감사인 규모와 고객의 경제적 중요성이 감사보고시차에 미치는 영향

[Purpose] Previous research has argued that a large auditor has a premium on audit quality by providing high－quality auditing services to the customer. The purpose of this study is to verify the relationship between auditor size and audit report lags and then to verify how this relationship is moderated by the economic importance of clients to auditors. [Methodology] The sales volume of the accounting firm was considered as the size of the auditor. The effect of auditor size on audit report lags and the economic importance of clients on this relationship were verified using multiple regression models. [Findings] The result shows that there is a significant positive relationship between auditor size and audit report lags. This result results in longer audit report lags as larger auditors try to reach a higher level of assurance with greater effort to maintain their reputation. On the other hand, this relationship is moderated to positive relationship when the economic importance of clients is more significant to auditors. This result indicates that the larger the size of the auditor, the higher the audit quality, but it appears that the audit report lag is shortened because the auditor is relatively lenient toward economically important clients. [Implications] This study is expected to help stakeholders lead more effective decision making by understanding them the trade－off between auditor size and the economic importance of a client to the auditor. It suggests that large auditors need safety measures such as supervision by an external organization to ensure apparent independence when the economic importance of their clients increases relatively