Determinants of Voluntary Audit of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises: Evidence from Vietnam

Abstract

The paper investigates the factors that affect the demand for a voluntary audit of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Vietnam. A structured questionnaire survey of 284 SMEs was employed, preceded by in-depth interviews with auditors and SMEs’ managers. The research used logistic regression estimator to address econometric issues and to improve the accuracy of the regression coefficients. The results show that the degree of director’s view on voluntary audit, related stakeholder, degree of recommendation, and firm size have a statistically significant positive effect on audit decisions of SMEs while degree of audit fee has a statistically significant negative effect, and degree of subjective norm does not affect. This indicated that SMEs are more likely to have an external audit if they have some typical features: it is becoming larger in terms of size, and the directors consider that the audit has a relative benefit outweighing its cost. The research results suggested that Vietnam Government should make a statutory audit of SMEs’ financial statements rather than make it an option for SMEs. The auditing firms were also recommended to actively take their audit services to SMEs rather than waiting for the SMEs’ managers to contact them for their services.