TY - JOUR AB - Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to examine the value relevance of accounting information in cases of apparent audit failures.Design/methodology/approach– The authors adopt the bootstrapping technique and compare the value relevance of key accounting information across samples of firms experiencing apparent audit failures with matched non‐audit failure firms.Findings– Accounting information is found to be less value relevant for firms experiencing apparent audit failures, regardless of auditor reputation.Research limitations/implications– This study has limitations due to the ex ante research approach adopted. Future research could address this issue by possibly incorporating an “intervening” factor into the model to indicate how the market can differentiate audit failure firms from other firms.Originality/value– The paper gives support to the assertion that the market appears to rely less on accounting numbers when audit failures occur, even though formal allegations of audit failure may not appear until years after their occurrence. In addition to contributing to value‐relevance research by providing empirical evidence for the market phenomenon around the time of material misstatements, the paper demonstrates an innovative application of bootstrapping to test for differences in R2. VL - 10 IS - 2 SN - 1475-7702 DO - 10.1108/14757701111129616 UR - https://doi.org/10.1108/14757701111129616 AU - Dang Li AU - Brown Kevin F. AU - McCullough B.D. PY - 2011 Y1 - 2011/01/01 TI - Apparent audit failures and value relevance of earnings and book value T2 - Review of Accounting and Finance PB - Emerald Group Publishing Limited SP - 134 EP - 154 Y2 - 2024/05/09 ER -