Abstract
This paper aims to examine the effect of audit committee characteristics on audit report lag, and also explores whether this effect will vary between before and after mandatory adoption of IFRS in Saudi listed companies. Based on a Saudi sample of 388 firm-year observations from 2015 to 2018, the Poisson regression analysis shows that among audit committee characteristics, only audit committee financial experience significantly influences the timing of financial reporting. The result indicates a weak influence of audit committees on timeliness of financial reporting, which is consistent with the results of most of previous studies. On the other hand, the results show a strong impact of the adoption of IFRS on the context of that relationship, where the results show the impact of IFRS on audit report lag, audit committee quality and the association between them.
Highlights
A fundamental change was taken place in Saudi business environment in 2017, where IFRS has been mandatory adopted by all listed Saudi companies
The results show a strong impact of the adoption of IFRS on the context of that relationship, where the results show the impact of IFRS on audit report lag, audit committee quality and the association between them
Concerning IFRS, the results showed that it strongly influenced the context of audit delay, where it influenced audit report lag, audit committee quality and the association between them
Summary
A fundamental change was taken place in Saudi business environment in 2017, where IFRS has been mandatory adopted by all listed Saudi companies. IFRS is the most significant change in the financial reporting process in recent decades, and it is expected to affect the different dimensions of this process and the relationships between the different variables within it In this context, on one hand, the audit report is of great importance to the quality of the financial reporting and the timing of its issuance is the determining factor for the timeliness of financial information, so the audit report lag received great attention from regulators and researchers. The Audit Committee is the most related governance mechanism to the financial reporting process, and it is expected to facilitate the work of the auditor, so the characteristics of the quality of this committee and its impact on the audit report delay received the attention of regulators and researchers. The current paper addresses the association between audit report lag and audit committee' characteristics in Saudi environment
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