감사인의 전공과 학력은 감사의견에 영향을 미치는가? 중국 상장기업을 이용한 분석

This study investigates the effect of auditors’ major and educational background on audit opinion. Recent audit regulation change presumes that the auditors’ individual characteristics are closely associated with audit outcomes. For instance, the names of the audit partners are disclosed in annual reports from 2018 in Korea. The PCAOB of the United States has also pursued to disclose the names of auditors who are responsible for the audit. Therefore, the current study explores whether there is a systematic difference in audit opinion according to individual auditor characteristics. The tests are conducted using Chinese public firms who already reports annual report with audit partner names included. The results using 1,862 listed firms in Shanghai and Shenzhen stock market are as follows. First, auditors’ accounting and finance major is not related with reporting qualified audit opinion. In contrast, it is negatively related with reporting explanatory paragraph on unqualified audit opinion. Auditors’ educational background is also negatively related with disclosing qualified opinion or unqualified opinion with explanatory paragraph. We additionally find that female auditors are prone to issue unqualified audit opinion. The findings of this study suggest that the auditors’ characteristics may have a systematic effect on audit quality. Our paper provides important implications for the change of regulations and auditing environment as the regulators in each country have recently been trying to strengthen the responsibility of the individual auditors.