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This study aims to investigate why and how shared service centres (SSCs) are implemented as well as how they affect audit firm practice and audit quality.

In this qualitative study guided by the theoretical framework of institutional theory, the authors conducted 25 semi-structured interviews in seven European countries, including 16 interviews with audit partners from Big 4 firms, 6 with audit team members, 2 with interviewees from second-tier audit firms and 1 with a member of an oversight body.

The authors show that the central rationale for audit firms to implement SSCs is economic rather than external legitimacy. The authors find that SSC implementation has substantial effects on audit practices, particularly those related to standardisation, coordination and monitoring activities. The authors also highlight the potential impacts on audit quality.

By exploring the motivation for and effects of SSC implementation amongst audit firms, the authors offer insights into the best practices related to subsequent change processes and audit quality.

This study aims to investigate the link between audit quality and in-court debt restructuring. The aim is to understand whether the confirmation of debt restructuring plans is affected by audit quality, which, in the light of agency theory, reduces information asymmetries between outsiders (creditors and the court) and insiders (shareholders and managers) of the debtor company.

A logistic regression is performed to test whether higher audit quality is associated with an increased probability of successfully completing a debt restructuring proceeding (RP). Consistent with the literature, audit quality is assessed ex ante based on auditor size, which is used as a proxy for independence. The analysis considers private Italian companies.

Audit quality positively affects debt restructuring. Among financially distressed companies, those audited by an audit company are more likely to succeed in RPs than those audited by a single practitioner. There is no evidence of a Big N effect.

This study fills a gap in literature as, in contrast to other financial and governance characteristics, audit quality has never been studied before as a determinant of efficient restructuring. It contributes to the literature on auditing and governance by highlighting the importance of audit quality in complex situations such as RPs, and it expands on debt restructuring literature by considering the importance of the information exchanged during RPs.

The objective of this paper is to extend the debate on audit quality in the less complex entity (LCE) context by analyzing comment letters submitted to the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB). The IAASB has drafted a new, stand-alone standard for audits of LCEs’ financial statements.

The Gioia method is utilized to conduct the qualitative analysis. This enables the material to shine and provide a comprehensive picture of the important aspects of the comment letters about the International Standard on Auditing (ISA) for LCEs. A content analysis of the 145 comment letters is conducted to identify the extent of the support for and the arguments against the new, stand-alone draft standard for audits of LCEs’ financial statements. In addition, this study considers how the comment letters describe the respondents’ views on audit quality in relation to the new standard. Finally, the tone of the comment letters and audit quality arguments is investigated.

The findings provide a useful framework of the most frequently used arguments supporting and opposing the ISA for LCEs. Within the themes identified, a wide variety of issues and concerns are discussed. The results reveal that the arguments in the comment letters are contradictory. For instance, when discussing audit quality, those interest groups that perceived many positive opportunities in the adoption of the ISA for LCEs thought that the audit quality would increase. Conversely, those interest groups that were skeptical about the success of the ISA for LCEs argued that the audit quality could be compromised by the general prejudice that the ISA for LCEs might be perceived as a lower-quality audit with fewer procedures.

This paper is, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the first to examine the content of comment letters in the context of a new, stand-alone standard for audits of LCEs. The international audience can utilize the results in the context of the widely discussed issue of reducing LCEs’ auditing obligations. This study aims to contribute to the two streams of accounting literature concerning audit quality and political lobbying.

This paper aims to examine how leadership style in audit firms influences audit quality. The paper further explores the mediating role of knowledge sharing in the relationship between leadership style and audit quality.

The present paper studies the effects of transformational and servant leadership styles on audit quality through knowledge sharing. Data are collected from 396 Iranian external auditors via a questionnaire.

The results show that both transformational and servant leadership style significantly influence audit quality through knowledge sharing. Moreover, the impact of transformational leadership style is stronger than the impact of servant leadership style.

In audit quality literature, little attention has been devoted to both leadership style and knowledge sharing. This paper develops a parsimonious model which shows how leadership style improves audit quality, and how knowledge sharing strengthens the impact of leadership style on audit quality. The results have important implications particularly for audit industry.

本文探討審計公司內的領導風格會如何影響審計質量; 本文亦進一步探索、在領導風格與審計質量的關聯上、知識共享所扮演的調節角色。

本文旨在研究透過知識共享、轉型領導風格和僕人式領導風格會如何影響審計質量。數據取自396名伊朗外聘審計員，方法是透過一份調查問卷而進行的。

研究結果顯示、轉型領導風格和僕人式領導風格兩者均會透過知識共享、影響著審計質量，而且，這影響是頗為顯著的。就影響的程度而言，轉型領導風格的影響則較僕人式領導風格的更為強烈。

在研究審計質量的文獻裡，學者對領導風格和知識共享這兩個課題均沒多大關注。本文建立了一個簡約模型，去顯示領導風格如何能改善審計質量，以及知識共享如何能增強領導風格對審計質量的影響。研究結果給予我們重要的啟示，尤對審計行業而言。

This study aims to understand the behavior of internal auditors towards quality and analyze if some organizational and individual factors influence internal audit quality.

The sample is constituted by Portuguese internal auditors, and the methodology includes the use of partial least squares – structuring equation model (PLS-SEM) to test the hypothesis under study.

The results show that there is a negative relationship between reduced audit quality practices (RAQP) and organizational commitment and independence. The results found that time pressure positively affect RAQP. There is no evidence that perceived organizational support (POS) and risk profile are determinants of RAQP.

This work contributes by extending the literature about the determinants of internal audit quality, but also to the practice by understanding the factors that influence the behavior of internal auditors and by making recommendations that allow an improvement of the quality of internal auditing.

本研究擬瞭解內部審計師就保持內部審計質量所作出的行為，並探討是否有些組織或個人因素、會影響內部審計的質量。

研究的樣本由葡萄牙內部審計師構成，而研究方法則包括偏最小平方法的結構方程模型 (PLS-SEM) 的使用，以測試正在研究中的假設。

研究結果顯示、降低審計質量的慣常做法與組織承諾及獨立性是成負相關的; 研究結果亦顯示、時間壓力會對降低審計質量的慣常做法產生正面影響，沒有證據證實、組織支持感和風險概況是降低審計質量慣常做法的決定因素。

本研究的貢獻為、就研究內部審計質量決定因素的文獻方面、擴展了有關的學術探討; 研究亦對內部審計作出實務方面的貢獻，因研究結果幫助我們更瞭解影響內部審計師行為的因素，而且，研究人員提出了提升內部審計質量的建議。

內部審計質量、降低審計質量的慣常做法、組織決定因素、個人決定因素.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of family involvement in ownership and governance on the quality of internal auditing.

Leveraging a hand-collected data set of listed family firms from 2014 to 2020, this study uses regression analyses to investigate the impact of family ownership, family involvement on the board, family CEO and the generational stage of the family business on the quality of internal auditing.

The results provide evidence that family ownership is positively associated with the quality of internal auditing, while later generational stages of family businesses have the opposite effect. Additional analyses reveal that the presence of a sustainability board sub-committee moderates the relationship between generational stages of family businesses and the quality of internal auditing function.

This paper does not consider country-institutional factors and other potentially family-related antecedents or governance factors that may affect the quality of internal auditing.

The results are informative for investors and non-family stakeholders interested in understanding under which conditions family-related factors influence the quality of internal auditing functions.

This study offers fresh evidence regarding the relationship between family-related factors and the quality of internal auditing and board sub-committees that moderate such a relationship in family businesses.

Real estate is a capital-intensive industry for which the asset values tend to be highly volatile and uncertain. Transaction costs in the industry are therefore high, and transparency for investors may be low. The need to signal reliable estimates of property assets, in the communication to external stakeholders, can therefore be expected to be of extra importance in this sector. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how real estate firms use big four auditors to signal quality.

The authors use Swedish firm level data containing all limited liability real estate companies in the country to determine the determinants of big four auditors. The data set consists of 34,306 observations and is analyzed through logit regressions.

The results show that big four companies are primarily contracted by large and mature companies, rather than new firms or firms with volatile financial records, although the latter could be expected to have a large need to signal quality. The authors also find that firms listed on the stock market and firms targeting public use real estate are more inclined to use big four companies.

Real estate is a capital-intensive industry for which the asset values tend to be highly volatile and uncertain. Transaction costs in the industry are therefore high, and transparency for investors may be low. The need to signal reliable estimates of property assets, in the communication to external stakeholders, can therefore be expected to be of extra importance in this sector. No prior study of this area has been detected.

While existing research explores the impact of audit market competition on audit fees and audit quality, there is limited investigation into how competition in the audit market influences auditors' writing style. This study examines the relationship between audit market competition and the readability of audit reports in Iran, where competition is particularly intense, especially among private audit firms.

The sample comprises 1,050 firm-year observations in Iran from 2012 to 2018. Readability measures, including the Fog index, Flesch-Reading-Ease (FRE) and Simple Measure of Gobbledygook (SMOG), are employed to assess the readability of auditors' reports. The Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI) is utilized to measure audit market competition, with lower index values indicating higher auditor competition. The concentration measure is multiplied by −1 to obtain the competition measure (AudComp). Alternative readability measures, such as the Flesch–Kincaid (FK) and Automated Readability Index (ARI) are used in additional robustness tests. Data on textual features of audit reports, auditor characteristics and other control variables are manually collected from annual reports of firms listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE).

The regression analysis results indicate a significant and positive association between audit market competition and audit report readability. Furthermore, a stronger positive and significant association is observed among private audit firms, where competition is more intense compared to state audit firms. These findings remain robust when using alternative readability measures and other sensitivity checks. Additional analysis reveals that the positive effect of competition on audit report readability is more pronounced in situations where the auditor remains unchanged and the audit market size is small.

This paper expands the existing literature by examining the impact of audit market competition on audit report readability. It focuses on a unique audit market (Iran), where competition among audit firms is more intense than in developed countries due to the liberalization of the Iranian audit market in 2001 and the establishment of numerous private audit firms.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the comment letters (CLs) in the standard-setting process of audits of less complex entities (LCEs). The objective is to gain insight into the overall picture of the CLs and to report on areas where comment providers agree or disagree with IAASB's Part 10.

A content analysis of 60 comment letter (CLs) was conducted to investigate the suggested additional Part 10 on audits of groups' financial statements in the proposed ISA for LCEs. Hence, this study examines three specific topics: (1) the views related to the use of the International Standard on Auditing (ISA) for LCEs for group audits in which component auditors are involved, (2) the proposed group-specific qualitative characteristics to describe the scope of group audits and, finally, (3) insights into the content of the proposed Part 10 and related conforming amendments. The Gioia method is used to provide a holistic approach to concept development of the arguments about the new Part 10.

The CLs stated that, while the proposed Part 10 has some weak points, it still provides a solid and practical structure within which to undertake an LCE group audit and a promising basis for further development. For instance, when discussing the improvements, the CLs stated that Part 10 should allow for more auditor judgment when determining when the involvement of component auditors renders a group audit complex. In addition, the CLs asserted that professional judgment should be engaged when considering the qualitative characteristics and the complexity of the group.

This study contributes to the very scarce research about the ISA for LCEs and the role of lobbying in shaping the audit standard-setting process.

This paper aims to explore the impacts of remote auditing on auditors’ work and work-life balance.

This paper adopted a qualitative online survey approach using open-ended reflections from 98 highly experienced auditors. The survey design aligns with a “Big Q” approach to qualitative data. The reflections were interpreted through the theoretical lens of the social presence theory.

Auditors underscore that remote auditing has improved their work-life balance since it offers flexibility, greater autonomy and efficient use of time. However, they believe less social contact due to remote auditing can hurt their work.

This study aimed to holistically comprehend the concept of work-life balance in a remote auditing setting. Therefore, the study refrained from making comparisons based on demographic information (e.g. gender, experience and type of audit firm).

The findings highlight the need for adopting flexible work arrangements that prioritise auditors’ well-being. This is critical for making the audit profession attractive and enhancing overall audit quality. Updated regulatory guidance and controls are needed concerning the use of technologies in remote auditing to ensure high-quality audits.

The findings of this study can positively reshape public perception of the audit profession. Firstly, enhanced work-life balance can improve audit quality. Secondly, incorporating emerging technologies in auditing can result in society perceiving auditors as adaptive to innovation and technological advancement that has been touted for their potential for enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of audit and audit quality, potentially enhancing societal trust in auditing.

The findings of this study complement the auditing literature that has mainly focused on the traditional work paradigm, requiring in-person presence. The authors identify potential challenges emanating from auditors’ remote work and propose solutions for audit firms to improve work-life balance in a remote work setting.