Mandatory accounting compliance by Australian mineral resources firms: the affect of auditor independence and specialisation

The two objectives of this thesis are to investigate the magnitude of compliance with AASB 6 Exploration for and Evaluation of Mineral Resources and AASB 136 Impairment of Assets; and to examine the influence of audit quality on the compliance levels utilising data from 305 Australian mineral resources public listed firms. Consistent with agency theory auditor independence and audit specialisation are considered pivotal determinants of the magnitude of a disclosure compliance index that comprises 62 mandatory disclosure items.