Businesses increasingly outsource organizational functions that have financial reporting implications which requires auditors to adjust their risk assessment and audit procedures for this practice. However, PCAOB inspection reports cite deficiencies indicating that external auditors frequently...

We examine the auditor perception of recognized vs. disclosed obligations as they relate to two key decisions auditors make: determining audit fees and whether to issue a going concern opinion. We study two pairs of obligations – capital leases and operating leases and on-balance sheet and...

Recent research challenges the notion that the Big 4 auditors provide a higher quality audit relative to non-Big 4 and suggests that the Big N effect could be due to self-selection. We contribute to this debate by controlling for pre-audit earnings quality, an important omitted variable in prior...