Going-concern Opinion Research Articles

Determinants of going-concern audit opinions: Empirical evidence from listed mining firms in Indonesia

This study aims to ascertain how going concern audit opinions are affected by Profitability, liquidity, solvency, firm size, and audit quality. Profitability will be measured with Return on Asset, Liquidity with Current Ratio, Solvency with Debt to Asset Ratio, and Firm Size with Logaritma Natural of Total Assets. The data used in this study is secondary data. The mining businesses listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) in 2019–2021 comprise the study's population. Purposive sampling determines the sample, leaving 65 companies that satisfy the requirements. Logistic regression is the data analysis technique used in this study. In contrast, Audit Quality will be measured using the services of a public accounting firm hired by the company. The results indicate that while solvency had no impact on the going-concern opinion, variable Profitability, liquidity, firm size, and audit quality all significantly influenced going-concern opinion.

A literature survey of corporate failure prediction models

PurposeThis study updates the literature review of Jones (1987) published in this journal. The study pays particular attention to two important themes that have shaped the field over the past 35 years: (1) the development of a range of innovative new statistical learning methods, particularly advanced machine learning methods such as stochastic gradient boosting, adaptive boosting, random forests and deep learning, and (2) the emergence of a wide variety of bankruptcy predictor variables extending beyond traditional financial ratios, including market-based variables, earnings management proxies, auditor going concern opinions (GCOs) and corporate governance attributes. Several directions for future research are discussed.Design/methodology/approachThis study provides a systematic review of the corporate failure literature over the past 35 years with a particular focus on the emergence of new statistical learning methodologies and predictor variables. This synthesis of the literature evaluates the strength and limitations of different modelling approaches under different circumstances and provides an overall evaluation the relative contribution of alternative predictor variables. The study aims to provide a transparent, reproducible and interpretable review of the literature. The literature review also takes a theme-centric rather than author-centric approach and focuses on structured themes that have dominated the literature since 1987.FindingsThere are several major findings of this study. First, advanced machine learning methods appear to have the most promise for future firm failure research. Not only do these methods predict significantly better than conventional models, but they also possess many appealing statistical properties. Second, there are now a much wider range of variables being used to model and predict firm failure. However, the literature needs to be interpreted with some caution given the many mixed findings. Finally, there are still a number of unresolved methodological issues arising from the Jones (1987) study that still requiring research attention.Originality/valueThe study explains the connections and derivations between a wide range of firm failure models, from simpler linear models to advanced machine learning methods such as gradient boosting, random forests, adaptive boosting and deep learning. The paper highlights the most promising models for future research, particularly in terms of their predictive power, underlying statistical properties and issues of practical implementation. The study also draws together an extensive literature on alternative predictor variables and provides insights into the role and behaviour of alternative predictor variables in firm failure research.

Employee firing costs and auditors’ going-concern opinions: Evidence from wrongful discharge laws

This paper examines the impact of employee firing costs on auditors’ going-concern (GC) reporting decisions by exploiting the wrongful discharge laws (WDLs) adopted by U.S. states. We find that auditors are more likely to issue GC opinions to financially-distressed clients headquartered in states that have adopted the laws, in particular the good faith exception, than to clients in states that have not. This finding is robust to controlling for the state-level economics, the strictness of legal liability rules, audit office fixed effects, as well as alternative definitions of financial distress and estimation methods. The impact is concentrated in labor-intensive clients and clients in industries with a higher proportion of nonunionized or permanent employees. We further find that the increased propensity to issue GC opinions is attenuated when the auditor is economically dependent on the client, and is driven by auditors who possess labor-specific expertise. Overall, these findings are consistent with higher firing costs increasing auditors’ propensity to issue GC opinions.

Experiment Study: Auditor’s Going Concern Opinion Decision During Covid 19 Pandemic

This research is an experimental research that assesses the giving of going concern opinions conducted by auditors during the Covid 19 pandemic. To enhance the degree of confidence in the financial statements, a qualified external party (an auditor) is engaged to examine the financial statements. However, Auditors are increasingly being asked to provide assurance on non-financial information, both on a standalone basis or in conjunction with the audit of normal financial statements. Auditors shall perform a risk assessment in order for continuity of the going concernThe participants who participated and can be used in this study are members of IAPI in the East Java region as many as 40 auditor. Participants in this research have experiences in positions as senior auditors, supervisors, managers and partners. The results of this study are that auditors do not differentiate in auditing the functioning and non-functioning companies in the context of giving going-concern opinion decisions. Auditor considers financial information more than non-financial information in giving a going concern opinion because financial information is historical data that can be used to assess the company's current condition and to predict future financial conditions. Non-financial information is used as supporting information for going concern decision making.

How Do Auditors Respond to Clients’ Rollover Risk?

We examine whether and how auditors incorporate rollover risk in assessing a client’s risk. Rollover risk is the risk associated with long-term debt maturing in 1 year, which has to be refinanced or settled shortly. Debt has two counteracting effects on firms’ riskiness: increased liquidity risk and increased monitoring. The finance literature suggests that rollover risk is an apparent risk factor because it results in high liquidity risk but only a weak (or limited) monitoring benefit. Consistent with that literature, we show that auditors increase audit fees, exhibit a higher likelihood of issuing a going-concern opinion, and terminate relations with their clients more frequently as rollover risk increases. Our study is the first in the audit research literature to document that auditors factor rollover risk in their pricing, going concern, and client portfolio decisions.

Impact of Pandemic Financial Crisis to the Going Concern Audit Opinion Factors

This study aims to further analyze the relationship between the characteristics, client relationship characteristics and environmental factors of auditors in issuing going concern audit opinions during pandemic financial crisis. By analyzing the effect of audit client tenure, litigation risk, and audit firm size on going-concern audit opinion and financial crisis due to COVID-19 as moderation. This study uses secondary data, financial statements and independent auditor reports of mining companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange in period 2017-2020. The analytical method used is logistic regression. The results showed that the audit client tenure of public accountants and audit firm size had a significant negative effect on the issuance of going-concern audit opinions, while litigation risk had a significant positive effect on the issuance of going-concern audit opinions. Then the financial crisis due to Covid-19 had a significant positive effect on going-concern audit opinion but did not moderate the effect of audit client tenure, litigation risk, and audit firm size on going-concern audit opinion.

The Influence of Financial Distress, Debt, And Profitability on the Audit Opinions of Going Concerned with Industry-Specialist Auditors as Moderating Variables

This study aims to examine the effect of financial distress, debt, and profitability on the acceptance of going concern audit opinions with the industry-specialist auditors variable as the moderating variable, this research was conducted on the manufacturing industry listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange for the 2018-2020 period. The data used is secondary data obtained from the Indonesia Stock Exchange website and the company's official website. The theory used is agency theory and signal theory. These two theories can provide an overview of the correlation between the variables in the study. The analytical method used is logistic regression analysis and moderated regression analysis with an absolute difference value approach. The results showed that the financial distress variable proxied by the Altman z-score, and the profitability variable proxied by Return on Assets had a positive and significant effect on the acceptance of going concern audit opinion. In addition, the industry-specialist auditors variable as a moderating variable can strengthen the negative effect of profitability on going-concern audit opinion. Meanwhile, the debt variable as proxied by the Debt to Equity Ratio does not have a positive effect on the acceptance of going concern audit opinions, as well as the industry-specialist auditors variable which is expected to strengthen the positive influence of financial distress, and debt is not supported.

Using Hybrid Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Technologies for Sustainability in Going-Concern Prediction

The going-concern opinions of certified public accountants (CPAs) and auditors are very critical, and due to misjudgments, the failure to discover the possibility of bankruptcy can cause great losses to financial statement users and corporate stakeholders. Traditional statistical models have disadvantages in giving going-concern opinions and are likely to cause misjudgments, which can have significant adverse effects on the sustainable survival and development of enterprises and investors’ judgments. In order to embrace the era of big data, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technologies have been used in recent studies to judge going concern doubts and reduce judgment errors. The Big Four accounting firms (Deloitte, KPMG, PwC, and EY) are paying greater attention to auditing via big data and artificial intelligence (AI). Thus, this study integrates AI and machine learning technologies: in the first stage, important variables are selected by two decision tree algorithms, classification and regression trees (CART), and a chi-squared automatic interaction detector (CHAID); in the second stage, classification models are respectively constructed by extreme gradient boosting (XGB), artificial neural network (ANN), support vector machine (SVM), and C5.0 for comparison, and then, financial and non-financial variables are adopted to construct effective going-concern opinion decision models (which are more accurate in prediction). The subjects of this study are listed companies and OTC (over-the-counter) companies in Taiwan with and without going-concern doubts from 2000 to 2019. According to the empirical results, among the eight models constructed in this study, the prediction accuracy of the CHAID–C5.0 model is the highest (95.65%), followed by the CART–C5.0 model (92.77%).

Does Audit Lag Become a Signal of Going-Concern Audit Opinion?

Going-concern opinion is an auditor's opinion based on the client's financial statements, which have financial problems. The company avoids this opinion because it will significantly affect the attitude of investors in the future. This study analyzes various factors that potentially affect the provision of going-concern audit opinions in Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) manufacturing companies during 2017-2019. They are audit tenure, company size, opinion shopping, and audit report lag. The results show that audit tenure, company size, and opinion shopping significantly negatively impact the acceptance of going-concern audit opinion. In contrast, audit report lag is not related to the acceptance of going-concern audit opinion. These research findings indicate that investors should not use the delay of financial statement issuance to the public as a benchmark for a company experiencing financial or operational problems.

Auditors Scan News Headlines? The Prophetic Vision for Going-Concern Opinions

Auditors Scan News Headlines? The Prophetic Vision for Going-Concern Opinions

The going-concern opinion and the adverse credit rating: an analysis of their relationship

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between going-concern (GC) opinions issued by the Big 4 audit firms and adverse credit ratings from the two largest credit rating agencies (CRAs) – Standard & Poor’s (S&P) and Moody’s. This question is relevant because there have been suggestions that auditors and CRAs should become more similar to each other, and because the two largest CRAs have different ownership structures that could affect their ratings.Design/methodology/approachUnivariate and multivariate analyses are performed using a sample of firms that filed for bankruptcy between January 1, 2002 and December 31, 2013 that also had an audit opinion signed during the 12 months prior to bankruptcy, along with a credit rating issued by either or both S&P and Moody’s. Both influence each other. The likelihood of an auditor issuing a GC opinion is related to the credit rating issued by both S&P and Moody’s in the month prior to the audit report signing. The results also show differences between the CRAs. S&P reacted in the month after an auditor issued a GC opinion by downgrading its ratings 68% of the time. However, Moody’s did not react as strongly as S&P, downgrading its ratings only 24% of the time.FindingsBoth audit reports and credit ratings influence each other. The likelihood of an auditor issuing a GC opinion is related to the credit rating issued by both S&P and Moody’s in the month prior to the audit report signing. The results also show differences between the CRAs. S&P reacted in the month after an auditor issued a GC opinion by downgrading its ratings 68% of the time. However, Moody’s did not react as strongly as S&P, downgrading its ratings only 24% of the time.Originality/valueAuditors are more likely to issue GC opinions when there is a downgrade to the credit rating, and CRAs are more likely to downgrade their ratings when there is a GC opinion. The study highlights that CRAs with different ownership structures provide different credit rating outcomes.

Is There a Dark Side to Societal Trust in Auditors' Going Concern Assessments?

SUMMARYAmidst heightened concern among U.S. and international regulators is the need to examine reasons why auditors are not issuing going-concern opinions (GCOs) to financially distressed clients who seem to warrant such opinions. We examine societal trust as one such reason, finding a lower incidence of GCOs with high societal trust. Moreover, we find that high societal trust is associated with fewer GCO Type I misclassifications, but more GCO Type II misclassifications. In addition, the association between societal trust and GCOs does not disappear for severely distressed clients, suggesting that auditors do not adequately perceive clients that warrant GCOs when the clients are in high trust countries, and illuminating a dark side to societal trust. Moreover, low litigation risk and auditor-management relationship longevity exacerbate this dark side of societal trust. Our study highlights how societal trust can have beneficial effects across multiple economic contexts while posing problems in the auditing context.Data Availability: All data used in the study are available from the sources cited in the text.JEL Classifications: D91; M41; M42.

GOING CONCERN AUDIT OPINION: THE ROLE OF AUDIT DELAY, OPINION SHOPPING, FINANCIAL DISTRESS, LEVERAGE AND SIZE OF COMPANY

This Research examines the role of audit delay, opinion shopping, financial distress, leverage, and company size on Going concern (GC) audit opinion. This research is classified as the causality research method. The research population is manufacturing companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) between 2016 and 2019. We used the purposive sampling method to choose the samples from the population. In the end, we got 124 samples. The data were obtained from www.idx.co.id. and other related websites. The study results show that audit delay, opinion shopping, leverage, and company size do not affect GC opinion. But, financial distress has a positive effect on GC opinion. These results give the knowledge about the factors that affect going concern audit opinion. Auditors as individuals who have independence are expected to be careful in issuing going-concern audit opinions. They should consider the factors that may affect their decision.

Faktor Determinasi Kualitas Audit: Pada Perusahaan BUMN di Indonesia Tahun 2015-2019

This study aims to examine the effect of audit quality determination factors which consist of restatement, small profit, prior roa meet, going concern opinion and type 1 error going concern opinion on audit quality. This research was conducted on BUMN companies in Indonesia in 2015-2019 and the research sample was determined using the purposive sampling method so that 46 sample companies were obtained. The results show that companies that do restatement do not have a worse audit quality than those that do not restate, companies that are categorized as small profit do not have audit quality that are worse than those that are not categorized as small profit, companies that are categorized as prior-roa meet do not have audit quality that is worse than those who are not categorized as prior roa meet, auditors who provide going concern opinions do not have better audit quality than those who do not provide going concern opinions and auditors who make type 1 errors going concern opinions do not have worse audit quality than those who do not commits a type 1 error of going-concern opinion.

THE EFFECT OF FINANCIAL DISTRESS, COMPANY SIZE, AND PREVIOUS YEAR’S AUDIT OPINION ON GOING CONCERN AUDIT OPINION OF TEXTILE AND GARMENT SUB SECTOR COMPANIES

ABSTRACT
 Going concern audit opinion is an audit opinion that given by the auditors when they have doubts about the company's ability to sustain its business. The purpose of this study is to determine the influence of financial distress, company size, and the previous year’s audit opinion on going concern audit opinion. The data used is secondary data of textile and garment sub-sector companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange. The sampling method used was purposive sampling method. The samples used were 15 companies in the textile and garment sub-sector with the 2016-2019 research period. The analysis technique used was the modified Altman method and logistic regression analysis with the help of SPSS version 26. The results of the analysis show that financial distress and the previous year's audit opinion have an effect on going-concern audit opinion. Meanwhile, company size has no effect on going concern audit opinion. And the overall results show that financial distress, company size, and previous year's affect on going concern audit opinion.
 

The Effect of Audit Quality, Previous Year's Audit Opinion, And Company Growth on the Acceptance of Going Concern Audit Opinions

This study aims to analyze the Effect of Audit Quality, Previous Year's Audit Opinion, and Company Growth on the Acceptance of Going Concern Audit Opinions in Food and Beverage Companies Listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) for the 2015-2019 period. The sampling method used is purposive sampling method. The number of companies that were sampled in this study were 10 Food and Beverage companies listed on the IDX in the 2015-2019 period. The data used is secondary data. The data analysis method used in this study is Logistic Regression with SPSS 23. The results of this study indicate that audit quality has an effect on the acceptance of going concern audit opinions. The previous year's audit opinion has an effect on the acceptance of going-concern audit opinion. Company growth has an effect on going concern audit acceptance.

Audit Committee Accounting Expertise and Audit Quality – the Case of Going-Concern Opinions

This study examines whether audit committee accounting expertise and other audit committee characteristics promote or deter the likelihood of receiving going-concern reports from the auditors and whether such characteristics shield auditors from dismissals after the issuance of a going-concern report. The study finds no significant association between the likelihood of a going-concern report and audit committee accounting expertise or other audit committee characteristics. No significant association is also found for auditor dismissals following going-concern reports and audit committee accounting expertise. These results contrast with prior literature that examined data preceding the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (hereafter SOX) or the period immediately thereafter. Additional analysis shows that audit committee accounting expertise is found to improve the information in going-concern audit opinions by reducing Type I errors, however. Overall, these findings shed light on the evolving role of audit committees in overseeing the auditors and have implications for regulators interested in improving audit quality and investors interested in improving the effectiveness of audit committees.

Regulatory sanction risk and going-concern reporting practices: evidence for privately held firms

We study the temporal evolution of going-concern reporting from 2004 to 2013 and test whether sanction risk is related to the likelihood of a going-concern opinion using samples of privately held firms. In 2009, the Supervisory Board of Public Accountants (SBPA) in Sweden started to issue significantly more going-concern-related disciplinary sanctions, and we test whether and how auditors at different audit firms adjust their reporting practices (Type I and Type II errors) in response to the increased sanction risk. Our findings reveal that auditors are more likely to issue going-concern opinions to bankrupt and non-bankrupt firms when the sanction risk is higher, suggesting that sanction risk is positively associated with conservatism in auditors’ reporting. Furthermore, we find that auditors at Big 4 firms alter their reporting to conservative more than non-Top 7 firms when sanction risk increases. Finally, results on the informativeness of going-concern opinions indicate that a going-concern opinion increases the bankruptcy probability during both the lower and higher sanction risk periods, but the impact is higher under the higher sanction risk period.

Are auditors rewarded for low audit quality? The case of auditor lenience in the insurance industry

Using unique disclosures from the insurance industry, we identify instances where auditors plausibly allow clients to opportunistically utilize discretion in accounting estimates to manipulate losses to reported profits (i.e., auditor lenience). Auditing standards and SEC guidance state that auditors should consider whether a misstatement shifts a loss to a profit as a qualitative factor when evaluating the materiality of misstatements. We find that audit office lenience is positively associated with subsequent market share changes. The effect is driven by increases in the likelihood of keeping existing, non-manipulating clients. In generalizability tests, we find similar inferences in the banking industry when using bank-specific disclosures and across all industries when measuring auditor lenience using likelihood of issuing going-concern opinions. These results highlight settings where auditors may be rewarded for lenience, specifically when management values financial reporting discretion and auditors can avoid publicized audit failures.

The Governance Role of Auditors: Evidence from Derivative Lawsuits

This paper examines whether external auditors play a unique governance role distinct from other mechanisms of corporate governance. We exploit the staggered adoptions of the Universal Demand (UD) laws by U.S states, which have been shown to result in the decline of various corporate governance mechanisms. We examine whether auditors step up their monitoring when outside shareholders place a greater demand on external monitoring, yet other governance mechanisms decline. We find that external auditors are more likely to issue going-concern opinions to financially distressed firms after their incorporation states have adopted the UD laws. Further, the increased propensity to issue going-concern opinions is driven by auditors’ reputation and litigation concerns. The effect is stronger when alternative governance mechanisms are weak, and it is not attenuated by auditors’ financial ties to clients. We also find evidence of greater auditor monitoring after the passage of UD laws using two alternative outcomes, i.e., the reporting of internal control weakness and the length of audit reporting lag. Overall, our findings suggest the unique monitoring role of external auditors as they step up their oversight of the audited firms in the lapse of other monitors.