Effect Of Merger And Acquisition Goodwill On Auditor Behavior And Its Mechanism

In the context of the in-depth development of China's market economic system,the enthusiasm for corporate M & A activities has increased.Many companies hope to optimize and upgrade the industrial structure through M & A activities,expand the scale of the enterprise,obtain excess returns,improve their market position,and respond to increasingly fierce market competition.With the prosperity of M & A activities,the scale of merger goodwill also shows an upward trend year by year,and the impact on the capital market can be imagined.The auditor is one of the important users of the information on merger goodwill of listed companies.M & A activities and merger goodwill of listed companies will have an important impact on the decision-making and behavior of the auditors.At the same time,As the "gatekeeper" of the capital market,auditors can effectively monitor market operations,and promote the healthy development of the capital market,by providing professional,fair and objectiveand audit services.It is important to explore the relationship between merger goodwill and auditor behavior.Firstly,this article elaborates the relevant theoretical basis.Secondly,it conducts a literature review of important research results of merger goodwill and auditor behavior.Then,it takes China's A-share non-financial and non-insurance listed companies from 2012 to 2017 as research samples to empirically test the impact of merger goodwill on auditors' behavior and the moderating role of property rights.Furthermore,the intermediary effect model is used to test the specific path that merger goodwill affects the behavior of auditors,and the impact of merger goodwill on auditors 'behavior when it is impaired,which will enrich the research on merger goodwill and auditors' behavior.This article draws the following conclusions:(1)Merger goodwill affects the behavior of auditors.For listed companies with merger goodwill,auditors will charge more audit fees and extend the time lag of audit reports;(2)Under different property rights,the impact of merger goodwill on auditors 'behavior is different,which is specifically manifested in state-owned enterprises,where the impact of merger goodwill on auditors' behavior is weakened;(3)The impact of merger goodwill on the auditor's behavior is characterized by stage.Before the possible risk caused by merger goodwill has not been made explicit,that is,when the merger goodwill has not been impaired,merger goodwill leads to an increase in business risk,which makes auditors increase audit fees and extend the audit report time lag;and after the merger reputation risk is manifested as goodwill impairment,it will lead to non-standard audit opinions.