Research On Auditing Quality Of Branch Office Of A-shares Audit Market In China

In recent years，with the development strategy implementation of China’s CPAindustry becoming bigger and stronger，accounting firms themselves establish branchoffices to meet the customer resource distribution through all kinds of wayscontinuously，meanwhile，enhance the competence of certified public accountants．The establishment of the branch offices，however，is greatly influenced by nationalpolicy guidance，some accounting firms set up branch offices for achieving thequalifications of securities and promoting industry rankings to ensure audit price．Thesize of the whole accounting firms branch offices with securities qualification issmall，the number of certified public accountants is few．Some small branch officeshave the phenomenon of low price competition，the accounting firms neglect themanagement of branch offices，the practicing quality of branch offices causes theextensive concern of society．As audit quality plays a decisive role during the survivaland development of accounting firms and has a significant impact on social andeconomic order．With the expansion of the scale of accounting firms，the number ofbranch offices is increasing constantly．The branch offices’ proportion of the auditbusiness in listed companies is increasing gradually，therefore，the further study ofaudit quality on the branch office level has important practical significance．The paper summarizes domestic and foreign’ related research literature andfound that the study of branch office level starts early abroad，Early in1996，foreignscholars have realized that business branch is more suitable as the unit of analysisthan the accounting firm as a whole．The branch office size、customer importance onbranch office level、branch level expertise etc. are studied more，using differentmeasures as substitute variables of audit quality．While domestic branch office level research starts relatively late，the literature is less，therefore，the paper studys theinfluence of grade characteristic、branch office size、client importance on branchoffice level on audit quality，we expect to provide data support for the CPA industryregulation，at the same time，rich the academic discussion on branch office level ofaccounting firms in our country．The paper carrys on the theoretical analysis of the influence of gradecharacteristic、branch office size、client importance on branch office level on auditquality，The related theory includes principal-agent theory、the theory of reputationtheory、the theory of deep pockets and so on．We put forward the relevant hypothesison this basis of theoretical analysis．The paper used listed companies from2009to2011as the research object in Shanghai and Shenzhen，we get the data throughmanual labour and made empirical analysis on the relationship between gradecharacteristic、branch office size、client importance on branch office level and auditquality．Empirical study results show that the audit quality of branch office is lowerrelative to the headquarter in the case of other conditions remain unchanged，and it ismainly manifested in the "top ten" sample；Branch office size and audit quality issignificantly positive related，but in the "top ten" sample，size and audit quality haveno significant correlation，however，in the "non-top ten" sample，branch office sizeand audit quality is significantly related；Customer importance and audit quality issignificantly negative related，but for "top ten" branch office sample，customerimportance of branch office has no significant effect on audit quality，however，for"non-top ten" branch office sample，with the customer more important, the auditquality is lower．...