THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN AUDITING QUALITY AND ACCOUNTING CONSERVATISM IN BRAZILIAN COMPANIES
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17524/repec.v7i3.984Keywords:
auditing, quality of auditing, accounting conservatism, quality of accounting information.Abstract
Over time, researchers have been using a set of many different attributes attempting to explain the relationship between the quality of accounting information and other variables, especially in the securities market. In this context, conservatism is indicated as one of the main quality characteristics of accounting information, which can result from factors present in the accounting environment, such as the legal system and accounting standards, among others. The auditing of financial statements influences the quality of accounting information. Previous research of the relationship between audit and accounting information quality has usually used a single feature of the audit, for example, the size of the audit firm. This study aimed to investigate the influence of several audit quality characteristics on the quality of accounting information, measured by conservatism. We evaluated the accounting information produced by Brazilian companies in the period 2000-2011, using the model developed by Ball and Shivakumar (2005). Among the results, we found that the conservatism of accounting information is positively affected by the size of the audit firm and negatively affected by the time of engagement of the auditors, the distance between the date of the opinion and publication date of the financial statements. We also observed that variables such as the existence of an audit committee, the provision of non-audit services, the importance of the client to the auditor and audit specialization does not affect accounting conservatism.References
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