Voluntary Disclosure of Auditors＇ Report on Internal Control： Firm Characteristics and Economic Consequences

Using propensity score matching （PSM） and the difference-in- difference （DID） approach, this paper explores the characteristics of listed Chinese firms that voluntarily disclose auditors＇ reports on internal control and the economic consequences. Using a sample of non-financial firms listed on the main boards of the Shanghai Stock Exchange and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange between 2006 and 2010, we find that firms are more likely to voluntarily disclose their auditors＇ reports on internal control if they have higher state ownership, lower managerial ownership, sanction records, audit committees, non-Big Four auditors as their auditors of annual financial reports, unqualified auditors＇ opinions on financial reports, less board independence, after controlling for firm size, liabilities, performance, and history. Moreover, as compared to a control group that exhibits similar characteristics, firms that voluntarily disclose auditors＇ reports on internal control are associated with positive earnings quality and negative cost of equity capital.

Quality in Independent Auditing:A Research on Auditors

The aim of this study is to determine the opinion related to the audit quality of independent auditors in Turkey.For this purpose,a study was carried out on the auditors operating in the TRC 1 region and having an auditor certificate.Questionnaire method was used in the research.In the evaluation of the data,frequency,mean,and standard deviation were used as descriptive statistical methods.In addition,t-test and one-way ANOVA test were used to compare the data between independent groups.Research results show no significant difference between the opinions of the independent auditors according to various variables.

Do investors care about auditor assignments?Evidence from last-minute changes to signing auditors

Against the background of China’s strengthening of finance and accounting supervision,this study examines the practice among listed companies of changing signing auditors at the last minute and explores whether Chinese investors can capture this information in a timely manner.We find that China’s capital market responds significantly negatively to these last-minute changes,implying that investors perceive a potential negative impact of this behavior.Crosssectional analyses suggest that the characteristics of the change event,recent corporate events,and accounting firm capability significantly affect the stock price response.Furthermore,in terms of the individual characteristics of signing auditors,external investors appear to comprehensively consider busyness level,industry experience,and the timing of the change to determine the causes and effects of the auditor change and make different market reactions accordingly.In addition,consistent with investor perceptions,we find that last-minute changes significantly impair the quality of financial statements,indicating that external investors’judgments based on information about changes in signing auditors are rational and effective.

Power Auditor数据库审计系统在宁夏电力的应用

随着信息化建设的快速发展,数据库作为信息系统的核心和基础发挥着越来越重要的作用,数据库安全对信息系统的影响越来越大,数据的防篡改及防盗窃问题越来越引起人们的关注。文章根据电力信息化系统数据库审计的特点及实现方式,深入研究基于Power Auditor技术的数据库审计系统,介绍了Power Auditor数据库审计技术在宁夏电力信息系统中的应用,通过应用表明该技术能够有效地与电力信息化系统紧密融合,确保各业务系统数据库的安全可靠;最后,总结了宁夏电力信息系统数据库审计的运维特点。

The Impact of Auditor Quality on Audit Quality--Evidence from China Based on Data from 2014-2016

This paper studies the impact of auditors'own quality on audit quality.Through the test of relevant models,it is necessary to find out whether the conclusions of predecessors have practical significance in improving the quality of auditing as time goes by and other relevant influencing factors of the market.The paper collects relevant data from multiple dimensions such as the age level of the auditors,the accumulation of audit experience,and the level of education by collecting the relevant data of the 2016 A-share listed companies and the top 100 CPA firms in 2014-2016.An empirical test was conducted.According to the results of the empirical test,the discussion and research will be carried out,and further opinions and suggestions on how to improve the quality of the auditor should be put forward.The innovation of the research is that the level of earnings management is used as a measure of audit quality,and non-recurring gains and losses are used as explanatory variables.On the basis of previous studies,time and environmental institutional variables were further introduced for further verification.

会唱歌的工艺品——世霸Cremona Auditor音箱

意大利情结。笔者有不少外国朋友，其中大部分都来自欧洲，在与他们的交往中我发现一个有趣的现象，这些朋友无论来自音响大国英国，还是来自Hi—end重镇丹麦，对发烧音响的了解都可谓乏善可陈。不过意外的是，来自意大利的两位朋友却对本国的几个音响品牌颇为了解，Sonus Faber(世霸)、Chario(卓丽)和胆机贵族Uision均如数家珍，还顺带纠正了我对Chario的发音(应念作“夏里欧”)，这让我颇为惊讶：是不是意大利人比其它西方国家要更发烧一些呢?

The Relationship between Non-audit Services and Auditor Independence: Evidence from Chinese Listed Companies

The rapid development of non-audit services(NAS)has jeopardized the independence of auditors,which has led many Western countries to enact regulations that restrict the provision of NAS.While in China,NAS have just emerged,and its development in China is far less mature than in Western countries.The purpose of this paper is to explore whether NAS in China have damaged auditor independence and whether Chinese regulators need to emulate Western countries and strongly limit the provision of NAS.In order to achieve this objective,213 Chinese listed companies are selected in this study.The audit opinions issued by the auditors are used as substitute variables for auditor independence(dependent variables),and the ratio of non-audit service fees to the total of audit service fees and non-audit service fees as a substitute variable for the provision of NAS(independent variable),and meanwhile some suitable control variables are also selected.Analyse these data by building a binary logistic regression model.The results show that there is no evidence in China that NAS can undermine auditor independence and there is no need for China to enact regulations to prohibit the provision of NAS.

Towards Developing Privacy-Preserved Data Security Approach(PP-DSA)in Cloud Computing Environment

In the present scenario of rapid growth in cloud computing models,several companies and users started to share their data on cloud servers.However,when the model is not completely trusted,the data owners face several security-related problems,such as user privacy breaches,data disclosure,data corruption,and so on,during the process of data outsourcing.For addressing and handling the security-related issues on Cloud,several models were proposed.With that concern,this paper develops a Privacy-Preserved Data Security Approach(PP-DSA)to provide the data security and data integrity for the out-sourcing data in Cloud Environment.Privacy preservation is ensured in this work with the Efficient Authentication Technique(EAT)using the Group Signature method that is applied with Third-Party Auditor(TPA).The role of the auditor is to secure the data and guarantee shared data integrity.Additionally,the Cloud Service Provider(CSP)and Data User(DU)can also be the attackers that are to be handled with the EAT.Here,the major objective of the work is to enhance cloud security and thereby,increase Quality of Service(QoS).The results are evaluated based on the model effectiveness,security,and reliability and show that the proposed model provides better results than existing works.

Trusted Certified Auditor Using Cryptography for Secure Data Outsourcing and Privacy Preservation in Fog-Enabled VANETs

With the recent technological developments,massive vehicular ad hoc networks(VANETs)have been established,enabling numerous vehicles and their respective Road Side Unit(RSU)components to communicate with oneanother.The best way to enhance traffic flow for vehicles and traffic management departments is to share thedata they receive.There needs to be more protection for the VANET systems.An effective and safe methodof outsourcing is suggested,which reduces computation costs by achieving data security using a homomorphicmapping based on the conjugate operation of matrices.This research proposes a VANET-based data outsourcingsystem to fix the issues.To keep data outsourcing secure,the suggested model takes cryptography models intoaccount.Fog will keep the generated keys for the purpose of vehicle authentication.For controlling and overseeingthe outsourced data while preserving privacy,the suggested approach considers the Trusted Certified Auditor(TCA).Using the secret key,TCA can identify the genuine identity of VANETs when harmful messages aredetected.The proposed model develops a TCA-based unique static vehicle labeling system using cryptography(TCA-USVLC)for secure data outsourcing and privacy preservation in VANETs.The proposed model calculatesthe trust of vehicles in 16 ms for an average of 180 vehicles and achieves 98.6%accuracy for data encryption toprovide security.The proposedmodel achieved 98.5%accuracy in data outsourcing and 98.6%accuracy in privacypreservation in fog-enabled VANETs.Elliptical curve cryptography models can be applied in the future for betterencryption and decryption rates with lightweight cryptography operations.

How does auditors' work stress affect audit quality?Empirical evidence from the Chinese stock market

With reference to the Job Demands-Control Model,we empirically examine the effect of auditors' work stress on audit quality using a sample of Chinese A-share listed companies and their signature auditors from 2009 to 2013.The results show that(1) there is generally no pervasive deterioration in audit quality resulting from auditors' work stress;(2) there is a significant negative association between work stress and audit quality in the initial audits of new clients;and(3) the perception of work stress depends on auditors' individual characteristics.Auditors from international audit firms and those in the role of partner respond more strongly to work stress than industry experts.Auditors tend to react more intensively when dealing with state-owned companies.We suggest that audit firms attach more importance to auditors' work stress and rationalize their allocation of audit resources to ensure high audit quality.

The effect of shared auditors in the supply chain on cost stickiness

Do supply chain audits have real effects?We focus on the effect of shared auditors in the supply chain on corporate cost stickiness.When a supplier shares auditors with its customers,the shared auditors provide informational advantages for suppliers’managers,thus revising their optimistic or pessimistic expectations and influencing suppliers’cost stickiness.Using a sample of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2009 to 2017,we explore the relationship between shared auditors and suppliers’cost stickiness conditional on management expectations.The results show that shared auditors in the supply chain reduce suppliers’cost stickiness significantly when suppliers’managers hold optimistic expectations,and increase suppliers’cost stickiness in cases of pessimistic expectations.Furthermore,the greater the number of shared auditors,the stronger the effect.Such effects are more pronounced when supplier firms share auditors with important customers,have higher demand uncertainty,and use big 10 auditors.

Board independence, internal information environment and voluntary disclosure of auditors' reports on internal controls

When there is high information asymmetry between directors and managers,independent directors do not have enough information to perform their functions. Only when faced with a good internal information environment can such directors acquire enough information to provide advice and monitor managers,and only under these conditions can increasing their proportion on the board effectively reduce agency problems, such as driving managers to disclose information to investors. Using a sample of Chinese listed firms that voluntarily disclose their auditors' reports on internal controls from 2007 to 2009, this study explores how the information acquisition costs of independent directors affect their monitoring effectiveness by investigating the disclosure decisions of their internal control audits. We find that when the information asymmetry between insiders and outside directors is low and the proportion of independent directors on a board is high, a firm is more likely to voluntarily disclose its internal control audit report.

Is the quality of female auditors really better? Evidence based on the Chinese A-share market

Unlike previous studies in which a single index was used to measure audit quality, this study establishes a new comprehensive index to measure audit quality via Discretionary Accrual, as estimated by Jones' basic model(1991) and Audit Opinions. The former is used to measure the quality of financial statements, and the latter is used to measure the auditors' independence in the mainstream international literature. We examine whether and how an auditor's gender affects the quality of his or her audits under the framework of empathy theory and gender role socialization theory. Using a large sample of 9861 auditor-firm-year observations from Chinese A-share–listed companies from 2011 to 2015, we find that the audit quality of signed auditors shows significant gender differences: these significant gender differences differ from the findings of previous studies that female auditors could provide a higherquality audit than male auditors; that is, in our study the audit quality of the male auditors exceeds that of the female auditors. After distinguishing the positive and negative directions of the Discretionary Accrual, we find no significant gender differences in audit quality between male and female auditors when the earnings had been adjusted upward by the client; that is, female and male auditors had the same audit risk perception. However, when the client adjusted earnings downward, which indicates a lower audit risk for theauditor, the audit quality of female auditors was significantly lower than that of the male auditors. After controlling for the age and position of the auditors,we also find that the gender differences in the auditors' audit quality decreased significantly or even disappeared when the auditor's age exceeded 45 years and/or their position was manager or above. These results are consistent with the empathy theory and gender role socialization theory.

对审计意见和信用评级相互关系的实证分析

研究四大审计公司的持续经营意见与两大评级机构信用负面评级间的关系;重点分析濒临破产公司的审计意见、信用评级及两者间的关系,深入探讨了信用评级结果是否会影响审计公司出具持续经营意见,以及持续经营意见是否会影响信用评级结果;选取2002年1月1日至2013年12月31日间的破产公司为样本,这些公司均具有破产前12个月的审计意见、标普或穆迪出具的信用评级报告。研究发现:审计公司的持续经营意见对信用评级报告会产生影响;同时,当破产公司收到审计持续经营意见时,标普有68%的概率会降低该公司的评级,穆迪有24%的概率会降低评级。本研究有助于理解审计公司与信用评级机构更深层次的关系,以及二者未来的服务。

Cloud Data Encryption and Authentication Based on Enhanced Merkle Hash Tree Method

Many organizations apply cloud computing to store and effectively process data for various applications.The user uploads the data in the cloud has less security due to the unreliable verification process of data integrity.In this research,an enhanced Merkle hash tree method of effective authentication model is proposed in the multi-owner cloud to increase the security of the cloud data.Merkle Hash tree applies the leaf nodes with a hash tag and the non-leaf node contains the table of hash information of child to encrypt the large data.Merkle Hash tree provides the efficient mapping of data and easily identifies the changesmade in the data due to proper structure.The developed model supports privacy-preserving public auditing to provide a secure cloud storage system.The data owners upload the data in the cloud and edit the data using the private key.An enhanced Merkle hash tree method stores the data in the cloud server and splits it into batches.The data files requested by the data owner are audit by a third-party auditor and the multiowner authentication method is applied during the modification process to authenticate the user.The result shows that the proposed method reduces the encryption and decryption time for cloud data storage by 2–167 ms when compared to the existing Advanced Encryption Standard and Blowfish.

Are state ownership and auditors' locality determinants of asset write-downs? Evidence from China

After issuing the 1998 Accounting Standards, Chinese regulators implemented additional regulations in 2001 governing write-downs of impaired assets and required assessment of recoverable amounts for four additional asset categories. As the recoverable value cannot be obtained objectively, management can discretionally assess the magnitude of write-downs to affect bottom-line profit. This study used 7258 firm-year observations in China from 1998 to2005 to examine whether the percentage of asset write-downs by statecontrolled firms differs from non-state-controlled firms, conditional upon more conservative financial reporting rules, and investigate whether local auditors support managerial decisions on asset write-downs. The empirical findings support the tendency of state-controlled ownerships to have lower asset write-downs. Local auditors also support managerial decisions on asset write-downs, especially when the companies are controlled by local governments.

Audit Opinion: Model Value of the Firm State-Owned Business Enterprises Indonesia

This study aimed to assess and analyzed the influence of micro and macro fundamental, ownership structure, financial performance, and auditor’s opinion on the value of the company in State Owned Enterprises considering that 51% of shareholding is fully owned and controlled by the government so management has some rights in decision making. The interest of researchers in observing State Owned Enterprises on interest ownership interest in investors and potential investors compared to private companies that fluctuate in accordance with state economic conditions and government decisions that provide sentiment for stocks. Research population at 20 State Owned Enterprises listed on Indonesia Stock Exchange. This research method used purposive sampling with 12 companies in 2010-2015. Data analysis techniques in this study used Partial Least Square consists of Inner model, Outers model, and Weight relation. The result of analysis of hypothesis test of research showing all test accepted with significant level 5% influence equal to 1.960 except macro fund influence 0.0031421 and not significant equal to 1.914374 so rejected (H5) and macro fundamentals have effect 0.040271 and not significant equal 1.674420 thus rejected (H7).

The Cause of Auditing Expectation Gap

Previous literature show that auditors and the public have different understandings and beliefs about the auditor’s responsibilities.The public’s expectation of statutory audit may exceed the responsibility required by the auditing standard,which leads to the audit expectation gap.Since the 1980s,there are more and more criticisms on statutory auditors especially after the appearance of some auditing fraud such as Enron case in the United States and Maxwell’s case in the United Kingdom.The misunderstanding from the public makes the auditor face more and more challenges.The purpose of this paper is to discuss the components of the gap,and discuss the main reasons based on the existing literature and cases.This paper makes a critical evaluation of the audit expectation gap from three parts:performance gap,standard gap,and reasonableness gap,respectively.

对Windows密码安全性进行深度“体检”

对于Windows而言,登录密码的安全性起着举足轻重的作用,堪称Windows的第一道防线。设置一个复杂、难以破解的密码往往能让入侵者无计可施,相反,一个简单的密码却让入侵者如入无人之境。许多人认为自己设置的密码坚不可摧,实际上真的如此吗？还是让Proactive Password Auditor（以下简称PPA）这款软件来评定吧!