기업수명주기에 따른 파트너 시간과 감사품질 사이의 관계

[Purpose]The firm life cycle can affect a company’s business environment, business structure and strategy. An audit partner will determine his audit hour based on these different audit risks. This study examines whether the relationship between partner hours and audit quality varies according to the life cycle of a company. [Methodology]In this study, we try to classify groups by firm life cycle and examine whether an increase in partner audit hours has different effects on audit quality. The stages of the firm life cycle are classified using the method proposed by Dickinson (2011). This study is conducted under the assumption that the change in audit quality will be different according to the increase in partner audit hours, mainly because the inherent risks of firms in the growth and decline period will increase. [Findings]The negative relationship between partner hours and discretionary accruals is significant regardless of the firm life cycle. Additionally the relationship between an audit partner hour and audit quality is examined by dividing the audit quality into positive discretionary accruals and negative discretionary accruals. As a result, negative relation between audit parter hours and discretionary accruals were found only in growth stage samples. [Implications]These results show that the inherent risk of a company varies with the life cycle of the company and an audit partner has to change his audit hour input to maintain audit quality. These results lead us to guess that the firm life cycle can affect partner audit hours, and audit quality measured in negative discretionary accruals.