Female audit partners and accruals quality: evidence from Indonesia

Abstract

<jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Purpose</jats:title><jats:p>This study examines the association between accruals quality and gender of the firm's audit engagement partner in Indonesia. Specifically, prior studies provide evidence that gender-based difference in diligence, conservatism and risk tolerance, it is plausible that female auditors may improve audit quality. Indonesia provides a valuable research setting to investigate the issue, as it is mandatory to disclose the identity of the audit partners in the audit reports.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Design/methodology/approach</jats:title><jats:p>This study employs multivariate regression model to test the hypothesis, which examines the association between accruals quality and audit partners gender. Using a sample of Indonesian publicly listed firms, we run a panel of regression of audit quality measure proxied by abnormal accruals on female auditor variable and firm-specific controls. To triangulate the results, we also conduct sensitivity analysis using high and low category of abnormal accruals, an alternative measure of accruals quality (i.e. Beneish's M score) and propensity score matching (PSM).</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Findings</jats:title><jats:p>We find that firms with female audit engagement partners are not associated with smaller abnormal accruals, thereby implying that female auditors may not constrain effects on earnings management. In other words, gender is not an important predictor for audit quality in Indonesia.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Research limitations/implications</jats:title><jats:p>We are not able to use broader measures of audit quality such as GAAP violations/restatement, litigation or audit fee. This is because the Indonesian setting somewhat limits us to collect them due to lack of regulatory actions and/or database availability.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Practical implications</jats:title><jats:p>This study will contribute to the regulators (such as Financial Service Authorities/OJK) and professionals, on the effectiveness of female audit partners in improving audit quality. The study can be used as an evidence to support the gender equality in the accounting and audit industry.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Social implications</jats:title><jats:p>Our findings suggest that auditor gender does not lead to the improvement of accruals quality in Indonesia. Given the fact that only 14% of firms in our sample audited by female audit partners, it is plausible that the positive traits of female top managers may not transmit to the overall audit process. As such, it is important to encourage more female involvement in top position of auditing and accounting industry is required to advance the profession and its positive impact to the society.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Originality/value</jats:title><jats:p>There are no prior studies in Indonesia examining the effect of audit partner gender on accruals quality using archival data. As such, this research will be the first to document such evidence and therefore can improve our understanding on the role of auditor characteristic on audit quality. We also respond to the call from DeFond and Zhang (2014) to push analysis of audit quality to the individual auditor level by examining the gender of audit partner.</jats:p></jats:sec>

Jenis Kecerdasan dan Kinerja Audit: Gender sebagai Variabel Moderasi

“…Budaya patriarki dan sulitnya akses pendidikan menimbulkan kesenjangan antara laki-laki dan perempuan dalam beraktifitas. Dampaknya secara tidak langsung adalah membuat posisi perempuan menjadi inferior dalam beberapa bidang, problematika ini akan membuat pemberdayaan perempuan untuk menyeimbangkan tanggung jawab dan karir semakin terbatas (Soepriyanto et al, 2020). Mempertimbangkan hal tersebut, lingkungan sosial di Indonesia berindikasi tidak meningkatkan kinerja auditor khususnya auditor perempuan dalam melaksanakan profesinya…”

El origen de ingresos del auditor y calidad de la auditoría: el caso español

“…El tema más recurrente es el de la rotación de los socios firmantes y su relación con la calidad de auditoría (Kuang et al, 2020;MohammadRezaei et al, 2021;Chang et al, 2019;Krishnan & Zhang, 2019;Gómez-Aguilar et al, 2018). Otros temas destacables son el de la relación entre el género de los socios y la calidad de auditoría (Soepriyanto et al, 2020;Lee et al, 2019); el efecto de la carga de trabajo en el comportamiento de los socios (Chen et al, 2020); la experiencia del socio firmante y la calidad de auditoría (Sonu et al, 2019) y más concretamente sobre la experiencia en un sector específico (Garcia-Blandon et al, 2020). Incluso trabajos más exóticos como el de Berglund & Eshleman (2019), que trata sobre la relación entre el socio firmante y su cliente de distinta etnia.…”

Determinan Kualitas Audit Perusahaan Nonkeuangan

“…Hasil penelitian sebelumnya memberikan hasil yang berbeda dan beragam sehingga penelitian ini dilakukan untuk mengkaji kembali dan menunjukkan bukti baru dengan menambah variabel yang berbeda dari penelitian sebelumnya terkait kualitas audit pada perusahaan nonkeuangan. Penelitian ini berfokus pada sektor perusahaan nonkeuangan, karena perusahaan di sektor perbankan dan keuangan dianggap memiliki karakteristik yang unik dan diatur dengan kebijakan yang ketat (Soepriyanto et al, 2020). Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menguji pengaruh gender auditor, biaya audit, komite audit, audit firm, ukuran perusahaan klien, dan profitabilitas terhadap kualitas audit.…”