IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jocaae/v12y2016i2p121-140.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Auditor client specific knowledge and internal control weakness: Some evidence on the role of auditor tenure and geographic distance

Author

Listed:
  • Chen, Yangyang
  • Gul, Ferdinand A.
  • Truong, Cameron
  • Veeraraghavan, Madhu

Abstract

In this paper we draw on the audit quality and cluster theory literature to examine whether auditor tenure and auditor's geographic proximity to the client (proxies for auditor client specific knowledge) are associated with the incidence of Section 404 internal control weakness (ICW) under the Sarbanes–Oxley Act (2002). Using a large sample of 24,217 firm-year observations for the period 2004–2012, we show that firms with long auditor tenure and in closer geographic proximity to auditors have lower incidence of ICW. Furthermore, we find that the positive association between auditor–client geographic distance and ICW is weaker for firms with longer auditor tenure. Our results suggest that auditor rotation policies could deprive the auditor of client specific knowledge, especially for auditors located further away from their clients. Our results are robust to propensity score matching method and endogenous effects.

Suggested Citation

  • Chen, Yangyang & Gul, Ferdinand A. & Truong, Cameron & Veeraraghavan, Madhu, 2016. "Auditor client specific knowledge and internal control weakness: Some evidence on the role of auditor tenure and geographic distance," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 121-140.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jocaae:v:12:y:2016:i:2:p:121-140
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jcae.2016.03.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S181556691630011X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jcae.2016.03.001?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kedia, Simi & Rajgopal, Shiva, 2011. "Do the SEC's enforcement preferences affect corporate misconduct?," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(3), pages 259-278, April.
    2. Berger, Allen N. & Miller, Nathan H. & Petersen, Mitchell A. & Rajan, Raghuram G. & Stein, Jeremy C., 2005. "Does function follow organizational form? Evidence from the lending practices of large and small banks," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 237-269, May.
    3. Uysal, Vahap B. & Kedia, Simi & Panchapagesan, Venkatesh, 2008. "Geography and acquirer returns," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 256-275, April.
    4. Mitchell A. Petersen & Raghuram G. Rajan, 2002. "Does Distance Still Matter? The Information Revolution in Small Business Lending," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(6), pages 2533-2570, December.
    5. Paul Gompers & Joy Ishii & Andrew Metrick, 2003. "Corporate Governance and Equity Prices," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(1), pages 107-156.
    6. Doyle, Jeffrey & Ge, Weili & McVay, Sarah, 2007. "Determinants of weaknesses in internal control over financial reporting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(1-2), pages 193-223, September.
    7. Li, Xianghong & Zhao, Xinlei, 2006. "Propensity score matching and abnormal performance after seasoned equity offerings," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 351-370, June.
    8. Ashbaugh-Skaife, Hollis & Collins, Daniel W. & Kinney Jr., William R., 2007. "The discovery and reporting of internal control deficiencies prior to SOX-mandated audits," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(1-2), pages 166-192, September.
    9. Michael A. Lapré & Amit Shankar Mukherjee & Luk N. Van Wassenhove, 2000. "Behind the Learning Curve: Linking Learning Activities to Waste Reduction," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 46(5), pages 597-611, May.
    10. James J. Heckman & Hidehiko Ichimura & Petra E. Todd, 1997. "Matching As An Econometric Evaluation Estimator: Evidence from Evaluating a Job Training Programme," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 64(4), pages 605-654.
    11. Dirk Fornahl & Thomas Brenner (ed.), 2003. "Cooperation, Networks and Institutions in Regional Innovation Systems," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 2713.
    12. Ian R. Gordon & Philip McCann, 2000. "Industrial Clusters: Complexes, Agglomeration and/or Social Networks?," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 37(3), pages 513-532, March.
    13. Calton, Jerry M. & Lad, Lawrence J., 1995. "Social Contracting as a Trust-Building Process of Network Governance," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 5(2), pages 271-295, April.
    14. Kothari, S.P. & Leone, Andrew J. & Wasley, Charles E., 2005. "Performance matched discretionary accrual measures," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 163-197, February.
    15. Pier Paolo Patrucco, 2003. "Institutional Variety, Networking and Knowledge Exchange: Communication and Innovation in the Case of the Brianza Technological District," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(2), pages 159-172.
    16. Joshua D. Coval & Tobias J. Moskowitz, 1999. "Home Bias at Home: Local Equity Preference in Domestic Portfolios," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(6), pages 2045-2073, December.
    17. Joshua D. Coval & Tobias J. Moskowitz, 2001. "The Geography of Investment: Informed Trading and Asset Prices," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(4), pages 811-841, August.
    18. Michael J. Cooper & Huseyin Gulen & P. Raghavendra Rau, 2005. "Changing Names with Style: Mutual Fund Name Changes and Their Effects on Fund Flows," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(6), pages 2825-2858, December.
    19. Hillion, Pierre & Vermaelen, Theo, 2004. "Death spiral convertibles," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 381-415, February.
    20. James J. Heckman & Hidehiko Ichimura & Petra Todd, 1998. "Matching As An Econometric Evaluation Estimator," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 65(2), pages 261-294.
    21. Gul, Ferdinand A. & Fung, Simon Yu Kit & Jaggi, Bikki, 2009. "Earnings quality: Some evidence on the role of auditor tenure and auditors' industry expertise," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 265-287, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chen, Tao, 2023. "Common auditors and internal control similarity: Evidence from China," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(2).
    2. Liu, Wu-Po & Huang, Hua-Wei, 2020. "Auditor realignment, voluntary SOX 404 adoption, and internal control material weakness remediation: Further evidence from U.S.-listed foreign firms," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(5).
    3. Chalmers, Keryn & Hay, David & Khlif, Hichem, 2019. "Internal control in accounting research: A review," Journal of Accounting Literature, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 80-103.
    4. Navarro, Patricia & Robb, Sean W.G. & Sutton, Steve G. & Weisner, Martin M., 2020. "The cost stickiness of information technology material weaknesses: An intertemporal comparison between it-related and other material weaknesses," International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, Elsevier, vol. 37(C).
    5. Dang, Man & Puwanenthiren, Premkanth & Truong, Cameron & Henry, Darren & Vo, Xuan Vinh, 2022. "Audit quality and seasoned equity offerings methods," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    6. George Silviu CORDOŞ & Melinda Timea FÜLÖP, 2020. "Debates In The Literature Regarding Audit Reporting," Annales Universitatis Apulensis Series Oeconomica, Faculty of Sciences, "1 Decembrie 1918" University, Alba Iulia, vol. 1(22), pages 1-4.
    7. Sun, Kunpeng & Wang, Dan & Xiao, Xing, 2022. "Another victory of retail investors: Social media's monitoring role on firms' earnings management," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Knyazeva, Anzhela & Knyazeva, Diana, 2012. "Does being your bank’s neighbor matter?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 1194-1209.
    2. Cameron Truong, 2013. "The January effect, does options trading matter?," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 38(1), pages 31-48, April.
    3. Boubakri, Narjess & Guedhami, Omrane & Saffar, Walid, 2016. "Geographic location, foreign ownership, and cost of equity capital: Evidence from privatization," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 363-381.
    4. Sanggyu Kang & Chune Young Chung & Amirhossein Fard, 2024. "Does geographic or market proximity matter? Evidence from institutional investor monitoring on earnings attributes in US cross‐listed stocks," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 76(2), pages 443-469, April.
    5. Benson, Bradley W. & Chen, Yu & James, Hui L. & Park, Jung Chul, 2020. "So far away from me: Firm location and the managerial ownership effect on firm value," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    6. Deb, Saikat Sovan & Kalev, Petko S & Marisetty, Vijaya B, 2017. "Price limits and volatility," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 142-156.
    7. Tai, Vivian W. & Lai, Yi-Hsun & Lin, Lin, 2014. "Local institutional shareholders and corporate hedging policies," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 287-312.
    8. Houston, Joel F. & Itzkowitz, Jennifer & Naranjo, Andy, 2017. "Borrowing beyond borders: Foreign assets, lender choice, and loan pricing in the syndicated bank loan market," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 315-334.
    9. David C. Ling & Andy Naranjo & Benjamin Scheick, 2021. "There is no place like home: Information asymmetries, local asset concentration, and portfolio returns," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 49(1), pages 36-74, March.
    10. Kevan Jensen & Jin-Mo Kim & Han Yi, 2015. "The geography of US auditors: information quality and monitoring costs by local versus non-local auditors," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 44(3), pages 513-549, April.
    11. Patty Bick & Matthew D. Crook & Andrew A. Lynch & Brian R. Walkup, 2017. "Does Distance Matter In Mergers And Acquisitions?," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 40(1), pages 33-54, March.
    12. Michalski, Tomasz & Ors, Evren, 2012. "(Interstate) Banking and (interstate) trade: Does real integration follow financial integration?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(1), pages 89-117.
    13. Andrea Bellucci & Alexander Borisov & Germana Giombini & Alberto Zazzaro, 2015. "Collateral and Local Lending: Testing the Lender-Based Theory," IAW Discussion Papers 119, Institut für Angewandte Wirtschaftsforschung (IAW).
    14. John, Kose & Knyazeva, Anzhela & Knyazeva, Diana, 2011. "Does geography matter? Firm location and corporate payout policy," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(3), pages 533-551, September.
    15. Masulis, Ronald W. & Wang, Cong & Xie, Fei, 2012. "Globalizing the boardroom—The effects of foreign directors on corporate governance and firm performance," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 527-554.
    16. José María Liberti & Mitchell A. Petersen, 2018. "Information: Hard and Soft," NBER Working Papers 25075, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Ayers, Benjamin C. & Ramalingegowda, Santhosh & Eric Yeung, P., 2011. "Hometown advantage: The effects of monitoring institution location on financial reporting discretion," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 41-61, June.
    18. Hasan, Iftekhar & Minnick, Kristina & Raman, Kartik, 2020. "Credit allocation when borrowers are economically linked: An empirical analysis of bank loans to corporate customers," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    19. Zinat S. Alam & Mark A. Chen & Conrad S. Ciccotello & Harley E. Ryan, 2018. "Board Structure Mandates: Consequences for Director Location and Financial Reporting," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(10), pages 4735-4754, October.
    20. Dang, Man & Puwanenthiren, Premkanth & Truong, Cameron & Henry, Darren & Vo, Xuan Vinh, 2022. "Audit quality and seasoned equity offerings methods," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jocaae:v:12:y:2016:i:2:p:121-140. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-contemporary-accounting-and-economics .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.