TY  - JOUR
AB  - Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between and corporate environmental responsibility (CER) and audit risk.Design/methodology/approach– A survey participation request was mailed to 5,008 US auditors at random. The request provided a link to an electronic survey. The final sample consists of anonymous responses from 163 auditors.Findings– The authors find that auditors, on average, do not perceive a significant relationship between corporate environmental strengths and audit risk; however, they do perceive an increase in audit risk among firms with corporate environmental concerns. Use of CER in the risk assessment process also varies across types of CER: 15 per cent of auditors use corporate environmental strengths to assess audit risk, while 43 per cent of auditors use corporate environmental concerns to assess audit risk. Perception of the CER/audit risk relationship is a significant determinant of CER use. Finally, both types of CER are found to have average usefulness in the risk assessment process.Research limitations/implications– The findings are limited to US auditors; results may not be transferable to other countries.Originality/value– Studies involving the impact of CER on earnings generally involve archival data. By examining the impact of CER on audit risk, using a unique dataset, the authors present a different and timely setting to study the CER/earnings relationship. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first paper to document the relationship between CER and audit risk.
VL  - 26
IS  - 8
SN  - 0268-6902
DO  - 10.1108/02686901111161340
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1108/02686901111161340
AU  - Mindak Mary
AU  - Heltzer Wendy
PY  - 2011
Y1  - 2011/01/01
TI  - Corporate environmental responsibility and audit risk
T2  - Managerial Auditing Journal
PB  - Emerald Group Publishing Limited
SP  - 697
EP  - 733
Y2  - 2024/04/24
ER  -