Signing Auditor's Professional Background?Practice Experience And Audit Quality

The audit quality of CPA audit quality depends on the firm and all levels of internal auditors comprehensive characteristics and individual heterogeneity.In recent years,relevant research has gradually shifted from the “macro level” of accounting firms to the “micro level” of individual characteristics of certified public accountants.Since Australia,China,Taiwan,and a few other countries or areas have required the disclosure of personal information of signatory accountants,the United States has also issued a corresponding policy to require the disclosure of the names of audit partners from 2017,and the personal characteristics of certified public accountants have received further attention from academics and practitioners.From a theoretical point of view,auditing is a highly professional business.Certified public accountants are audited by the owner to audit the company's financial and operating conditions,and they need strong professional competence.In the process of the entire audit project,the personal characteristics of the signatory accountants as the leader have a particularly important impact on the audit quality.The professional background and practice experience as an important part of the professional competency of the certified public accountant have a direct impact on the audit quality.However,according to statistics,the number of certified public accountants whose professional background is financial management,accounting and auditing in accounting firms is generally not dominant in the total number of participants at present.But the number of certified public accountants at the higher levels of the accounting profession is significantly more.Then whether the professional background of the CPAs can have a significant impact on the quality of the audit.Based on the personality theory and learning effect theory and through a combination of normative research and empirical research methods,this article attempts to use China's special institutional environment to study the impact of the professional background and practice experience of a certified public accountant on audit quality,explores the interaction between the professional background and practice experience and analyzes the impact of the two on audit quality which are more important.This study enriches the theoretical research on audit quality,deepens the understanding of the impact of the individual characteristics of the signing accountant on the quality of auditing mechanism,and seeks ways for the accounting firm to improve the audit quality.This paper takes all A-share listed companies from 2008 to 2016 as samples.The preliminary empirical results show that:(1)the higher professional compatibility of the signing accountant,the higher audit quality;(2)the more experience of the signing accountants,that is the longer the signing period,the higher audit quality;(3)an alternative relationship between the professional background and the practice experience,and compared with the practice experience,the professional background of the signing accountant has a greater impact on the audit quality.The innovations of this paper are:(1)This article specifically studies the relationship between the professional background of the signing accountant and the audit quality,and further considers how the professional background of the signing accountant has an impact on the audit quality;(2)Professional background and practice experience as the important part of the professional competency of a signatory accountant,for the first time this paper discusses the interactive relationship between professional background and practicing experience,and which has a greater impact on the audit quality.