Academic literature on the topic 'Auditor industry specialisation'

By applying audit firm industry market share measure as proxy for audit firm industry expertise or specialisation, the focus in this study is on trends in industry specialisation from 1999 to 2002. With data coming from annual reports of companies listed at the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange (KLSE now, Bursa Malaysia) and industry specialists defined as market leaders with market share greater than 20 percent of audit services (in terms of the number of clients) within a client specific industry, it is found that Ernst and Young specialising in construction and plantation, KPMG in industrial products, PricewaterhouseCoopers in finance and Arthur Andersen in finance, plantation, technology and trading/services. Keywords: Auditor Industry Specialisation, Market Share, Big 5, Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange

This study examines the association between the magnitude of earnings management and two characteristics of auditor value - auditor independence and auditor quality. As earnings management, auditor independence and auditor quality are unobservable the study uses absolute discretionary accruals, the ratio of non-audit to total fees and auditor industry specialisation as respective proxies. This study finds no empirical evidence that non-audit services are associated with firms’ discretionary accruals. This result suggests that the provision of non-audit services by the incumbent auditor does not compromise independence. This study presents evidence of a negative association between auditor specialization and the earnings management indicator. This finding infers that the magnitude of earnings management amongst firms engaging the services of a specialist is significantly lower than firms purchasing audit services from a non-specialist auditor

This study investigates the existence of anticompetitive behaviour and cartel pricing by the Big4 international providers of auditing services (resulting from the halving in the number of such providers from the Big8 to Big4).This study uses both a composite and dis-aggregated measure for auditor attributes (namely, auditor reputation, industry specialisation, provision of non-audit services and auditor tenure) and regresses the derived measure against changes in audit fees for the periods 2001 to 2003, 2003 to 2005 and 2001 to 2005 for a total sample of 600 firm-year observations.Main results from longitudinal multivariate analysis indicate that there is no significant association between the four auditor attributes utilised in this study with changes in audit fees over the observation window. This study finds no evidence of anti-competitive behaviour and cartel pricing by Big4 auditors resulting from increased audit market concentration. This has implications in relation to the need to consider legislation to reduce the power and influence of the Big4 audit firms and this subsequently has flow-on implications for the management of firms

This study investigates the existence of anticompetitive behaviour and cartel pricing by the Big4 international providers of auditing services (resulting from the halving in the number of such providers from the Big8 to Big4).This study uses both a composite and dis-aggregated measure for auditor attributes (namely, auditor reputation, industry specialisation, provision of non-audit services and auditor tenure) and regresses the derived measure against changes in audit fees for the periods 2001 to 2003, 2003 to 2005 and 2001 to 2005 for a total sample of 600 firm-year observations.Main results from longitudinal multivariate analysis indicate that there is no significant association between the four auditor attributes utilised in this study with changes in audit fees over the observation window. This study finds no evidence of anti-competitive behaviour and cartel pricing by Big4 auditors resulting from increased audit market concentration. This has implications in relation to the need to consider legislation to reduce the power and influence of the Big4 audit firms and this subsequently has flow-on implications for the management of firms.

Large accounting firms have been structuring their audit divisions along industry lines for some years. Industry specialisation is seen as a means of differentiation between otherwise similar accounting firms. At the individual level industry specialists are identified as being so designated within their firm. They spend a substantial amount of their time auditing clients in that industry. The purpose of this study is to determine what industry specialist auditors do that is different and similar when working on industry-based tasks, one of which they specialise in. Behavioural decision theory is used to investigate the differences and similarities in the decision-making processes of industry specialist and other auditors. It is known that industry specialists perform better on tasks set in their industry. The purpose of this study is to learn why. To that end, the pre-information search, information search and decision processing phases of the decision-making process are examined. It is expected that industry specialists are more efficient and effective at each stage of the decision-making process when completing a case set in the industry they specialise in. Two controlled experiments were conducted in the offices of each of the Big 4 international accounting firms. Participants included manufacturing and superannuation industry specialists from each firm. Each participant was invited to take part in both experiments, which were conducted consecutively via the internet. The first experiment comprised two cases, one set in each industry setting (manufacturing and superannuation). Participants completed both cases. The purpose of the first experiment was to conduct a within-subject examination unveiling similarities and differences between industry specialists and other auditors during the pre-information search, information search and decision processing phases of the decision-making process. Their performance on each case was also monitored and measured. Significant results were found for information search and performance. Moderate results were found for one proxy each of the pre-information search and the decision processing phases. The relationship between efficiency at each stage of the decision-making process and performance was also measured. A significant relationship was found for the pre-information search and decision processing phases. The second experiment comprised two strategic business risk tasks set in each industry setting (manufacturing and superannuation). Participants completed both sets of tasks. The purpose of the second experiment was to examine effectiveness during the pre-information search (listing key strategic business risks), information search (listing key inputs) and decision processing (listing key processes) phases of the decision-making process and their ability to identify and list key outputs (accounts and assertions) for an identified risk (technological change for the manufacturing industry task and solvency due to insufficient funding for the superannuation industry task) within each industry setting. The results were very significant overall. Industry specialist auditors were able list more key strategic business risks, inputs, processes and outputs when the task was set in the industry in which they specialise. The relationship between effectiveness at each stage of the decision-making process and performance was also measured. A significant relationship was found between effectiveness in listing key inputs and effectiveness in listing key outputs (accounts).

An EHR is a modern specialisation of a Customer Relationship Management that specifically focuses on the collection and exchange of electronic health information about individual patients between healthcare organisations. Electronic Heath Records systems hold personally identifiable information, especially that which falls under the category of sensitive personal data. As with all industries, the eHealth industry sees potential in cloud-based service offerings and the reduced infrastructure cost they imply, whilst realising the issues regarding security and privacy that may be encountered from outsourcing processing and storage to untrustworthy Cloud Service Providers (CSPs). In this chapter, the authors propose an approach to handle and audit data privacy requirements by leveraging a carefully designed architecture deployed for auditing data privacy in cloud ecosystems.

An EHR is a modern specialisation of a Customer Relationship Management that specifically focuses on the collection and exchange of electronic health information about individual patients between healthcare organisations. Electronic Heath Records systems hold personally identifiable information, especially that which falls under the category of sensitive personal data. As with all industries, the eHealth industry sees potential in cloud-based service offerings and the reduced infrastructure cost they imply, whilst realising the issues regarding security and privacy that may be encountered from outsourcing processing and storage to untrustworthy Cloud Service Providers (CSPs). In this chapter, the authors propose an approach to handle and audit data privacy requirements by leveraging a carefully designed architecture deployed for auditing data privacy in cloud ecosystems.