전문성이 필요한 산업에 속한 피감사기업을 감사하는 산업전문감사인의 감사행태

Abstract

[Purpose] This study aims to examine the behavior of industry specialist auditors according to industry characteristics. Specifically, this study aims to provide evidence on the audit efficiency of industry specialist auditors by analyzing whether the audit hours and audit fees of industry specialist auditors are differentiated for industries requiring industry specialization designated by the Financial Supervisory Service.
 [Methodology] We used a sample of 19,115 firms and years for Korean listed companies from 2008 to 2020. For the industries requiring specialization, we used the industry groups selected by the Financial Supervisory Service in November 2023 based on the opinions of listed companies and accounting firms.
 [Findings] The results show that, first, industry specialist auditors are associated with higher audit fees and more audit hours on average, but these fees and audit hours are significantly lower for industries designated as requiring industry specialty, which can be interpreted as an audit efficiency. Second, the above association does not appear in the analysis using hourly audit fees, explaining the process by which efficiency gains are passed on to client firms. Third, the relations does not appear in analyses of audit quality measured by the absolute value of performance－matched discretionary accruals, providing further evidence of the efficiency with which audit quality is maintained at lower levels of audit time. These results can be interpreted as indicating that industry specialist auditors perform the audit process efficiently in industries where specialization is essential, and that the benefits of reduced audit efforts are fully passed on to the clients through this efficient audit process.
 [Implications] The contribution of this study is that it provides evidence on the audit efficiency of industry specialist auditors through data that directly manifests the need for specialization while reflecting the perspectives of both audited companies as consumers and accounting firms as suppliers of industry specialization.