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Audit hour reporting is rare internationally. Thus, to what extent shareholders have the power to influence audit effort/hour demand is a question left unanswered. This study aims to use unique South Korean data to determine whether the increasing power of the largest foreign/domestic shareholders and blockholders can influence audit hour demand.

In this study ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analysis is conducted using a sample of Korean listed firms over the 2004–2018 sample period.

The results show: as the percentage equity holding of the largest foreign shareholder and blockholder (>5%) increases, audit hour demand increases. As the shareholding of the largest domestic shareholder increases, audit hour demanded decreases. The association between audit fees/hours is not qualitatively indifferent, after controlling for the audit fee premium effect. Furthermore, the largest foreign shareholder is shown to demand increasingly higher levels of audit hours from Big4 auditors, relative to NonBig4. All results are consistent with audit demand theory.

Whilst previous studies offer audit fee/risk interpretations, this study extends the literature by developing a framework to explain why audit hour demands differ for specific groups. Because audit hour information is rare internationally, the study has important policy implications.

Firm management has an incentive to improve credit ratings to enjoy the reputational and financial benefits associated with higher credit ratings. In this study, the authors question whether audit effort in hours can be considered incrementally increasing with credit ratings. Based on legitimacy theory, the authors conjecture that firms with higher credit ratings will demand higher levels of audit effort to signal audit and financial quality compared to firms with higher levels of credit risk.

The authors conduct empirical tests using a sample of Korean-listed firms using a sample period covering 2001–2015.

The results show that firms with higher credit ratings demand higher audit effort in hours compared to client firms with lower credit ratings. The authors interpret that firms with higher ratings (lower risk) demand higher levels of audit effort in hours to reduce information asymmetry and to demonstrate that financial reporting systems are robust based on audit effort signaling audit quality. The authors also interpret that firms with lower credit ratings do not have incentives to signal similar audit quality. The authors also capture the “Big4 auditor expertise” effect by demonstrating that client firms audited by nonBig4 auditors demand additional audit effort with increasing credit rating compared to Big4 clients.

Audit effort is considered a signal of firm risk in the literature. This study’s results show evidence that audit effort is inversely related to firm risk.

The results show that audit hour information is informative and likely managed by firm stakeholders. Internationally, it is not possible to capture the audit demand of clients because listing audit hours on financial statements is not a rule. Given that audit hours can be considered informative, the authors believe that legislators could consider implementing a policy to mandate that audit hours be recorded on international annual reports to enhance transparency.

South Korea is one of few countries to list audit effort on annual reports. Therefore, the link between audit effort and credit ratings is unique in South Korea because it is one of few countries in which market participants likely monitor audit effort.

The paper aims to explore the impact of two types of monitoring mechanisms, namely, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) comment letters (CLs) and short sellers, on management’s demand for audit quality.

Using information on the short interest positions and a panel data of SEC CLs between 2005 and 2015, this study applies logit regression model to estimate the likelihood of hiring Big 4 and industry expert audit firm. This study also applies an ordinary least squares regression technique to estimate audit fees.

Consistent with disclosure and agency theories, results from empirical analyses provide that management demands higher quality audits measured by higher audit fees, and higher likelihood to hire Big 4 and industry expert audit firm. However, this study finds that the effect varies depending on the specific monitoring mechanisms. Additionally, when both monitoring mechanisms are in place, the SEC CLs drive the overall direction of the demand for audit quality when audit demand is captured by propensity to hire Big 4/industry expert audit firm.

This study provides researchers with enhanced understanding of the factors having effect on the demand side for audit quality. Furthermore, it adds to the stream of literature on economic consequences of SEC CLs and short selling.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, this is the first comprehensive study to document the effect of two types of monitoring mechanisms, namely, SEC CLs and short selling, on the demand for audit quality.

The purpose of this paper, based on the institution change theory, is to analyze the factors which influence the auditees' demand for government performance auditing (GPA).

This study acquired the data by survey. The author investigated the government officials and the state‐owned enterprises and institutions' senior managers from 28 provinces and cities, then used the econometrics model to test the hypotheses.

By analyzing the survey data, it is found that the respondents who come from the region where the economy is less developed and the legislative level is lower have more demand for the performance auditing; the respondents' knowledge about the GPA has not increased their demand; the auditing penalty effects has negative impact on the demand for performance auditing and the organizational support has positive effects on their demand.

The findings in this study suggest that there is not enough GPA supply in the region where the economy is less developed and the legislative level is lower, and that the auditees have not realized the benefits of GPA, although they know something about the GPA.

The national audit office and its branches should pay more attention to the region where the developmental level of GPA is lower and allocate the auditing resources more efficiently. The government officials should learn more about GPA to realize its benefits and distinguish GPA from the other kinds of government auditing, such as the financial revenues and expenditures auditing. Moreover, the government at all levels should give substantial support to GPA.

The paper empirically analyzes, for the first time, the government auditees' demand for GPA. The paper extends previous studies in this field by surveying auditees who have been neglected but have important impact on the development of GPA.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of ownership concentration of the largest shareholder and foreign ownership on the demand for an external audit for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in six Latin American countries. In particular, the authors test whether foreign-owned firms (compared with domestic private-owned firms) and domestic firms with minority foreign shareholders are more likely engaged in audit assurance.

The authors applied the logit model to estimate the impact of ownership concentration and owner/shareholder type on audit demand, using a sample of 4,609 SMEs. The probabilities of being audited for firms in these countries are then calculated from the estimation results.

The empirical results suggest an inverse relationship between ownership concentration and audit demand only for Uruguay and Peru. However, foreign-owned firms and domestic private-owned firms with minority foreign ownership have a high probability of being audited for all sample countries.

Policymakers in developing countries may promote foreign investments in domestic private-owned firms to improve their corporate transparency and governance.

This study contributes to the growing literature on the impact of ownership on audit demand by particularly focusing on foreign owners and foreign minority shareholders. The findings indicate that foreign ownership (either majority or minority) contributes to corporate transparency and business environments in emerging countries.

This study is motivated by the lack of internal audit function (IAF) research and by the call for research on the impact of dominant owners such as family shareholders on audit fees and the demand for audit quality. This study aims to examine the impact of the IAF budget on the selection of industry-specialist auditors and on audit fees, particularly in companies with family-controlled shareholders, a feature unique to Malaysia.

Data of Malaysian-listed companies during the period 2009-2012 are used. To examine the relationships, logit and ordinary least square regressions are used. Several additional analyses are conducted to assess the robustness of the main results, including alternative measures of specialist auditor and family ownership, endogeneity problems and self-selection bias.

The results show that the IAF budget is positively related to hiring industry-specialist auditors and audit fees. However, family companies are less likely to support the positive association between IAF costs and engage specialist auditors than non-family companies. In addition, a complementary association between the costs of IAF and audit fees for both family and non-family companies was found. Finally, the results show that there is a negative association between family ownership and the ratio of IAF costs to audit fees, suggesting that family companies rely more upon external auditing than internal auditing.

The contribution of this study is to provide an empirical evidence about the tradeoff between IAF and both industry-specialist auditors and audit fees with considering the moderating impact of family-ownership shareholdings. This issue is yet to be examined, and it provides implications for policymakers and practitioners, as it offers insights into the importance of investing in IAF toward hiring industry-specialist auditors and pricing the audit services.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of gender and ethnicity of CEO and audit committee members (directors) on audit fees and audit delay in the US firms.

Audit-related corporate governance literature has extensively examined the determinants of audit fees and audit delay by focusing on board characteristics, specifically board independence, diligence and expertise. The authors provide empirical evidence that gender and ethnicity diversity in corporate leadership and boardrooms influence a firm’s audit fees and audit delay.

This study finds that firms with female and ethnic minority CEOs pay significantly higher audit fees than those with male Caucasian CEOs. The authors also find that firms with a higher percentage of ethnic minority directors on their audit committee pay significantly higher audit fees. Further, the authors find that firms with female CEOs have shorter audit delay than firms with male CEOs and firms with a higher percentage of female and ethnic minority directors on their audit committee are associated with shorter audit delay. Results indicate that female CEOs and both female and ethnic minority directors are sensitive to the market pressure to avoid audit delay.

The results suggest that gender and ethnic diversity could improve audit quality and the firms’ overall financial reporting quality.

This study provides insights to regulators and policy-makers interested in increasing diversity within a firm’s board and top executives. Recently, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the European Commission have been pressing publicly traded companies to improve diversity among their directors. This study provides evidence and perspective on how diversity can enhance financial reporting quality measured by audit fees and audit delay.

Previous studies have not given much attention on the impact of racial ethnicity in addition to gender characteristics of top executives and audit committee directors on audit fees and audit delay.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between political connection, corporate governance and audit fees in Malaysia. Specifically, it is argued that politically connected firms are perceived to be riskier and thus require auditors to undertake greater audit efforts which in turn lead to higher audit fee. Furthermore, it is also hypothesised that the demand for better corporate governance practices requires more audit effort exert from the auditors, and the demand for higher quality work is expected to be stronger for politically connected firms as these firms are being perceived to have higher risks. This is turn results in higher fees paid to the external auditor.

This paper employs panel regression analysis. The panel data set consists of 382 non‐financial firms (1,022 observations) for three years from year 2001 to 2003.

Based on 1,022 firm‐year observations for the period of 2001 to 2003, the results reveal that politically connected firms pay higher audit fees, while firms with better governance demand a higher audit quality, leading to higher audit fees. However, there is no evidence to support that corporate governance demands for a higher quality audit especially for politically connected firms.

This paper contributes to the corporate governance‐audit fees literature by examining a large number of corporate governance variables based on the Malaysian Code on Corporate Governance. In particular, instead of using several individual governance variables such as audit committee, board structure or composition, this study condensed the large number of corporate governance variables into a single index. Furthermore, this study was conducted in Malaysia, which is a unique environment that offers clear identifiable segments based along ethnic line, whereby, politically favoured firms are generally given special privileges by the government.

Given the growing interest in the topic, both in practice and academia, it is timely and important to examine the concept of continuous assurance (CA) and the possible paths along which such services will evolve. There has been a tendency to see CA purely from the point of view of its technological enablers. As such, it has virtually been taken for granted that CA will follow as a matter of course. What has been less thought through is the business architecture that must underlie CA. In particular, we show that the key driver of CA is the demand for it. While there may be many economic transactions between the company and its stakeholders that could benefit from the provision of CA, there is no guarantee that CA is either cost effective—the only way of enhancing efficiency—or actually has to be continuous. Other factors that will affect the development of CA are the need for a new infrastructure to pay for it, as well as concerns about the independence of the assurors. We also identify some important research issues.

The research aims to investigate the moderating role of secrecy culture on the effect of tax enforcement on the likelihood that private firms hire external auditors.

The study generates more than 70,000 observations from 83 country-years from the World Bank Enterprise Survey 2018 dataset. Because the study focuses on private firms in emerging countries, data on publicly listed firms and firms from OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries are deleted. The secrecy culture data are generated from Hofstede's website. The data are then analyzed with logit analyses because the dependent variable is binary.

The results demonstrate that tax enforcement increases the likelihood that private firms hire external auditors. Further, secrecy culture weakens the relationship between tax enforcement and audit demand.

Governments in emerging countries need to encourage private firms to hire external auditors by intensifying tax enforcement because private firms often do not appreciate the importance of high-quality financial statements. However, secretive national culture may reduce tax enforcement's effectiveness in motivating private firms to hire external auditors. Hence, governments of highly secretive countries need to address this issue and find alternative ways to promote audited financial statements.

Audit demand of private firms in emerging countries is relatively understudied, especially concerning tax enforcement. Furthermore, the research also focuses on the moderating role of national culture (secrecy) in explaining the relationship between tax enforcement and audit demand.