감사파트너 경험에 따른 감사시간·감사보수 및 감사품질의 차이 (Audit Partner’s Experiences and Their Differential Associations with Audit Hours, Audit Fees, and Audit Quality)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 한국회계학회
· 수록지 정보 : 회계저널 / 23권 / 6호 / 175 ~ 235페이지
· 저자명 : 배길수, 최승욱, 이재은

초록

최근 미국 PCAOB가 감사파트너 이름공개방안을 추진하면서 파트너 개인에 따른 감사품질 차이에 대한 관심이 증가하고 있다. ACAP(2008)와 PCAOB(2011)는 감사파트너 이름공개가 감사업무에 대한 투명성(transparency)과 책임감(accountability)을 높이고 감사품질까지 향상하는 효과가 있다고 설명한다. 이러한 논의의 배경에는 파트너의 개인적 특성차이에 따라 감사인의 행동과 감사품질에 체계적 차이가 있을 것이라는 가정이 있다. 최근 감사인 관련 연구에서는 개인감사인(파트너) 차원의 감사품질에 대한 관심이 증가하고 있다.
본 연구는 같은 관점에서 감사파트너의 개인경험차이에 따라 감사시간·보수 및 감사품질에 차이가 있는지 조사한다. 구체적으로, 감사파트너의 감사경험 유형을 (1) 상장감사수, (2) 회계사경력년수, (3) 해당 회사에 대한 계속감사년수의 세 가지로 정하고, 이 유형별로 감사시간·보수 및 감사품질에 체계적인 차이를 나타내는지 조사한다. 이는 파트너 개인적 특성차이 정보의 유용성을 실증확인함으로써, 감사파트너 이름을 공개하면 감사 투명성을 높인다는 주장의 타당성을 확인하는 것이다. 연구대상 표본은 2006년부터 2012년까지 국내 상장회사 7,167 기업·연도이다.
연구 결과, 감사파트너의 업무경험과 감사시간·보수 및 감사품질의 관련성은 유형별로 차이가 있다. 구체적으로, 감사파트너의 당기상장감사수가 많을수록 감사시간·보수가 감소하였고, 오류수정과 실적대응재량발생액(절댓값)으로 측정한 감사품질도 더 양호하였다. 감사파트너의 회계사경력년수가 길수록 감사시간·보수는 감소하였고, 실적대응재량발생액(절댓값)으로 측정한 감사품질이 유의하게 높았다. 반면에 감사파트너의 해당회사감사년수는 감사시간·보수와 오류수정·실적대응재량발생액(절댓값)의 관련성은 대체로 유의하지 않았으나, Non-Big 4 감사인 표본에 대한 추가분석에서만 실적대응재량발생액(절댓값)으로 측정한 감사품질이 10% 수준에서 유의하게 양호한 것으로 나타났다. 본 연구의 공헌점은 국내 감사업무에 대한 기존 연구를 파트너 개인차원의 실증조사로 확장하였으며, 특히 감사파트너의 경험 항목에 따라 감사시간·보수와 감사품질에 체계적 차이가 있음을 실증확인한 것이다.

영어초록

According to recommendations of the Advisory Committee on the Auditing Profession(ACAP 2008), the PCAOB(2011) released a concept statement, which would consider to require public disclosure of audit partner names. The regulator explains that partner identity disclosure would increase transparency and accountability of the audits, which would eventually improve audit quality(PCAOB 2011). In a sense of transparency, the regulator indicates that partner identity would help the investors and audit committee to evaluate the potential audit partners by enabling them to find the partner’s competence, experience, or disciplinary history. This is in line with the thoughts that individual partner characteristics would have differential effects on audit partner’s behaviors and, ultimately, audit quality.
In response to such a new development, academic literature also push down its research focus from audit firm levels and office levels to the individual partner level. Conventional audit firm level studies have examined various audit firm characteristics, such as audit firm size(e.g. DeAngelo 1981; Becker et al. 1998; Krishnan and Schauer 2000), industry specialists(e.g. DeFond et al. 2000; Balsam et al. 2003), audit firm tenure or audit firm rotations(e.g. Lim 2006; Rho 2009), audit firm independence and non-audit services(e.g. Craswell et al. 2002; Myers et al. 2003). They investigate the relations between the audit firm characteristics or the audit firm client characteristics and engagement level audit attributes such as audit quality, audit hours or audit fees. More recent office level studies have examined the effect of office size and office level industry expertise on audit quality(e.g. Ferguson et al. 2003; Francis and Yu 2009; Francis et al. 2013).
More nascent individual partner level studies have examined audit partner tenure or partner rotation(Carey and Simnett 2006; Manry et al. 2008; Fargher et al. 2008; Chen et al. 2008; Azizkhani et al. 2013), audit partner’s industry expertise(Chi and Chin 2011; Zerni 2012), auditor independence at the individual partner level(Chen et al. 2010; Ye et al. 2011), fixed effects of audit quality across individual audit partners(Gul et al. 2013; Sundgren and Svanström 2014), and effects of potential disclosure of partner identity(Carcello and Li 2013; Abodia et al. 2013; King et al. 2012) on audit quality. They generally find that individual partner characteristics are systematically related to audit quality and other audit attributes.
Our study adds to the existing literature by examining the effect of various audit partner’s experiences and auditor behavior on audit results. Specifically, auditor behavior is measured by audit hours, audit fees, and audit fee premium/discounts. Audit quality is measured by restatements and the absolute value of performance-matched discretionary accruals(AbsPMDA). Audit partners’ experience is proxied by (i) the number of public company audits, (ii) the number of career years as professional certified public accountants(CPA), (iii) the number of partner tenure years with the client. In particular, we examine whether the partner experience proxies are related to audit hours, audit fees, audit fee premium/discounts, restatements and AbsPMDA. Our sample consists of 7,167 firm-years from 2006 to 2012 .
The results indicate that audit partner experience is systematically related to audit hours, audit fees, and audit quality. First, the number of public company audits is negatively associated with audit hours and audit fee. Audit quality is positively associated with the number of public company clients, although the significance level is generally low. However, the number of prior three year public company audits is not systematically associated with audit hours, audit fee, and audit quality. Second, audit partner career as a CPA is negatively associated with audit hours and audit fees and AbsPMDA. However, we find no systematic relationship between audit partner career and restatements. Third, audit partner tenure has no significant association with audit hours, audit fees, restatements, and AbsPMDA. Audit partner tenure is negatively associated with AbsPMDA at the 0.1 level in the non-Big 4 audit firm subsample, but not in the Big 4 audit firm subsample. However, audit firm tenure is positively associated with audit hours and audit fees. We find that audit firm tenure is positively related to audit fee premiums, but not related to restatements and AbsPMDA.
We perform several sensitivity tests. First, converting experimental variables to corresponding dummy variables does not alter the results. Dividing the observations into Big 4 and non-Big 4 subsamples reveals that auditor behavior and audit quality are not constant across these subsamples. More specifically, Big 4 audit firms appear to have a more structured quality control system to mitigate quality differences across individual partners and better utilize partner experience by more effectively transferring their knowledge to less-experienced professionals.
Our work has several contributions. First, we extend the existing literature in auditing by extending the scope of the analysis to audit partners. Second, we provide evidence that audit partner experience is systematically related to auditor behavior and audit quality at the engagement level. Third, given the debate on the effect of potential partner identity disclosure in several countries including the U.S. and the EU, our work provides regulatory implications for the potential regulatory changes.

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