기업 외부의 정보환경이 감사시간과 감사품질 및 감사보수의 연관성에 미치는 영향

This study investigates the impact of a corporate external information opacity on the relationship between audit time and audit quality as well as that between audit time and audit fees. Audit time could be the major factor to define audit quality and audit fees, but there are many other influential factors on their relationships(Kwon et al. 2006; Park and Choi 2009; Ryu et al. 2015; Kim and Jeon 2016 etc.). Developed an idea from the prior studies on this issue, we examined the impact of an external corporate opacity on the relationships between audit time and audit quality as well as audit time and audit fees. We used Corporate Opacity Index, developed by Anderson et al.(2009), as a measure of information asymmetry between individual firms and the market. The results evidenced that the level of different corporate opacity gives negative impacts on the relationship of audit time with audit quality and audit fees, with the negative relationship between the level of corporate opacity and audit time. Through the results, it was found that audit efficiency becomes lower if the level of opaqueness increases of a firm. Also, the relationship between audit time and audit fees was deteriorated when the level of opaqueness was higher in a firm, as lower quality audit service was provided or less effort was made. Under the circumstances that standard audit time systems are soon implemented in the market in Korea, the results suggests that it is necessary to consider the individual information risk of a firm, measured by differential corporate opacity, as an important factor to set the standard audit time to enhance audit efficiency as well as to define audit fees as information risk premium.