A Research On The Effects Of Auditor’s Gender Combination Characteristics On Audit Quality

Based on the sample of 2016-2020 Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share non-financial listed companies,which are 6625 valid data totally after being sorted,this paper examines the correlation between auditor’s gender combination characteristics and audit quality.In the empirical research,apart from the regression of the overall sample,this paper also introducing the age variable and taking 45 years old as the benchmark,discusses the audit quality differences of male auditors and female auditors in different age groups.In addition,in the further research,the paper categorizes the negative earnings management part of samples by listed sectors,taking into account the size of the company,and discusses the effects of auditor’s gender combination characteristics on audit quality deeply in different situations.The empirical study finds that:(1)In the overall sample,there is a significant positive correlation between |DA|＿OP and auditor gender group GENDER,which is the core explanatory variable.After dividing the overall sample into positive and negative parts of earnings management,when earnings management is negative(DA is less than 0),the variable GENDER(representing the gender of the whole auditor team)and the variable Gender1(representing the gender of the first signing auditor)have a significant positive correlation with |DA|＿OP at the level of 10% and 5% respectively.It’s the imply that the higher the proportion of the male auditor is in the team,the more improvement could have to the audit quality.What’s more,when the male auditor is the first signatory,this effect is more significant.When earnings management is positive(DA is greater than 0),there is no significant correlation between the characteristics of auditor’s gender combination and audit quality.(2)Based on the sample of negative earnings management,introducing the age factor,it is found that,compared with the full sample of DA less than 0,when the auditor team is older than 45 years old,the correlation significance between GENDER and |DA|＿OP disappears,and the correlation significance level between Gender1 and |DA|＿OP drops to10%.Furthermore,Gendersame(representing the gender consistency of the auditor team)is significantly negatively correlated with |DA|＿OP at the level of 5%,which means that in the sample of negative earnings management,when the auditor team is over the age of 45,the audit quality difference between different male and female auditor teams decreases.And at this time,gender heterogeneity helps to improve audit quality.(3)In addition,in the further research,this paper carries out a refined regression of the sample by age in different listed sectors.It’s found that,based on the part of negative earnings management,the regression result of the sample on the main board of the Shanghai Stock Exchange is the same as the previous.But in the dividing sample of the main board of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange,it is found that when the age is less than 45 years old,GENDER and Gender1 are respectively negatively correlated to |DA |＿OP at the significant level of 10% and 5%.When the age is greater than 45 years old,the correlations between GENDER and |DA|＿OP,and between Gender1 and |DA|＿OP,both disappear.This means that for companies which are listed on the main board of Shenzhen Stock Exchange market,when the age variable is less than 45 years old,the higher proportion of female auditors in the team could improve the audit quality.And the audit quality difference,between male and female auditors,decreases with age.Generally,the higher the proportion of the male auditor is in the auditor team,the more positive impact has on the audit quality;but in sub-sectors,the audit quality of male and female auditors in the team is different.In addition,with DA is less than 0,whether it is in the overall sample,or in the sub-sample,the audit quality difference of auditor teams with different gender ratios decreases with age.To a certain extent,the completion of this study tries to supply the gap of audit quality research in the form of auditor team.By setting up 3 different observation perspectives for auditor gender team,this paper improves the discussion of auditor gender teams in various situations.At the same time,through the subdivision of age(auditor’s perspective)and company’s listed sector(customer’s perspective),it explores the different influences of auditor’s gender combination characteristics on audit quality under different circumstances.These conclusions,on the one hand,help the firm to objectively evaluate the working ability of men and women,and reasonably allocate the human resources of the audit team;on the other hand,they are also beneficial for listed companies to select and evaluate male and female auditors more fairly.Importantly,it is beneficial to increase female auditors’ awareness of self-ability,so that they could participate in the competition more actively with men.Female auditors and male auditors could make a contribution to the audit industry and boost the development of our country’s economy together.