The efficiency and the effectiveness of the audit depend in part on the efficiency and the effectiveness of the client inquiry process. This paper presents a model that helps auditors to understand the stages of the client inquiry process and the factors that influence its reliability. The model...

Arthur Andersen’s conviction and its decision not to audit public firms will transform the Big 5 into the Big 4. Meanwhile, other Big 4 firms face investigations that threaten their future market shares. The article compares the observed post‐scandal shifts in market share with those...

Purpose – To explore the effects of mandatory auditor rotation and retention on the long‐term market shares of the accounting firms that audit the members of the Standard and Poor's (S&P) 500. Design/methodology/approach – A Markov model is constructed that depicts the movements of S&P 500...