감사의견구매 목적의 감사인 교체가 감사보수에 미치는 영향

This study investigates whether Korean listed firms change auditors for opinion shopping purposes, and what will be the effect of such auditor changes on subsequent audit efforts. Our empirical findings reveal that Korean listed firms successfully engage in auditor changes for opinion shopping. And then we find that firms tend to pay higher audit fees to auditors changed for opinion shopping than to auditors changed for other purposes. The additional tests on the audit hour and audit fee per hour show that audit hours are significantly higher in auditor changes for opinion shopping than in auditor changes for other purposes, while audit fees per audit hour are not significantly different depending on the intention of auditor changes. These results imply that higher audit fees paid to auditors changed for opinion shopping may not be driven by the impaired independence of new auditors. Rather, our results suggest that new auditors are likely to expand the scope of audit for such high-risk clients and require higher audit fees to compensate for the increased audit effort. We believe that these findings provide valuable insights to regulators and other interested parties.