Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine whether insider trading surrounding a first-time going concern audit opinion is associated with a firm's future bankruptcy status. Design/methodology/approach – Hypotheses are developed predicting that insiders of firms receiving going...

Taylor et al. (2003) challenged the longstanding notion that independence is the capstone of the audit profession by proposing a conceptual framework that emphasizes reliability, rather than independence, as the professional endgame for auditors. Although the reliability framework has attracted...