Research On The Relationship Between Executive Audit Background And Auditing Report Lag

In recent years,with the continuous progress and improvement of the securities market,the number of listed companies and accounting firms is increasing and their scale is gradually expanding.The employment needs of listed companies are consistent with the career planning and development of audit staff,resulting in the phenomenon of "the rise of senior executives with audit background".According to Upper Echelons Theory,the professional ability advantage of senior executives with audit background will inevitably affect the business decision-making and strategy making of senior executives after entering the enterprise.In recent years,there were senior executives with audit background involved in many accounting information disclosure violations at home and abroad.According to the measures for the administration of information disclosure of listed companies,the disclosure time of China’s annual financial report is as long as 120 days,which is much higher than that of the United States,Japan,South Korea and many emerging developing countries or regions.A longer disclosure time of annual financial report will cause many problems,Executives with audit background may use their professional ability and rich experience to manipulate information for personal gain by using the longer disclosure time of the annual report,thereby damaging the interests of shareholders.The disclosure time of the annual financial report mainly depends on the issuance time of the audit report.China’s Ministry of Finance issued a new round of audit standards at the end of 2016,which is conducive to improving the quality of audit reports and improving the transparency of audit work.After the implementation of the new auditing standards,the audit staff and the executives of the audited company are facing new challenges,which may have an impact on auditing report lag.Based on the above background,this thesis explores the impact and mechanism of executive audit background on auditing report lag,as well as the changes in the relationship between executive audit background and auditing report lag caused by the implementation of new audit standards.This thesis combs the theoretical basis of executive audit background,auditing report lag,new audit standards,high-level echelon theory and signal transmission theory,and takes China’s A-share listed companies from 2014 to 2020 as the sample of this thesis.Through empirical testing,this thesis systematically studies the impact of executive audit background of different job types on auditing report lag and the changes in the relationship between executive audit background and auditing report lag caused by the implementation of the new audit standards.Then this thesis further analyzes the differences in the impact of different executive audit background on auditing report lag before and after the implementation of the new audit standards,the impact of executive audit background on auditing report lag under different property rights and different accounting firms,and the impact of different executive audit background on auditing report lag under different property rights and different accounting firms.The empirical results show that:(1)Executive audit background has a significant effect on auditing report lag,but this effect is affected by institutional changes,the nature of property rights of audited companies and the characteristics of accounting firms;(2)Before the implementation of the new auditing standards,executive audit background is positively correlated with auditing report lag;After the implementation of the new auditing standards,executive audit background is significantly negatively correlated with auditing report lag;(3)Before the implementation of the new auditing standards,decision-making executive audit background has a significant positive correlation with auditing report lag,and supervisory executive audit background has nothing to do with auditing report lag;After the implementation of the new auditing standards,decision-making executive audit background has nothing to do with auditing report lag,and supervisory executive audit background has a significant negative correlation with auditing report lag;(4)Before and after the implementation of the new auditing standards,there are differences in the impact of executive audit background of different job types on auditing report lag under different property rights;(5)Before and after the implementation of the new auditing standards,there are differences in the impact of executive audit background of different job types under different accounting firms on auditing report lag.According to the conclusion,this thesis puts forward corresponding suggestions and points out the possible shortcomings of this thesis and the direction of future research.