Does the Rotation of Head of Audit Office Across Offices Impact Audit Quality? Study Case of the Audit Board of Republic of Indonesia

Abstract

ABSTRAKPenelitian ini menguji dua argumen dalam konteks audit sektor swasta. Pertama audit partner dari kantor audit yang lebih besar dianggap memiliki kemampuan dan pengalaman audit yang lebih baik dari audit partner dari kantor audit yang lebih kecil. Kedua, audit partner dari kantor audit yang lebih besar juga dianggap lebih mampu menghadapi tantangan rotasi. Penelitian ini menguji kedua proposisi ini dalam konteks audit sektor publik menggunakan Badan Pemeriksa Keuangan (BPK) Republik Indonesia sebagai studi kasus. Penelitian ini untuk menguji kedua proposisi tersebut dengan meneliti kualitas audit antar kantor perwakilan BPK, efek dari rotasi dan tipe rotasi kepala perwakilan BPK terhadap kualitas audit, dengan menempatkan kepala kantor perwakilan BPK sebagai ekuivalensi dari audit partner pada sektor swasta. Penelitian ini menggunakan jumlah temuan audit dalam laporan audit atas laporan keuangan pemerintah daerah sebagai pendekatan ukuran atas kualitas audit. Penelitian ini menemukan bahwa terdapat kesenjangan kualitas audit antar kantor perwakilan dengan kecenderungan kantor perwakilan yang memiliki entitas audit yang lebih banyak akan memiliki kualitas audit yang lebih baik dibandingkan dengan kantor perwakilan dengan entitas audit yang lebih sedikit. Penelitian ini juga menemukan bahwa rotasi kepala kantor perwakilan berdampak negatif terhadap kualitas audit. Lebih jauh, hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa dampak negatif tersebut disebabkan oleh dampak negatif perubahan ukuran kantor perwakilan, yang lebih besar dari dampak positif rotasi itu sendiri. Kata kunci: Kualitas audit, ukuran kantor perwakilan, rotasi auditor, temuan audit, laporan auditABSTRACTThis study examines the effect of head of audit office rotation on auditing quality. This study is motivated by two propositions in private sector auditing. First, that audit partners from larger audit offices are argued to be more experienced compared with audit partners from smaller offices. Second, the audit partners from larger audit offices also argued to be more capable in handling the rotation challenges. This study aimed to examine these propositions in public sector setting by using the Supreme Audit Board of the Republic of Indonesia (BPK) as a case study, where the head of representative office as the audit partner equivalent. This study tested these propositions by examining audit quality across BPK’s representative audit office sizes and the effect of rotation and types of rotation of the head of the representative audit office on audit quality. This study used the number of audit findings in the financial audit reports as the proxy of audit quality. This study found that audit quality varies across office sizes in the BPK, where the larger representative offices tend to have a better audit quality. This study also found that the rotation of the head of the audit office is negatively associated with audit quality. Lastly, this study found that the negative effect of rotation is caused by the negative effect of changes in the office sizes, which outweigh the positive effect of rotation. Keywords: Audit quality, office sizes, rotation, audit findings, audit report

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