Abstract
The purpose of this study was twofold: to investigate clients' perceptions towards the quality of audit services offered by the big four and non-big four audit firms in Botswana and to evaluate clients' views about their satisfaction with performance of audit firms and audit teams. Data was collected from all companies regardless of their listing status including state owned enterprises. Respondents were clients' officers expected to have high level interaction with external auditors during the course of the audit. The results suggest that clients perceive audit firms as having slightly higher quality attributes than the audit teams and big four audit firms ranking higher than non-big four in executing quality audits. However, we did not find a significant difference in audit quality provided by big four audit teams and that of non-big four. In addition, the results suggest that on the overall audit clients in Botswana are highly and equally satisfied with the audit performance of both audit firms and teams. Although the clients of big four audit firms appeared to be more satisfied with performance of audit firms and teams than the clients of non-big four, no statistically significant difference was found. The study also found that only audit firm's independence and responsiveness to clients' needs, and audit team's industry expertise and interaction with audit committee were most important indicators of client satisfaction. These findings have implications to all audit firms, their clients and regulators all of whom have responsibility to improve the quality of audit services in Botswana.
Highlights
The imperative of audit quality in building trust in company’s financial statements and fostering confidence in capital markets and fuelling economic growth is an undeniable reality in the financial community (Tackett et al, 2004; The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, 2011).A report by the World Bank (2006) suggested that economic growth in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) could not be maintained without a good accounting infrastructure and a properly trained accounting profession
Audit firm’s clean record in the field and being a network audit firm which brings in the technical support from sister firms were cited as relevant attributes. This current study intended to assess the perceptions of audit clients towards the quality of audit services provided by audit firms and teams in Botswana
The current study examined the extent to which the client satisfaction is explained by audit firms’ and audit teams’ quality attributes
Summary
The imperative of audit quality in building trust in company’s financial statements and fostering confidence in capital markets and fuelling economic growth is an undeniable reality in the financial community (Tackett et al, 2004; The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, 2011).A report by the World Bank (2006) suggested that economic growth in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) could not be maintained without a good accounting infrastructure and a properly trained accounting profession. The report further noted that in many countries in (SSA) accounting and auditing had been unsatisfactory over many years due to primarily shortage of accountants, lack of recognised and accepted accounting and auditing standards and the inadequacy of accounting development. This underscored the importance of the accounting and auditing profession in achieving economic growth in a country. In the USA the Sarbanes-Oxley Act was enacted in 2002 with intention of strengthening the oversight function over the accounting profession This sparked the introduction of accounting oversight regimes in many countries. In Botswana, the Financial Reporting Act of 2010 created the Botswana Accounting Oversight Authority to regulate the accounting profession in the country
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