Ownership structure and audit quality: An empirical analysis considering ownership types in Jordan

Abstract

This study provides up-to-date evidence concerning the different corporate ownership types and their effect on audit quality in Jordan, and by extension to other developing countries with similar institutional environments. Different types of shareholders have different investment policies and targets, which affects how they exercise their monitoring role over the investee firms. However, the literature suffers from a tight focus on overall ownership concentration, with less attention to identities of the shareholders. This focus motivates the study to go further and test whether the demand for audit quality varies across different ownership identities. This study sheds light on this relationship in one of the developing countries where investor protection is relatively weak and overall regulations remain underdeveloped. To obtain robust results, the study employs different estimation methods and scales audit fees according to firm size in order to reduce spurious correlations and heterogeneity of variance due to firm size. The results show the importance of family, banks, and government ownership in ensuring high audit quality. Conversely, ownership by non-financial institutions and foreigners does not affect audit quality. Beyond its contribution to the literature, this study offers useful feedback for regulatory bodies to consider ownership types during their deliberations, assists investors in making better-informed decisions, and benefits other interested parties in gaining a better understanding of the role played by ownership structure in audit quality. This feedback can also apply to other countries with ownership structures and regulatory frameworks similar to those in Jordan.