IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecofin/v61y2022ics106294082200047x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Ownership concentration, modified audit opinion, and auditor switch: New evidence and method

Author

Listed:
  • Hu, May
  • Muhammad, Abdul
  • Yang, Jingjing

Abstract

This study investigates: 1) how does the ownership structure of listed firms influence the relation between their earnings management behavior and auditor opinion; 2) how does the ownership structure influence the relation between the auditor opinion and auditor switch. We find that the level of listed firms’ earnings management is positively associated with the propensity of being issued modified audit opinions (MAOs) by auditors when their ownership structure is highly concentrated. However, the issuance of MAOs is not associated with the auditor switch under such condition. On the contrary, a high level of earnings management is not associated with the propensity of being issued MAOs when firms’ ownership structure is less concentrated. Further, the issuance of MAOs may increase the likelihood of auditor switch. The empirical findings suggest that auditors may cater for the preferences of the real controller of listed firms when issuing audit opinions. Moreover, the “auditor opinion shopping” behavior by listed firms is also affected by listed firms’ ownership structure.

Suggested Citation

  • Hu, May & Muhammad, Abdul & Yang, Jingjing, 2022. "Ownership concentration, modified audit opinion, and auditor switch: New evidence and method," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecofin:v:61:y:2022:i:c:s106294082200047x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.najef.2022.101692
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S106294082200047X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.najef.2022.101692?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Freeman, Rn & Tse, Sy, 1992. "A Nonlinear Model Of Security Price Responses To Unexpected Earnings," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(2), pages 185-209.
    2. Jere R. Francis & Paul N. Michas & Scott E. Seavey, 2013. "Does Audit Market Concentration Harm the Quality of Audited Earnings? Evidence from Audit Markets in 42 Countries," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(1), pages 325-355, March.
    3. Cathy W. S. Chen & Richard H. Gerlach & Ann M. H. Lin, 2011. "Multi-regime nonlinear capital asset pricing models," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(9), pages 1421-1438, April.
    4. Butler, Marty & Leone, Andrew J. & Willenborg, Michael, 2004. "An empirical analysis of auditor reporting and its association with abnormal accruals," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 139-165, June.
    5. Allen, Franklin & Qian, Jun & Qian, Meijun, 2005. "Law, finance, and economic growth in China," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 57-116, July.
    6. Guay, WR & Kothari, SP & Watts, RL, 1996. "A market-based evaluation of discretionary accrual models," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34, pages 83-105.
    7. Jere R. Francis & Jagan Krishnan, 1999. "Accounting Accruals and Auditor Reporting Conservatism," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 16(1), pages 135-165, March.
    8. K. Hung Chan & Donghui Wu, 2011. "Aggregate Quasi Rents and Auditor Independence: Evidence from Audit Firm Mergers in China," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 28(1), pages 175-213, March.
    9. Wu, Ruei-Shian, 2014. "Predicting earnings management: A nonlinear approach," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 1-25.
    10. Guay, W. & Kothari, S.P. & Watts, R.L., 1996. "A Market-Based Evaluation of Discretionary-Accrual Models," Papers 96-01, Rochester, Business - Financial Research and Policy Studies.
    11. Liu, Qiao & Lu, Zhou (Joe), 2007. "Corporate governance and earnings management in the Chinese listed companies: A tunneling perspective," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 13(5), pages 881-906, December.
    12. Kathleen Herbohn & Vanitha Ragunathan, 2008. "Auditor reporting and earnings management: some additional evidence," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 48(4), pages 575-601, December.
    13. Peter J. Carey & Marshall A. Geiger & Brendan T. O’Connell, 2008. "Costs Associated With Going‐Concern‐Modified Audit Opinions: An Analysis of the Australian Audit Market," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 44(1), pages 61-81, March.
    14. Chen, Jiandong & Cumming, Douglas & Hou, Wenxuan & Lee, Edward, 2013. "Executive integrity, audit opinion, and fraud in Chinese listed firms," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 15(C), pages 72-91.
    15. Beladi, Hamid & Hou, Qingsong & Hu, May, 2022. "The party school education and corporate innovation: Evidence from SOEs in China," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    16. Chen, Gongmeng & Firth, Michael & Gao, Daniel N. & Rui, Oliver M., 2006. "Ownership structure, corporate governance, and fraud: Evidence from China," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 424-448, June.
    17. Takao Kato & Cheryl Long, 2006. "Executive Turnover and Firm Performance in China," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 363-367, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hu, May & Tuilautala, Mataiasi & Yang, Jingjing & Zhong, Qian, 2022. "Asymmetric information and inside management trading in the Chinese market," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kothari, S.P. & Leone, Andrew J. & Wasley, Charles E., 2005. "Performance matched discretionary accrual measures," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 163-197, February.
    2. Tsipouridou, Maria & Spathis, Charalambos, 2012. "Earnings management and the role of auditors in an unusual IFRS context: The case of Greece," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 62-78.
    3. Lars Helge Haß & Sofia Johan & Maximilian André Müller, 2016. "The Effectiveness of Public Enforcement: Evidence from the Resolution of Tunneling in China," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 134(4), pages 649-668, April.
    4. Liona Lai & Henry Tam, 2017. "Corporate governance, ownership structure and managing earnings to meet critical thresholds among Chinese listed firms," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 48(3), pages 789-818, April.
    5. Jiandong Chen & Douglas Cumming & Wenxuan Hou & Edward Lee, 2016. "Does the External Monitoring Effect of Financial Analysts Deter Corporate Fraud in China?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 134(4), pages 727-742, April.
    6. Dechow, Patricia & Ge, Weili & Schrand, Catherine, 2010. "Understanding earnings quality: A review of the proxies, their determinants and their consequences," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 344-401, December.
    7. Jiao Ji & Oleksandr Talavera & Shuxing Yin, 2018. "The Hidden Information Content: Evidence from the Tone of Independent Director Reports," Working Papers 2018-28, Swansea University, School of Management.
    8. Raymond Fisman & Yongxiang Wang, 2015. "Corruption in Chinese Privatizations," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 31(1), pages 1-29.
    9. Juan García Lara & Beatriz Osma & Evi Neophytou, 2009. "Earnings quality in ex‐post failed firms," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(2), pages 119-138.
    10. Ji, Jiao & Talavera, Oleksandr & Yin, Shuxing, 2016. "CEO Dismissal, Compensation and Topics of Board Meetings: The Case of China," MPRA Paper 70232, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Kothari, S. P., 2001. "Capital markets research in accounting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1-3), pages 105-231, September.
    12. Khushbu Agrawal & Chanchal Chatterjee, 2015. "Earnings Management and Financial Distress: Evidence from India," Global Business Review, International Management Institute, vol. 16(5_suppl), pages 140-154, October.
    13. Ayers, Benjamin C. & Ramalingegowda, Santhosh & Eric Yeung, P., 2011. "Hometown advantage: The effects of monitoring institution location on financial reporting discretion," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 41-61, June.
    14. Giuseppe Iuliano & Gaetano Matonti, 2015. "Do big 4 audit companies detect earnings management and report it in the audit opinion? Empirical evidence from italian non-listed firms," ESPERIENZE D'IMPRESA, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2015(2), pages 5-43.
    15. Kevin Koh & Li Li & Xuejiao Liu & Chunfei Wang, 2023. "The Effect of Audit Partner Diversity on Audit Quality: Evidence from China," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 59(1), pages 340-380, March.
    16. Jiang, Fuxiu & Ma, Yunbiao & Shi, Beibei, 2017. "Stock liquidity and dividend payouts," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 295-314.
    17. Wenxuan Hou & Geoff Moore, 2010. "Player and Referee Roles Held Jointly: The Effect of State Ownership on China’s Regulatory Enforcement Against Fraud," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 95(2), pages 317-335, September.
    18. Mei Feng & Chan Li, 2014. "Are Auditors Professionally Skeptical? Evidence from Auditors’ Going‐Concern Opinions and Management Earnings Forecasts," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(5), pages 1061-1085, December.
    19. Lars Helge Hass & Monika Tarsalewska & Feng Zhan, 2016. "Equity Incentives and Corporate Fraud in China," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 138(4), pages 723-742, November.
    20. Xingqiang Du & Wei Jian & Shaojuan Lai & Yingjie Du & Hongmei Pei, 2015. "Does Religion Mitigate Earnings Management? Evidence from China," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 131(3), pages 699-749, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Ownership concentration; Earnings management; Modified audit opinion; Auditor switch; China;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill
    • M41 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Accounting - - - Accounting
    • M42 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Accounting - - - Auditing

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecofin:v:61:y:2022:i:c:s106294082200047x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/620163 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.