Audit Market Concentration and Auditor's Industry Specialization

Abstract

Abstract Past studies have shown that auditor's industry specialization exists in the USA (Rhode, Whitsell & Kelsey, 1974) and Australia (Craswell & Taylor, 1991). In Malaysia, however, according to Takiah, Ruhanita & Aini (2000), none of the Big 6 audit firms in Malaysia specializes in any one particular industry. Their empirical analysis covers a period from the year 1991 up till the year 1996 which is before the merger of the audit firms in 2002, the Enron case in 2001 and also the 1997 economic downturn. Thus, this study focuses on the financial statements that are prepared for the financial year-end 2003. It seeks to find out the impact of those events towards the audit market concentration and auditor's industry specialization from the Malaysian audit perspective. Pertinent point that could be highlighted are; the Big 4 audit firms in Malaysia dominate about 72% of the market audit share in the year 2003 where majority of audit clients are in the medium audit fee, small revenue and in the medium total assets size categories. Further, in term of auditor's industry specialization, none of the Big 4 audit firms specializes in one particular industry, unlike those audit firms that are in the USA and Australia. Since auditors that are specialized in a particular industry would assist in reducing the likelihood of the issuance of restatements affecting core operating accounts (Romanus, Maher & Fleming, 2008), then the implication of this study would be for the authority to think of a possible solution in encouraging the auditors in Malaysia to be specialized in a particular industry.