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This study aims to examine the impact of client information technology (IT) capabilities on audit report lag and audit fees in Jordanian companies listed on the Amman Stock Exchange (ASE) during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This study analysed financial and non-financial data from 72 Jordanian public shareholding companies listed on the ASE between 2014 and 2021. Using fixed- and random-effects models, the authors examined the impact of client IT capabilities on audit report lag and audit fees. The authors also examined how the COVID-19 pandemic might affect audit report lag and audit fees. The analysis incorporated various control variables specific to the Jordanian context to ensure accuracy.

Empirical evidence indicates that client IT capabilities do not significantly impact audit report lag and audit fees. In contrast, the COVID-19 pandemic has positively impacted audit report lag and audit fees, leading to an increase in audit report lag of 60 to 67 days and an increase in audit fees of approximately 15%. It is worth noting that these effects are more pronounced when influenced by factors including return on assets, company losses and audits conducted by the Big 4 firms.

The scope of this study, which focuses on Jordanian firms, may limit the generalisability of the findings to other contexts. Reliance on aggregate IT infrastructure and software assets as proxies for IT capabilities might not fully capture their multifaceted nature, overlooking the qualitative aspects crucial for audit outcomes. Furthermore, excluding external factors such as governmental regulations underscores the need for future research to explore the nuanced interplay between IT capabilities, internal control systems and regulatory environments, enriching our understanding of audit practices.

This study contributes to auditing literature by examining the interplay between IT capabilities and audit processes during the COVID-19 pandemic in Jordan. This study highlights the unexpected finding that IT capabilities have minimal impact on audit report lags and fees, opening new avenues for research on how pandemics and similar crises can reshape auditing practices and influence regulatory policies in an evolving economic environment.

This paper aims to investigate whether the two dominant financial reporting regimes, US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (US GAAP) and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), are associated with audit pricing and audit report lags.

In 2007, the US SEC eliminated the requirement for foreign registrants to reconcile their financial statements to US GAAP from IFRS. In this post-reconciliation setting in the USA, the authors use panel ordinary least square regressions to examine a sample of foreign firms cross-listed in the USA reporting under IFRS and US domestic firms reporting under US GAAP during the fiscal year 2007–2019.

The authors find that the firms reporting under IFRS have longer audit report lags than firms reporting under US GAAP. In addition, the authors find that firms reporting under IFRS pay higher audit fees than their US GAAP counterparts. The results are robust after controlling for the firm- and country-specific characteristics as well as using propensity-score matching.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to provide empirical evidence that the differences between the two reporting regimes are associated with auditor behavior, possibly through additional audit efforts and audit complexity associated with auditing the principle-based IFRS relative to the rule-based US GAAP.

This study aims to examine whether the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) by audit firms and their clients affects audit efficiency and audit quality.

This study empirically examines the abovementioned research question based on data from China for the years 2011 to 2020. It uses audit report lag as a proxy for audit efficiency and the likelihood of annual report restatement as a proxy for audit quality. It adopts the propensity score matching and the two-stage OLS regression model to address the endogeneity issue led by firms’ innate complicated functions.

The findings show that when audit firms and their clients use AI separately, there's a positive link between AI use and audit report lag. However, when audit firms and clients use AI together, there's a negative link between AI use and audit report delays that enhance overall audit efficiency. Next, the authors observe a negative link between AI use and the likelihood of a restatement. Finally, the authors find that the association between AI adoption and audit quality is driven by increased audit effort lag. Results are consistent and robust to endogeneity tests and sensitivity analyses.

Findings can complement the audit quality and corporate governance literature by clarifying that external audit must evolve through digitalization and the incorporation of newly developed digital tools, such as AI.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between the workforce environment and corporate social responsibility (CSR) audit report lag while also developing a comprehensive understanding of the moderating effect of media coverage on this relationship.

This paper was based on a sample of 151 French nonfinancial companies listed on the CAC All Shares index and covered an eight-year period, from 2014 to 2021. To test the hypotheses, a feasible generalized least squares regression was applied. Moreover, the authors checked the results using an additional analysis and the generalized method of moment model for endogeneity problems.

Based on a panel data set comprising 960 observations of French firms from the period 2014 to 2021, the results obtained indicate a significant negative relationship between the workforce environment and CSR audit report lag. Additionally, it was found that media exposure moderates the relationship between the workforce environment and CSR audit report lag.

This study contributes to the existing research on workforce environment and CSR audit report lag, potentially providing stakeholders such as employees, employers, regulators and auditors with an environment that shortens the time for issuing CSR audit reports. The findings are also relevant for foreign institutional investors aiming to enhance their investment decisions with more comprehensive information.

The work is innovative as it explores the moderating impact of media exposure on the connection between workforce environment and CSR audit report lag, a topic not extensively studied before. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no prior empirical studies have examined this relationship within the French context or elsewhere.

In this study the authors examine the nature and contents of key audit matters (KAMs), and the consequences of KAMs reporting on audit quality in the context of a developing country, Bangladesh. The authors’ proxies of audit qualities are discretionary accruals, small positive earnings surprise, audit report lag, earnings management via below the line items and audit fees.

The authors use content analysis of the KAMs for the period 2018–2021 to understand the nature and extent of KAMs reported by auditors in Bangladesh. The authors then use multivariate regression analysis to examine the effect of the number and content characteristics of KAMs on audit quality by using multivariate regression analysis.

Auditors in Bangladesh disclose a higher number of KAMs compared to other countries, disclose short descriptions of KAMs and industry generic KAMs. The authors document significant cross-sectional variations in the number and content characteristics of KAMs reported by auditors in Bangladesh. The authors’ pre-post analysis suggest that audit quality has improved after the adoption of KAMs. Cross-sectional analysis suggests that KAMs number and content characteristics are related to audit quality.

The authors’ findings imply that the KAMs reporting has the potential to play significant monitoring role in reducing the opportunistic behavior of managers. Hence, KAMs reporting can play a significant role in reducing the agency problem. For regulators, shareholders and corporate managers, the authors’ findings imply that if the audit quality is to be increased, the audit effort should be supported by an appropriate amount of audit fee.

The content characteristics of KAMs significantly influence managerial reporting behavior and affect the level of audit efforts.

Unlike developed countries (Gutierrez et al., 2018; Lennox et al. 2022), this study supports that KAMs reporting improves audit quality and control opportunistic behavior of managers in developing countries. The authors show that even though the KAMs disclosure quality is poor, it has the potential to improve financial reporting quality.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of key audit matters (KAMs) on the timeliness of financial statement reporting, measured as audit report lag (ARL), within the context of Kuwait's evolving financial market.

Using a sample of 136 unique firms and 841 firm-year observations over the period 2016–2022, the study employs a random effects model on a panel data set to examine the correlation between the number and type of KAMs disclosed in audit reports and the length of ARL. In addition, we employ sub-sample analysis and two-stage least squares (2SLS) regression to enhance overall reliability.

The results indicate a positive relationship between an increased number of reported KAMs and the length of ARL. Specific categories of KAMs, such as those related to investments and the implementation of new standards, also significantly impact the delay. Additionally, the findings reaffirm the importance of several determinants of ARL, which is consistent with prior research.

This study is among the first to offer new insights by examining the relationship between both the number and specific types and/or categories of KAMs on ARL in emerging markets.

This study aims to examine the association between institutional investors’ ownership (IOW), politically connected firms (POCF) and audit report lag (AUDRL).

This study employs a feasible generalised least squares (FGLS) model for panel data to examine the association between IOW, POCF and AUDRL for Malaysian publicly listed companies.

The findings reveal a statistically significant negative relationship between IOW and AUDRL, with this negative relationship being more pronounced amongst POCF. Additionally, the results demonstrate that the relationship between IOW and AUDRL varies depending on the domicile of IIs (local vs. foreign). Specifically, local institutional investors exhibit a negative and statistically significant relationship with AUDRL, whilst foreign institutional investors show a positive and statistically significant relationship with AUDRL.

The results of this study provide a new understanding of auditor responses to institutional investor monitoring and political connections (PCs) in an emerging economy.

This study aims to examine how new regulation changes for the auditor’s report, so-called key audit matters (KAMs), influence tax avoidance.

This study uses data from firms listed on the Omani capital market over the period 2012–2019 and analyzes these data using pooled panel data regression with a robust standard error. It uses two common proxies for tax avoidance and two measures for the KAMs disclosure requirement.

This study finds a sharp decrease in the effective tax rate following the introduction of KAMs disclosure and the issuance of more KAMs in audit reports. This result is supported by several robustness checks. In an additional analysis, the authors observe interesting results, indicating that real earnings management mediates this association, while the audit committee plays a moderating role. The authors do not find a moderating effect of Big4 on this association, but find discrepancies within the Big4 firms in relation to this moderating effect.

The results of this study indicate that although the introduction of the KAMs disclosure requirement may have positive consequences, it may also lead to unintended negative consequences. This conclusion has not been comprehensively reported in literature.

This paper aims to (1) investigate the effect of other comprehensive income (OCI) on audit fees (AF) and audit report lag (ARL) and (2) test the moderating effect of board gender diversity (BGD) on such relationships.

This paper uses data extracted from the financial reports for a sample of Egyptian firms from 2013 to 2019, where the data are processed using the Panel Corrected Standards Errors (PCSE) and the Structure Equation Model (SEM).

The results reveal that (1) the OCI existence and OCI volume have a significant positive effect on AF and ARL, and (2) the presence of female directors on the board and the percentage of female representation affect the relationship between OCI and AF positively, but this effect on the relationship between OCI and ARL is insignificant.

This paper has some limitations, where the analysis uses a small sample of Egyptian listed firms, as well as, the measures that were used as proxies of the study variables, which do not necessarily express the most suitable ones.

The results of this paper would (1) provide signals to the audit market, the professional bodies in Egypt and stakeholders about the determinants of AF and ARL, (2) provide guidelines that support the capital market authority to consider gender diversity in boards of companies taking into considerations its impact on AF and ARL, and (3) help the accounting setters in emerging economies as Egypt in drafting more suitable standards and guidelines regarding OCI.

This paper adds to the literature on OCI, where it investigates the effect of OCI on ARL, which was not yet studied in prior studies. Also, this paper complements and extends the literature by providing empirical evidence from one of the emerging markets as Egypt about the effect of BGD on the relationships between OCI, AF and ARL, as these relationships have not been examined before.

The purpose of this study is to delve into the complex interplay between earnings management (EM), the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) implementation and the reporting lag (RL) within the specific context of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region, with a particular emphasis on the Saudi context, offering insights into their influence on financial reporting practices.

Using a panel data set of 135 Saudi companies over an eight-year period, covering four years before and after the mandatory adoption of IFRS in 2017, this study investigates the Saudi financial reporting landscape. It uses interaction moderation analysis to explore variable effects and includes robustness analyses to validate the findings.

The findings reveal three key outcomes. First, they challenge conventional expectations by showing no significant impact of discretionary accruals (DACC) on RL, contrary to established accounting theories. This deviation is attributed to unique market characteristics within the GCC region, including family-owned businesses, government involvement and distinct regulations, with specific insights relevant to Saudi Arabia. Second, an unexpected positive association between IFRS adoption and RL in Saudi Arabia emerged. Several contextual factors contribute, including transition costs, compliance expenses, institutional dynamics and reconciling IFRS with local Shariah principles. Most importantly, IFRS adoption significantly reduced RL, especially for companies with high DACC levels. This highlights IFRS’s transformative role, emphasizes aligning EM with international standards for investor confidence and mitigating nonconformity risks in the GCC region’s business landscape.

The research findings carry significant practical implications for companies operating within the GCC region, accentuating the strategic imperative of timely financial reporting to bolster credibility, align with international standards and fortify investor confidence. Moreover, regulators and policymakers are urged to consider tailoring accounting regulations to accommodate the distinctive GCC context, thereby adeptly addressing the intricacies stemming from the interplay of EM, IFRS adoption and RL dynamics in the region.

This study adds to the current body of literature by highlighting the significant moderating influence of IFRS transition on the nexus between DACC and RL. It underscores the crucial role of this global accounting framework in reshaping financial reporting practices.