پاسخگویی حسابرسان به استانداردهای ریسک حسابرسی
ABSTRACT
1- Introduction
2- Major Changes in the Auditing Environment since the Mid-1990s
3- Methods
4- Results
5- Conclusions
Acknowledgements
Notes
References
ABSTRACT
We examine the effect of changes in audit risk standards on the conduct of financial statement audits in a European setting. We investigate this by analysing the audit hours and audit fees for clients of Big 4 audit firms in Finland in 1996 and 2010. Our results show that audit firms became more sensitive to clients’ business risk due to the introduction of the new audit risk standards, with more audit hours allocated to owner-managed companies in 2010 than in 1996, and fewer audit hours allocated to low-risk clients in 2010 than in 1996. Also, the labour mix in the audit team changed for owner-managed companies, with a greater work load carried by junior auditors in 2010 than in 1996. Regarding the price of audit, we find an increase in audit fees for clients with high business risk, while audit fees remained at roughly the same level for low-risk clients. These findings should be of interest to the auditing profession and those involved in the development of auditing regulations.
Introduction
Over the past 15 years, efforts to stem the wave of financial scandals in large companies have resulted in substantial changes in the regulatory landscape and the way in which financial statement audits are conducted (Humphrey, Kausar, Loft, & Woods, 2011; Knechel, 2013). In many jurisdictions, the development of auditing regulation has moved from a national level to an international level. In addition, there has been a shift in the regulation of auditors from self-regulation by the accountancy profession to substantial oversight by government authorized bodies, coordinated through international networks (Humphrey & Loft, 2013). A fundamental change in audit regulation between 1996 and 2010 was the introduction of risk-based ISAs that required greater documentation of the client’s business risks (Curtis & Turley, 2005; van Buuren, Koch, van Nieuw Amerongen, & Wright, 2014). At the same time, auditing standards became more detailed and prescriptive, and greater emphasis was placed on assessing clients’ risk in terms of operations, internal controls and management fraud. However, the question of whether audits have become more risk-oriented depends on how willing the auditor is to follow the new risk-based standards and how strongly they are enforced. The purpose of this study is to investigate the extent that the new risk standards are reflected in the auditing process.