Personal Knowledge of Audit Partners and Organizational Knowledge of Audit Firms and the Impact on Audit Fees

This study develops a conceptual framework for auditor knowledge comprising both the personal knowledge of auditors and the organizational knowledge of audit firms. We use this to examine how three measures of the personal knowledge held by engagement audit partners.the depth and width of knowledge and industry expertise.impact upon audit fees. We find that an engagement partner with deeper knowledge provides audit services more efficiently. In addition, audit fees are negatively associated with partners’ wider knowledge and positively with partners’ industry expertise, but only for audits by Big 4 audit firms.