The Reform Of Accounting Firms' Organizational Form,Auditor Reputation And Audit Delay

As an important content of the internal governance of accounting firms,the organizational form not only directly affects the legal responsibilities of the accounting firms and the auditors,but also has a significant impact on the specific practice of the auditor.In 2010,the Interim Provisions vigorously promoted the adoption of limited liability partnerships among large and medium-sized accounting firms.And at the end of 2013,all of the accounting firms with related qualification of securities had completed their transformation.This policy undoubtedly has a great influence on the CPA industry.As a significant indicator of the timeliness of information,the audit delay is the focus of the relevant research in the industry.The change of legal risk that comes with the transformation of the accounting firm will inevitably cause some impact on the audit delay.Auditor reputation not only affects the construction of accounting firm brand,but also influences the auditors practice.Therefore,considering that the accounting firm in our country has been undergoing restructuring for some time,whether the transformation of the firm will affect the audit delay and what role the auditor reputation plays in it will be the problem to be studied.This article includes six chapters.The first chapter starts with the research background and the significance of the topic,explains the research ideas and methods,and points out the innovation and deficiencies of the article.On the basis of previous studies,the second chapter reviews and summarizes the contents and conclusions of related literature from the three aspects of accounting firms' organizational form,auditor reputation and audit delay,and forms the research ideas of this article.Chapter three begins with a clear definition of the reform of accounting firms' organizational form,auditor reputation and audit delay.After that,it analyzes the impact of the reform of accounting firms' organizational form on the impact of the audit delay and the impact of the auditor's reputation on the relationship between the reform of accounting firms' organizational form and the audit delay.Finally,the basic theories of principal-agent theory,"deep pockets" theory and reputation theory are briefly expounded.On the basis of literature review and basic theoretical analysis,the fourth chapter first proposes the first research hypothesis from the perspective of increased legal liability after the transformation,and further discusses the role of the auditor reputation in the relationship between the reform of accounting firms' organizational form and audit delay,and put forward the second research hypothesis of this paper.The fifth chapter is the empirical test module.After comprehensively considering the research sample symmetry and sample size,this paper uses the A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets as research samples from 2009 to 2014,designs the corresponding empirical test models for the two hypotheses,and explains the definition and expected direction of the main variables in each model.Firstly,descriptive statistical analysis and Pearson correlation analysis are performed on the sample data.The results are basically consistent with expectations.Afterwards,they empirically examine the relationship between the reform of accounting firms' organizational form and audit delay during the sample period,and the influence of the auditor reputation on the relationship between the reform of accounting firms' organizational form and audit delay.The study finds that after the reform of accounting firms' organizational form,its audit delay is significantly increased.And the transformation of the firm mainly increases the audit delays of auditors with lower reputation,and has less impact on the auditors with higher reputation.Finally,in order to ensure the reliability of the results,the empirical results are tested robustly by changing the measurement of the explanatory variables and the empirical test method.The results are the same as before.The sixth chapter summarizes the study conclusion of the full text,and gives the corresponding policy recommendations from the three perspectives of auditors,accounting firms and regulatory authorities.In the research of this paper,the time span of selected samples is greatly increased compared with the previous studies,so that the real economic effects of the conversion events of the accounting firm on the audit delay can be more completely and intuitively studied.In order to enrich the related research,this paper takes the reform of accounting firms' organizational form as an opportunity to empirically test its impact on audit delay,and increase the auditor reputation as an intermediate variable,and further examine the role of auditor reputation in regulating this relationship.