Audit Quality Diffrences Among Auditors: The Case of Hong Kong

Abstract

Audits play a critical role in satisfying the public interest in strengthening accountability and supporting confience in fiancial reporting. Conventionally, audit quality is defied as a probability that fiancial statements are free from material misstatements. The existence of a positive relationship between audit fim size and audit quality has long been accepted in previous literature. This has resulted in numerous studies collecting evidence of diffrential audit quality relative to the size of audit fims, both large and small. Consequently, the conclusion has been asserted that larger audit fims produce a higher and more homogenous audit quality. The collapse of Arthur Andersen, however, has undermined the premise that large audit fims provide higher audit quality than smaller fims. This research investigates audit quality based on the extent of compliance levels with disclosure requirements pertaining to goodwill impairment of large listed Hong Kong fims in the third year transition to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). The result found that audit fim identity appears to be a signifiant proportion of crosssectional variation, in which compliance levels and disclosure quality varied considerably among auditors.