信号,降低审计师所感知的持续经营风险,进而降低审计定价。异质性检验发现,当年报披露语调更积极、披露未来经营计划内容更丰富时,二者负向关系更显著;且这种负向关系仅在企业未来盈余反应系数更高和分析师关注更多以及审计师行业专长较低和忙碌程度更高的样本中才显著。进一步研究发现,年报前瞻性文本信息披露能够显著降低企业被出具持续经营不确定性审计意见的概率。本文为理解审计师决策依据提供了新的理论参考,并为现有审计定价影响因素的研究作出增量贡献。

Previous research has concentrated on historical information and auditor judgments,whereas this paper examines the impact of forward-looking text information in annual reports on audit pricing.The research finds that forward-looking text information is significantly negatively associated with audit pricing.The mechanism test finds that forward-looking text information can convey the firm's going concern signal,reduce the auditor's perception of going concern risk,and thus reduce audit pricing.The heterogeneity test shows that when the tone is more positive with more disclosure on the future business plan,the negative association between them is stronger.Furthermore,the negative association between them is only significant in samples with higher future earnings response,more future analyst attention,and for auditors with less industry experience and more business.Further research shows that forward-looking text information can significantly reduce the likelihood of audit opinions on going concern uncertainty.This paper provides a new theoretical reference for understanding the auditor's decision-making and can make an incremental contribution to the existing research on factors influencing audit pricing.