نزدیکی جغرافیایی حسابرس و مشتری و به موقع بودن گزارش حسابرسی
Abstract
1- Introduction
2- Background and hypothesis development
3- Research design and sample selection
4- Empirical results
5- Additional analysis: 10-K filing delay
6- Conclusion
Acknowledgements
Appendix A. Auditor choice model
References
Abstract
While investors and regulators value the timely release of audited financial information, recent changes in the regulatory environment have increased the difficulty of providing timely audited financial information. In this paper we examine the association between auditor-client geographic proximity and external audit report delay, since identifying the factors that influence audit delay remains an important issue. We find strong evidence that audit reports are more timely for geographically proximate auditors and clients. Further, we show that the improvement in audit report timeliness is more pronounced for non-accelerated filers relative to accelerated filers. These results are robust to controls for potential self-selection bias.
Introduction
Information timeliness is an important quality in assessing the usefulness of audited financial reports and has been a longstanding concern of regulators, shareholders, analysts, managers, and auditors. The extant research documents a heightened market reaction to timely audited financial reports (Chambers & Penman, 1984), and penalties for firms with late audited financial reports (e.g.Alford, Jones, & Zmijewski, 1994; Bartov & Konchitchki, 2017; Griffin, 2003). Regulators' concerns that investors have access to timely financial reports are reflected in initiatives such as the institution of EDGAR, the acceleration of 10-K/10-Q filing deadlines for larger companies, and the adoption of XBRL. Since the timeliness of audited financial statements is a function of the timeliness of the audit report, improvements in audit report timeliness could have a significant impact on the timeliness of audited financial reports. However, recent changes in the regulatory and corporate reporting environment have increased the difficulty of providing timely audited financial reports (Bronson, Hogan, Johnson, & Ramesh, 2011; Krishnan & Yang, 2009), therefore increasing the salience of research identifying the factors that affect audit report timeliness. In this study we investigate the association between auditor-client geographic proximity and audit delay, defined as the number of calendar days from fiscal year-end to the audit report date (Ashton, Willingham, & Elliott, 1987; Bronson et al., 2011; Krishnan & Yang, 2009; Whitworth & Lambert, 2014).1 Our focus on audit report timeliness is further motivated by evidence from the extant research that longer audit reporting delays are associated with lower financial reporting quality (Blankley, Hurtt, & MacGregor, 2014; Kinney Jr & McDaniel, 1993).