IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/acctbr/v46y2016i4p422-449.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Non-audit services provided to audit clients, independence of mind and independence in appearance: latest evidence from large UK listed companies

Author

Listed:
  • Domenico Campa
  • Ray Donnelly

Abstract

This paper investigates whether the provision of non-audit services (NAS) to audit clients impairs auditor independence of mind and independence in appearance. The main contributions of this paper are in terms of its timeliness with respect to regulatory changes, the simultaneous examination of both forms of auditor independence and the methodological innovation whereby it uses a variable derived from the level of abnormal audit fees as a moderating variable in order to capture the direct impact of the NAS fee level on auditor independence as well as how its influence is moderated by the level of unexpected audit fees. Our results indicate that auditor independence of mind is compromised by the size of NAS fees, particularly for clients who pay below the level of expected audit fee. The stock market perceives that auditor independence is compromised by NAS fees but, at the same time, additional tests indicate that there are benefits that accrue from NAS and, in particular, the relation between return and non-discretionary net income is increasing in NAS fees. The balance of evidence suggests that the European Union is correct in undertaking some reform of the auditing market.

Suggested Citation

  • Domenico Campa & Ray Donnelly, 2016. "Non-audit services provided to audit clients, independence of mind and independence in appearance: latest evidence from large UK listed companies," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(4), pages 422-449, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:acctbr:v:46:y:2016:i:4:p:422-449
    DOI: 10.1080/00014788.2015.1048772
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00014788.2015.1048772
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00014788.2015.1048772?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. Ali, A & Zarowin, P, 1992. "The Role Of Earnings Levels In Annual Earnings Returns Studies," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(2), pages 286-296.
    2. Rick Antle & Elizabeth Gordon & Ganapathi Narayanamoorthy & Ling Zhou, 2006. "The joint determination of audit fees, non-audit fees, and abnormal accruals," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 27(3), pages 235-266, November.
    3. Jeffrey S. Paterson & Adrian Valencia, 2011. "The Effects of Recurring and Nonrecurring Tax, Audit†Related, and Other Nonaudit Services on Auditor Independence," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 28(5), pages 1510-1536, December.
    4. Mark L. DeFond & K. Raghunandan & K.R. Subramanyam, 2002. "Do Non–Audit Service Fees Impair Auditor Independence? Evidence from Going Concern Audit Opinions," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(4), pages 1247-1274, September.
    5. Andrea Melis, 2005. "Corporate Governance Failures: to what extent is Parmalat a particularly Italian Case?," Corporate Governance: An International Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(4), pages 478-488, July.
    6. Michael J. Ferguson & Gim S. Seow & Danqing Young, 2004. "Nonaudit Services and Earnings Management: UK Evidence," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 21(4), pages 813-841, December.
    7. Jones, Jj, 1991. "Earnings Management During Import Relief Investigations," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(2), pages 193-228.
    8. Zmijewski, Me, 1984. "Methodological Issues Related To The Estimation Of Financial Distress Prediction Models," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22, pages 59-82.
    9. Paul K. Chaney & Kirk L. Philipich, 2002. "Shredded Reputation: The Cost of Audit Failure," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(4), pages 1221-1245, September.
    10. Santanu Mitra & Donald R. Deis & Mahmud Hossain, 2009. "The association between audit fees and reported earnings quality in pre‐ and post‐Sarbanes‐Oxley regimes," Review of Accounting and Finance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 8(3), pages 232-252, August.
    11. 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.
    12. Quick, Reiner & Warming-Rasmussen, B., 2009. "Auditor Independence and the Provision of Non-Audit Services: Perceptions by German Investors," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 39453, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    13. Johnson, Marilyn F. & Nelson, Karen K. & Frankel, Richard M., 2002. "The Relation Between Auditor's Fees for Non-audit Services and Earnings Quality," Research Papers 1696r, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    14. Nicholas Dopuch & Ronald R. King & Rachel Schwartz, 2003. "Independence in Appearance and in Fact: An Experimental Investigation," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 20(1), pages 79-114, March.
    15. David Hay & Robert Knechel & Vivian Li, 2006. "Non‐audit Services and Auditor Independence: New Zealand Evidence," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(5‐6), pages 715-734, June.
    16. Craswell, Allen & Stokes, Donald J. & Laughton, Janet, 2002. "Auditor independence and fee dependence," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 253-275, June.
    17. Kormendi, Roger & Lipe, Robert, 1987. "Earnings Innovations, Earnings Persistence, and Stock Returns," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 60(3), pages 323-345, July.
    18. Ghosh, Aloke (Al) & Kallapur, Sanjay & Moon, Doocheol, 2009. "Audit and non-audit fees and capital market perceptions of auditor independence," Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 28(5), pages 369-385, September.
    19. David F. Larcker & Scott A. Richardson, 2004. "Fees Paid to Audit Firms, Accrual Choices, and Corporate Governance," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(3), pages 625-658, June.
    20. James M. Wahlen, 2004. "Discussion of “The Circumstances and Legal Consequences of Non†GAAP Reporting: Evidence from Restatements†," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 21(1), pages 181-190, March.
    21. Shireenjit Johl & Christine A. Jubb & Keith A. Houghton, 2007. "Earnings management and the audit opinion: evidence from Malaysia," Managerial Auditing Journal, Emerald Group Publishing, vol. 22(7), pages 688-715, July.
    22. Kevin Holland & Jennifer Lane, 2012. "Perceived auditor independence and audit firm fees," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(2), pages 115-141, June.
    23. Jere R. Francis, 2006. "Are Auditors Compromised by Nonaudit Services? Assessing the Evidence," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 23(3), pages 747-760, September.
    24. Warfield, Terry D. & Wild, John J. & Wild, Kenneth L., 1995. "Managerial ownership, accounting choices, and informativeness of earnings," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 61-91, July.
    25. Rick Antle & Elizabeth Gordon & Ganapathi Narayanamoorthy & Ling Zhou, 2002. "The Joint Determination of Audit Fees, Non-Audit Fees, and Abnormal Accruals," Yale School of Management Working Papers amz2502, Yale School of Management, revised 02 May 2006.
    26. Collins, Daniel W. & Kothari, S. P., 1989. "An analysis of intertemporal and cross-sectional determinants of earnings response coefficients," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(2-3), pages 143-181, July.
    27. McNichols, Maureen F., 2000. "Research design issues in earnings management studies," Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 19(4-5), pages 313-345.
    28. Freeman, Robert N., 1987. "The association between accounting earnings and security returns for large and small firms," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 195-228, July.
    29. Glezen, Gw & Millar, Ja, 1985. "An Empirical-Investigation Of Stockholder Reaction To Disclosures Required By Asr No-250," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(2), pages 859-870.
    30. Rani Hoitash & Ariel Markelevich & Charles A. Barragato, 2007. "Auditor fees and audit quality," Managerial Auditing Journal, Emerald Group Publishing, vol. 22(8), pages 761-786, September.
    31. William R. Kinney & Zoe‐Vonna Palmrose & Susan Scholz, 2004. "Auditor Independence, Non‐Audit Services, and Restatements: Was the U.S. Government Right?," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(3), pages 561-588, 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. Jean Bédard & Suzanne M. Paquette, 2021. "Audit Committee Financial Expertise, Litigation Risk, and Auditor‐Provided Tax Services†," Accounting Perspectives, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 20(1), pages 7-48, March.
    2. Meuwissen, Roger & Quick, Reiner, 2019. "The effects of non-audit services on auditor independence: An experimental investigation of supervisory board members’ perceptions," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 1-1.
    3. Marco Angelo Marinoni & Anna Maria Fellegara & Andrea Lippi, 2022. "Potential Threats to Audit Firm Independence: Evidence from Italy on Audit Quality," International Business Research, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 15(6), pages 1-88, June.
    4. Daniela Hohenfels & Reiner Quick, 2020. "Non-audit services and audit quality: evidence from Germany," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 14(5), pages 959-1007, October.
    5. Ayesha Hameed & Mazhar Ali Alyani & Muhammad Sijawal Alyani & Ghulam Hussain & Abdul Manan Channa, 2024. "Various Factor Affecting External and Internal Auditor Performance: Analytical Perspectives of Employees Working in Karachi Audit Firm and Companies," Bulletin of Business and Economics (BBE), Research Foundation for Humanity (RFH), vol. 13(2), pages 848-856.
    6. Patrick Velte, 2023. "The impact of external auditors on firms’ financial restatements: a review of archival studies and implications for future research," Management Review Quarterly, Springer, vol. 73(3), pages 959-985, September.
    7. Alhababsah, Salem & Alhaj-Ismail, Alaa, 2023. "Does shared tenure between audit committee chair and engagement partner affect audit outcomes? Evidence from the UK," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(2).

    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. Daniela Hohenfels & Reiner Quick, 2020. "Non-audit services and audit quality: evidence from Germany," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 14(5), pages 959-1007, October.
    2. Bugeja, Martin, 2011. "Takeover premiums and the perception of auditor independence and reputation," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 43(4), pages 278-293.
    3. DeFond, Mark & Zhang, Jieying, 2014. "A review of archival auditing research," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 275-326.
    4. Anastasia Kraft & Kerstin Lopatta, 2016. "Auditor fees, discretionary book-tax differences, and tax avoidance," International Journal of Economics and Accounting, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 7(2), pages 127-155.
    5. .Reiner Quick & Matthias Sattler, 2011. "Beeinträchtigen Beratungsleistungen die Urteilsfreiheit des Abschlussprüfers? Zum Einfluss von Beratungshonoraren auf diskretionäre Periodenabgrenzungen," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 63(4), pages 310-343, June.
    6. Dechow, Patricia & Ge, Weili & Schrand, Catherine, 2010. "Understanding earnings quality: A review of the proxies, their determinants and their consequences," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 344-401, December.
    7. Garcia-Blandon, Josep & Argiles-Bosch, Josep Maria & Castillo-Merino, David & Martinez-Blasco, Monica, 2017. "An Assessment of the Provisions of Regulation (EU) No 537/2014 on Non-audit Services and Audit Firm Tenure: Evidence from Spain," The International Journal of Accounting, Elsevier, vol. 52(3), pages 251-261.
    8. Alzoubi, Ebraheem Saleem Salem, 2018. "Audit quality, debt financing, and earnings management: Evidence from Jordan," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 69-84.
    9. Knechel, W. Robert & Thomas, Edward & Driskill, Matthew, 2020. "Understanding financial auditing from a service perspective," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    10. Tobias Svanstr�m, 2013. "Non-audit Services and Audit Quality: Evidence from Private Firms," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(2), pages 337-366, June.
    11. Bum†Jin Park, 2017. "Auditors’ Economic Incentives and the Sensitivity of Managerial Pay to Accounting Performance," Australian Accounting Review, CPA Australia, vol. 27(4), pages 382-399, December.
    12. Alhababsah, Salem & Alhaj-Ismail, Alaa, 2023. "Does shared tenure between audit committee chair and engagement partner affect audit outcomes? Evidence from the UK," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(2).
    13. Reshma Kumari Tiwari & Jasojit Debnath, 2021. "Joint Provision of Non-audit Services to Audit Clients: Empirical Evidences from India," Vikalpa: The Journal for Decision Makers, , vol. 46(3), pages 153-165, September.
    14. Anandarajan, Asokan & Kleinman, Gary & Palmon, Dan, 2012. "Is non-audit services a suitable proxy for auditor independence in the post-SOX period?," Research in Accounting Regulation, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 105-111.
    15. Ho, Nam, 2023. "Local competition and auditors' provision of non-audit services," Advances in accounting, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    16. Silvia Ferramosca & Giulio Greco & Marco Allegrini, 2017. "External audit and goodwill write-off," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 21(4), pages 907-934, December.
    17. Roger Meuwissen & Reiner Quick, 2009. "Abschlussprüfung und Beratung - Eine experimentelle Analyse der Auswirkungen auf Unabhängigkeitswahrnehmungen deutscher Aufsichtsräte," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 61(4), pages 382-415, June.
    18. Yu (Elli) Zhang & David Hay & Claus Holm, 2016. "Non-audit services and auditor independence: Norwegian evidence," Cogent Business & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 3(1), pages 1215223-121, December.
    19. Luo, Bing, 2019. "Effects of auditor-provided tax services on book-tax differences and on investors' mispricing of book-tax differences," Advances in accounting, Elsevier, vol. 47(C).
    20. Sarowar Hossain & Jeff Coulton & Jenny Jing Wang, 2023. "Client Importance and Audit Quality at the Individual Audit Partner, Office, and Firm Levels," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 59(2), pages 650-696, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:taf:acctbr:v:46:y:2016:i:4:p:422-449. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RABR20 .

    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.