Although skepticism is widely viewed as essential to audit quality, there is a debate about what form is optimal. The two prevailing perspectives that have surfaced are ‘neutrality’ and ‘presumptive doubt’. With neutrality, auditors neither believe nor disbelieve client management. With...

While contemporary auditing standards such as ISA 315 provide broad categories of client risks, prior research regarding audit resource allocation decisions has been based on individual client risks. This study contributes to the literature by using factor analysis to examine how individual...

While contemporary auditing standards such as ISA 315 provide broad categories of client risks, prior research regarding audit resource allocation decisions has been based on individual client risks. This study contributes to the literature by using factor analysis to examine how individual...

This study provides insights on the effectiveness of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (2002) in promoting high quality financial reporting and good corporate governance. We report the results of interviews conducted with 22 experienced directors from US firms. Our results indicate that SOX has had a...

Calls from practice suggest that audit committee members with industry expertise can improve audit committee effectiveness. Nevertheless, regulators and extant literature have focused on the financial expertise of the audit committee. We posit that audit committee industry knowledge is valuable...

We respond to calls for research into the effect of the decline in the number of Big N firms on market power and consequential impact on competition (U.S. Department of Treasury 2008; European Commission 2010; U.K. House of Lords 2011) by analyzing the change in Big N audit fee premium over the Big 6,...