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Book part
Publication date: 2 October 2023

Phillip Magness and Micha Gartz

The son of academics Monica and Godfrey Wilson, Francis Wilson (b. 1939) was raised in a Zulu-speaking locale of rural South Africa. Despite a keen interest in history imbued by…

Abstract

The son of academics Monica and Godfrey Wilson, Francis Wilson (b. 1939) was raised in a Zulu-speaking locale of rural South Africa. Despite a keen interest in history imbued by his anthropologist parents, Wilson completed his undergraduate degree in physics at the University of Cape Town (UCT) before pursuing his doctorate at Cambridge University. Fascinated by the economics of discrimination and their relationship to the Apartheid regime in South Africa, Wilson spent a year in the United States as a visiting graduate fellow at the University of Virginia’s Thomas Jefferson Center for Political Economy (TJC) in 1964.

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Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology: Including a Selection of Papers Presented at the First History of Economics Diversity Caucus Conference
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80455-982-6

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Book part
Publication date: 13 March 2023

Arnold Schneider

This study examines whether knowledge about a loan applicant's auditor affects commercial loan decisions. The research questions addressed are: (1) whether a loan officer's…

Abstract

This study examines whether knowledge about a loan applicant's auditor affects commercial loan decisions. The research questions addressed are: (1) whether a loan officer's familiarity with an applicant's audit firm affects lending decisions, and (2) whether an applicant is negatively impacted by having an audit firm with a history of associations with past borrowers who have defaulted or who have experienced financial statement restatements or regulatory enforcement actions. Participating loan officers were assigned to one of four treatment groups formed by manipulating the above two factors. They made risk assessments of the loan applicant as well as providing probabilities of granting credit. Results indicate that familiarity with a borrower's audit firm reduced assessments of risk associated with lending, but this did not appear to translate into increasing the likelihood that lenders would approve the line of credit. The study also finds an adverse impact on risk assessments and lending decisions when a borrower's audit firm has a negative history of associations with past borrowers.

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Article
Publication date: 1 February 2004

Mohd Mohid Rahmat and Takiah Mohd Iskandar

This study examines audit fee premiums from brand name, industry specialization, and industry leadership after the merger of two Big 6 audit firms, creating the Big 5 in 1998 in…

465

Abstract

This study examines audit fee premiums from brand name, industry specialization, and industry leadership after the merger of two Big 6 audit firms, creating the Big 5 in 1998 in the Malaysian audit market. A sample of 679 companies listed at the main and second boards of Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange (KLSE) are investigated for audit fee premiums. Industry specialization is determined on the basis of 20 per cent share of audit market calculated by the number of audited companies in the industry. Audit fee premiums are calculated based on the Simunic (1980) model of audit fees. Results show: that Big 5 audit firms obtain 65.4 per cent audit market share for all KLSE listed companies; that Big 5 audit firms earn higher audit fees than non‐Big 5; and that industry specialization does not generate audit fee premiums. The study finds evidence for audit fee premiums derived from industry market leadership. Results also reflect the competitiveness among Big 5 audit firms in the audit market especially following the merger of Big 6 audit firms.

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Asian Review of Accounting, vol. 12 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1321-7348

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Available. Open Access. Open Access
Book part
Publication date: 9 December 2021

Alex Stedmon and Daniel Paul

In many security domains, the ‘human in the system’ is often a critical line of defence in identifying, preventing and responding to any threats (Saikayasit, Stedmon, & Lawson

Abstract

In many security domains, the ‘human in the system’ is often a critical line of defence in identifying, preventing and responding to any threats (Saikayasit, Stedmon, & Lawson, 2015). Traditionally, such security domains are often focussed on mainstream public safety within crowded spaces and border controls, through to identifying suspicious behaviours, hostile reconnaissance and implementing counter-terrorism initiatives. More recently, with growing insecurity around the world, organisations have looked to improve their security risk management frameworks, developing concepts which originated in the health and safety field to deal with more pressing risks such as terrorist acts, abduction and piracy (Paul, 2018). In these instances, security is usually the specific responsibility of frontline personnel with defined roles and responsibilities operating in accordance with organisational protocols (Saikayasit, Stedmon, Lawson, & Fussey, 2012; Stedmon, Saikayasit, Lawson, & Fussey, 2013). However, understanding the knowledge that frontline security workers might possess and use requires sensitive investigation in equally sensitive security domains.

This chapter considers how to investigate knowledge elicitation in these sensitive security domains and underlying ethics in research design that supports and protects the nature of investigation and end-users alike. This chapter also discusses the criteria used for ensuring trustworthiness as well as assessing the relative merits of the range of methods adopted.

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Article
Publication date: 1 March 1994

K. K. Raman and Wanda A. Wallace

The relationship between the size of state audit budgets, audit responsibilities, professional characteristics of staff, risk, and tax and expenditure limitations is explored…

59

Abstract

The relationship between the size of state audit budgets, audit responsibilities, professional characteristics of staff, risk, and tax and expenditure limitations is explored. Bivariate relationships are examined and then a model is estimated which controls for size, complexity, financial risk factors, and political risk factors. This provides a framework for considering the incremental influence of specialized audit inputs. Both "brand names" and size have been used in past research to proxy for quality dimensions intended to differentiate the audit product provided by different suppliers. This research extends such work by considering characteristics of the auditing services as reflected by specific inputs and by using cost data rather than audit fee data. The states are observed to differ in their responses to financial and political factors by spending resources on peer review, continuing professional education, certifications of professional staff, and expertise in both the computer science area and in law. A positive association of cost and auditor differentiation, implicit in past audit fee literature is corroborated.

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Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting & Financial Management, vol. 6 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1096-3367

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Article
Publication date: 16 June 2021

Mao-Feng Kao, Min-Jeng Shiue and Chien-Hao Tseng

This study aims to examine the Taiwan setting, where audit partners’ names are presented in the audit report and where audit committee formation is voluntary in the initial stage…

815

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to examine the Taiwan setting, where audit partners’ names are presented in the audit report and where audit committee formation is voluntary in the initial stage of audit committee reform. This paper investigates the effects of the formation of voluntary audit committees on the selection of individual audit partners, and, in turn, the audit quality. This contrasts with previous studies investigating the relationship between audit committees and auditor selection at the audit firm level.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper samples all of Taiwan’s publicly listed firms for the period 2007–2012 and uses Heckman’s (1979) two-stage estimation model to achieve our objectives.

Findings

Using different characteristics of individual engagement partners as proxies for a higher quality auditor, the main empirical results show that voluntary audit committee formation is positively related to an industry specialist lead partner and a lead partner that has a larger number of clients. In addition, this paper also finds that voluntary audit committee formation has a positive impact on audit quality (proxied by discretionary accruals). The results suggest that the voluntary formation of an audit committee contributes positively to both auditor selection and audit quality. Furthermore, an additional test shows that the main empirical results are robust to a validity threat that firms that have good corporate governance prior to the formation of voluntary audit committees tend to select high-quality audit partners.

Originality/value

The paper contributes to the audit committee literature in the following ways: this paper takes advantage of Taiwan’s unique setting, where forming an audit committee is not compulsory in the initial stage of audit committee reform, to investigate the voluntary audit committee, auditor selection and audit quality; this paper expands on Abbott and Parker’s (2000) study of audit committee characteristics and auditor selection at the audit firm level by examining this relationship at the individual audit partner level; this paper responds to the call by Church et al. (2008) and DeFond and Francis (2005) who propose more studies on audit quality at the individual engagement partner level.

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Managerial Auditing Journal, vol. 36 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0268-6902

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Article
Publication date: 3 July 2017

Mishari M. Alfraih

This study examines the effects of institutional and government ownership on audit quality in Kuwait. Kuwait provides an interesting regulatory context as listed firms are legally…

913

Abstract

Purpose

This study examines the effects of institutional and government ownership on audit quality in Kuwait. Kuwait provides an interesting regulatory context as listed firms are legally required to appoint two external auditors from different auditing firms. This offers a unique opportunity to examine differentiation in demand for audit quality when there are three potential combinations of auditors: two non-Big 4, one Big 4 and one non-Big 4 and two Big 4.

Design/methodology/approach

The sample consists of all firms listed on the Kuwait Stock Exchange in 2013. Multinomial logistic regression examines the influence of ownership structure on audit quality. Analyses are controlled for the effect of company characteristics. Control variables are: firm size, complexity, growth, leverage, profitability and industry category.

Findings

The results show that institutional ownership is positively related to the number of Big 4 auditing firms that audit a company’s financial statements. This reflects the powerful and influential role institutional investors play in discouraging management from choosing lower-quality providers. In contrast, government ownership has a negative impact on audit quality. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that audit quality is a function of, among other factors, the structure of equity ownership.

Practical implications

Given the importance of audits, knowledge of the determinants of audit quality is of particular interest to regulators, enforcement agencies and investors. The findings imply that different ownership structures have different effects on the demand for audit quality; some structures strengthen it, while others weaken it. The negative relation between government ownership and audit quality raises serious questions about the effectiveness of government in monitoring its investments.

Originality/value

This paper extends the literature by investigating the determinants of the choice of auditors in an emerging market where there is a joint audit requirement. It highlights the important role played by ownership structure in shaping demand for audit quality. A distinguishing feature in previous research is the classification of the audit quality proxy into two choices (Big 4 vs non-Big 4 auditors). However, the regulatory context in Kuwait means that there are three choices. Thus, unusually, a multinomial logistic regression is used for the analysis.

Details

Journal of Financial Reporting and Accounting, vol. 15 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1985-2517

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Article
Publication date: 5 September 2018

Jonas Schäuble

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of external and internal corporate governance mechanisms on agency costs.

5856

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of external and internal corporate governance mechanisms on agency costs.

Design/methodology/approach

The author uses data from German firms that were listed in the regulated market of the Frankfurt Stock exchange during 2006-2011. Agency costs were measured using stochastic frontier analysis, a relatively new approach to estimate agency costs. The regression analysis is applied to test the model.

Findings

The results indicate that an industry specialized audit firm, the presence of a large audit firm, abnormal audit fees, management ownership and variable management compensation are significantly negatively associated with the level of a firms’ agency costs. In contrast, this seems not to be true for the existence of an audit committee for which the results of the paper document a non-significant association.

Originality/value

The paper contributes to the existing literature in several ways. First, the research design is to the best of the authors’ knowledge the first that investigates the influence of different corporate governance mechanisms on the level of agency costs. Second, previous studies are mainly focused on the US audit market. This focus on the US audit market leaves uncertainties regarding the direction and magnitude of the empirical relationship in the European and German environmental context. Finally, the paper provides initial empirical evidence for a sample of German IFRS listed companies (IFRS – International Financial Reporting Standards).

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Corporate Governance: The International Journal of Business in Society, vol. 19 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1472-0701

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Article
Publication date: 1 February 1984

T.D. Wilson

In this country local authorities perform many tasks in society, from keeping an eye on the quality of goods, through the maintenance of parks and other amenities, to the…

123

Abstract

In this country local authorities perform many tasks in society, from keeping an eye on the quality of goods, through the maintenance of parks and other amenities, to the provision of basic services in education and social welfare. In doing all of this, those concerned get very little in the way of thanks — more often there are brickbats from the monetarist politicians seeking to control public expenditure and from the ratepayers who bear the consequences.

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Aslib Proceedings, vol. 36 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0001-253X

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Article
Publication date: 1 September 2003

Melba Wilson

244

Abstract

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Mental Health Review Journal, vol. 8 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1361-9322

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