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As a consequence of the global financial and economic crisis, the European Commission recently reformed the audit market. One objective was to restore public trust in the auditing profession and thus to enhance the audit function. This study investigates whether perceptions of auditor independence and audit quality are influenced by audit firm rotation, auditor retention and joint audits, because regulators argue that these instruments can improve auditor independence and audit quality. Therefore, we conduct an experiment with bank directors and institutional investors in Germany. The results indicate a negative main effect for joint audits on perceived auditor independence, and that a rotation cycle of 24 years marginally significantly impairs participant perceptions of audit quality, compared to a rotation cycle of only ten years. Besides the main effects, planned contrast tests suggest a negative interaction between rotation and joint audit on participant perceptions of auditor independence. Moreover, a negative interaction effect is revealed between rotation after 24 years and retention on perceptions of audit quality. It is particularly noteworthy that we failed to identify a positive impact of the regulatory measures taken or supported by the European Commission on perceptions of auditor independence and audit quality.

The French law uses joint‐auditing as an audit quality device. This regulation also indirectly preserves market competition by reducing the domination of the large audit firms. However, concerns emerge about the effects of recent auditor mergers on the effectiveness of joint‐auditing: the reduced number of audit suppliers may favour the development of too frequent joint‐auditing collaborations, causing routine cross‐reviews and interdependencies between co‐auditors. This study aims to address this issue.

The market shares, individual performance, and joint‐audit interconnections (attraction‐repulsion indices) of the main audit networks in France are investigated for the year 1997 and again for the year 2003.

Despite the concentration of the audit market for listed companies globally, descriptive market analyses suggest that competition in the audit market has not decreased: the PricewaterhouseCoopers merger in 1998 did not produce any gain in market share to the newly‐formed network; the French member of Arthur Andersen suffered an effective erosion of its audit portfolio resulting from the infamous Enron case; and some national audit networks have maintained significant market positions. Contrary to expectations, the increased concentration did not result in abnormally frequent collaborations between the main audit firms.

The joint‐auditing interconnections are based on the number of common audit clients, and this approach does not take into account the different sizes of the auditees.

This paper is an original approach of auditor concentration in a joint‐auditing environment. To regulators, the results of this study suggest that joint‐auditing can be utilised as a mechanism to preserve market competition and thus potentially maintaining audit quality.

Statistical analysis is based on annual data collected from 132 Boursa Kuwait listed firms from 2016 to 2019 (i.e. yielding 528 firm-year observations). During the observation window (i.e. 2016 to 2019) 116 firms switched from joint-to solo-audits. Level and change models test if audit quality (proxied by abnormal accruals) is impacted by joint-/solo-audit switching. Therefore this paper explores the audit quality following abolition of mandated joint-audits in Kuwait.

This paper investigates the impact on audit quality following abolition of mandated joint-audit requirements in 2016 in Kuwait. The study is differentiated from prior analysis by focusing on an emerging economy setting, and by considering a more expansive set of joint-audit pairings, solo-audit types and switching options.

Abolition of mandated joint-audit requirements prompted a majority of Boursa Kuwait listed firms to switch to solo-audits. Analysis indicates that switch does not significantly decrease audit quality. Also, audit quality changes are not dependent on the specific joint-audit pairing/solo-audit type switch.

Analysis is based on a single national setting comprising a small set of firms. Nonetheless, results imply the impact of joint-/solo-audit switching following abolition of mandated requirements is more universal with generalizability to different economic settings.

Results indicate that following elimination of mandated joint-audit requirements, firms have a propensity to favor solo-audits. Irrespective of the joint-audit pairing and solo-audit type, findings show a joint-/solo-audit switch does not compromise audit quality.

Analysis is the first to investigate the impact of joint/solo-audit switches on audit quality in an emerging economy with tests considering more joint-audit pairings than assessed previously.

Using a sample of 250 Tunisian companies, this paper aims to assess the joint audit mission quality in Tunisia.

The present work aimed at investigating the determining factors of the joint audit quality.

A total of nine essential determining factors were predictably identified: length of service, experience, size asymmetry between the joint auditors, complexity, governance, expertise, information and communications technology use, profitability and staff qualification. However, results show that specialization, satisfaction, the supply of services other than audit, work distribution, leverage as well as size have a positive but non-significant correlation with the joint audit quality, which may be due to the Tunisian context.

Many previous works have been conducted on joint audit in France (Haak et al., 2018), Denmark (Lesage et al., 2017), Germany (Velte and Azibi, 2015), Sweden (Zerni et al., 2012) and Italy (Bianchi et al., 2019). However, to the authors’ knowledge, the Tunisian context is still under-studied and, thus, the objective was to fill this gap in the literature b.y examining the determinants of the quality of joint audit in Tunisia.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the association between political connections and tax avoidance in Islamic banking industry and to test whether joint audit affects this relationship.

Tax avoidance is measured using effective tax rate while political connections represent an indicator variable that equals 1 if a bank has at least one politically connected director on the board of directors and zero otherwise.

This study documents that political connections are negatively associated with effective tax rate, while joint audit is positively related to the same variable. We also find that the negative association between political connections and effective tax rate becomes insignificant for joint-audited banks, while it remains negative and significant for banks audited by one auditors.

The findings of this study have policy implications for banking industry because joint audit reduces the adverse effect of political connections on tax avoidance.

The authors aim to exploit a natural experiment in which voluntary replace mandatory joint audits for Danish listed companies and analyse audit fee implications of using one or two audit firms.

Regression analysis is used. The authors apply both a core audit fee determinants model and an audit fee change model and include interaction terms.

The authors find short-term fee reductions in companies switching to single audits, but only where the former joint audit contained a dominant auditor. The authors argue that in this situation bargaining power is more with the auditors than in an equally shared joint audit, and that the auditors' incentives to offer an initial fee discount are bigger.

The number of observations is constrained by the small Danish capital market. Future research could take a more qualitative research approach, to examine whether the use of a single audit firm rather than two has an effect on audit quality. The area calls for further theory development covering audit fee and audit quality in joint audit settings.

Companies should consider their relationship with their auditors before deciding to switch to single auditors. Fee discounts do not seem to reflect long-lasting efficiency gains on the part of the audit firm.

Denmark is the first country to leave a mandatory joint audit system, so this is the first time that it is possible to study fee effects related to this.

Audit consortium of joint and dual audits is one of the most controversial mechanisms aimed at improving audit quality and resolving several related debatable issues. This study aims to empirically investigate the impact of audit consortium on audit quality assessment in Egypt. It specifically examines whether audit opinion modification level is triggered by joint and dual audits existence and whether it is influenced by the relative importance of the auditor pair combination types.

A sample of companies listed on the Egyptian Stock Exchange constituting the EGX 30 index is examined over a period of five years, from 2016 to 2020. A quantitative research methodology is used, using content analysis of companies’ audit reports and carrying out longitudinal panel ordinary least squares multiple regression tests.

Results show that audit quality is significantly enhanced by conducting joint and dual audits of Egyptian companies’ financial statements. Findings indicate that both joint and dual audits significantly increase auditors’ propensity to modify audit opinions as compared to companies that engage in single audits. However, this increase in audit quality is not supported by the presence of Big 4 joint auditors or affiliated joint auditors, while the impact of Big 4 dual auditors cannot be confirmed. Nevertheless, such a potential increase in audit opinion modification is boosted by the presence of affiliated dual auditors, which appears to translate into higher quality.

The study has important implications for researchers, corporates, those charged with governance, financial statement users, auditors, regulators and standard setters, who might be interested in whether an audit consortium and a particular auditor pair combination are associated with superior audit quality. It provides empirical evidence that might contribute to the continuous challenge of promoting the quality and effectiveness of the external audit.

This study adds to the relatively limited and challenging literature on the potential contribution of audit consortium, using audit opinion modification level as a direct assessment of audit quality. It extends the scope of prior research by examining the existence of joint and dual audits and the relative importance of joint and dual auditor pair combination types. The study provides key insights from a distinctive and complex emerging audit market.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of audit quality on the value relevance of earnings and book value. Because joint audit is mandated for all Kuwait Stock Exchange-listed firms, it is hypothesized that the higher the quality of the audit team (as measured by the number of Big 4 audit firms in the joint audit team), the higher the value relevance of earnings and book values for equity valuation.

Consistent with prior research, the value relevance of earnings and book value is measured by the adjusted R² derived from the Ohlson’s 1995 regression model. The number of Big 4 audit firms represented on the firm’s audit team is used as a proxy for audit quality. Three tiers of audit quality exist, namely, two non-Big 4 audit firms, one Big 4 and one non-Big 4 audit firms or two Big 4 audit firms. To address this paper’s objective, the association between audit quality and the value relevance of earnings and book value were examined using four approaches. The final sample consists of 1,836 firm-year observations and covers fiscal years from a 12-year period (2002-2013).

Taken together, the four approaches used collectively provide empirical evidence that audit quality positively and significantly affects the value relevance of accounting measures to market participants. Importantly, the results reveal significant variations in the value relevance of earnings and book value jointly across the three possible auditor combinations.

Although using auditor size as a proxy for audit quality is well established in the auditing literature, a limitation of that proxy is that it measures audit quality dichotomously, which implicitly assumes a homogeneous level of audit quality within each group.

The findings show the importance of high-quality and rigorous external audits in improving the value relevance of accounting information.

This study contributes to the extent literature on audit quality by exploring the role of audit quality in a unique institutional setting that imposes mandatory joint audits. Although prior studies have investigated the effect of joint audit pair choice on earnings management and audit fee premium, this study is the first to investigate the effect of joint audit pair choice on the value relevance of accounting information.

This paper aims to examine the link between audit(or) type and restatements in Egypt, a complex and multifaceted auditing market. The usual big 4 versus non-big 4 comparison is insufficient as Egypt has a unique mix of private audit firms, one governmental agency (Accountability State Authority) and mandatory/nonmandatory audit services, including single, joint and dual audits.

The study uses a sample of listed companies in Egypt and analyzes the impact of auditor type and audit type on explicit, implicit and total restatements. The study uses logistic regression model to examine the underlying relationship.

Results show no relationship between auditor type and audit quality, positive association between non-big foreign CPA firms and total/implicit restatements and mixed results for the impact of dual audits on audit quality. The study found no link between auditor type and audit quality in Egypt. Egyptian audit firms linked to non-big 4 foreign Certified Public Accounting firms were positively linked to total and implicit restatements. Joint audits did not improve audit quality and were directly related to total and explicit restatements. Dual audits showed mixed results, positively associated with implicit restatements but inversely associated with explicit restatements.

The study provides valuable insights into the complexities of the auditing market in emerging markets and offers valuable insights for stakeholders in the financial statement users, audit firms and governmental agencies.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the use of a dual‐audit/joint‐audit process and the level of compliance with IFRS in listed Kuwaiti financial institutions.

An OLS‐regression model was used to test the relationship among dual‐audit/joint‐audit process and the level of compliance with IFRS‐disclosure. The sample was based on 33 firm observations in 2006.

The main results reveal that financial institutions audited by dual‐auditors were more compliant with IFRS‐required disclosure than financial institutions audited by joint‐auditors.

The authors have assumed that the work done by both auditors is as per the Central Bank of Kuwait (CBK) circular which obligates both auditors to do their fieldwork independently and then consolidate their work before issuing the final audit report. In the authors’ opinion, it is less likely that both auditors will not comply with CBK regulation, especially because CBK has the right to ban a non‐compliant audit firm from auditing banks. The authors did not ask audit firms whether they are complying with this circular because it was believed that audit firms would not disclose a non‐compliance issue with regulators to outsiders.

This paper provides empirical evidence about the effectiveness of using dual‐auditors in promoting compliance with IFRS‐disclosure.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to explore the association between the levels of compliance with IFRS‐disclosure and the dual/joint audit process in the financial institutions listed on the Kuwait Stock Exchange.