Navigating Audit Quality in the Era of COVID-19: The Differential Impact of Big 4 versus Non-Big 4 Firms

Abstract

This research examines the effect of covid-19 on audit quality, the moderating effect of big 4 and non-big 4. In addition, auditors’ responses to these changes are explored. The research employed a quantitative methodology through a questionnaire survey. Auditors were asked to state their agreement to statements related to audit quality on a five-point Likert scale. Based on the statistic in the Malaysian Institute of Accountants (MIA), there are 35,866 members in Malaysia. The result revealed that auditing standard is a necessity that must be adhered to by auditors at all time as there exist a positive and strong statistical relationship between the covid-19 and audit quality with correlation coefficient p-value = 0.000 < 0.05. Due to this pandemic, the limitation is to distribute the questionnaire to the auditors. The auditors do not provide appropriate feedback and sign when questions are not correctly read. This research will be beneficial for auditors and audit firms because audit quality will be affected during this covid-19. With this study, the auditors will be more prepared to deal with any crisis. While other researchers focus more on the crisis that affects audit quality, this study examines covid-19 on audit quality with the moderating effect of big 4 and non-big 4.