Specialization Quality Research Articles

The Influence of Audit Switching, Workload and Auditor Specialization on Audit Quality in the Public Accounting Office in Medan

This study aims to empirically examine the effect of audit switching, workload, and auditor specialization on audit quality at Public Accounting Firms in Medan City. The sample of this study was 103 public accountants at 25 KAPs in Medan City using the validity-reliability test to test the validity and reliability of the questionnaires given and the classic assumption test, which is required for conducting multiple linear regression analysis. The research results and testing of the hypotheses that have been carried out show that the first hypothesis is accepted, where there is a positive and significant effect of audit switching on audit quality. The second hypothesis is rejected, where workload has a negative but insignificant impact on audit quality. The third hypothesis is accepted, where there is a positive and significant effect between auditor specialization and audit quality. The fourth hypothesis is accepted, where audit switching, workload, and auditor specialization simultaneously affect audit quality. Keywords: audit switching, workload, auditor specialization, and audit quality

Children, Household Specialization and Relationship Quality

Children, Household Specialization and Relationship Quality

Quality Evaluation of Order-Based Talent Training in Internationalized Enterprises Based on Machine Learning

Internationalized enterprises conduct business and operation in more than one country. Their complex work processes raise a high demand for the work efficiency of employees. As a result, the enterprises in need of internationalization attach great importance to individual ability and quality when recruiting talents, and need to train talents based on orders. To improve the degree of specialization and employment quality of graduates, it is necessary to effectively evaluate the order-based talent training in internationalized enterprises, which helps to rationalize the training scheme and realize scientific education. However, there are very few studies that quantify the order-based talent training in internationalized enterprises. To fill the gap, this paper evaluates the quality of order-based talent training in internationalized enterprises based on machine learning. Section 2 summarizes the flow of order-based talent training in internationalized enterprises, and establishes an evaluation index system for the training quality, referring to the requirements of internationalized enterprises on the skills, cultural qualities, and professional ethics of talents. The feature data of the evaluation indies were preprocessed through principal component analysis (PCA), which reduces the computing load and increases the computing speed for the order-based talent training quality in internationalized enterprises. Section 3 optimizes the backpropagation (BP) neural network for prediction, and further reduces the dimensionality of the multi-dimensional data on the evaluation indices through locality preservation projection (LPP). The proposed model was proved effective through experiments.

Industry Specialization and Audit Quality: Evidence from Audit Firm Switches in China*

Industry Specialization and Audit Quality: Evidence from Audit Firm Switches in China*

Auditors’ Religious Beliefs and Audit Quality: Some Evidence from Taiwan

Synopsis The research problem Adding to the literature in auditing, this study examines whether there is an association between the religious beliefs of audit partners and audit quality in Taiwan. Motivation Previous studies have found that firms headquartered in areas with strong religious social norms are associated with higher audit quality. However, prior studies measured religiosity in terms of whether the audit practice offices were in more religious metropolitan statistical areas. No work had examined whether the religious beliefs of the individual auditors affect auditor decision making. In addition, prior studies using US data were mainly confined to one group who are, in the main, Christians. We examined this issue in Taiwan where the auditors come from three main religious groups: Christian, Buddhist, and Taoist. This setting provides another cultural environment for understanding the links between religiosity and financial reporting issues. The test hypotheses H1: Audit engagement partners with a religious belief are associated with higher audit quality. H2: The positive association between auditors’ religion and audit quality is more pronounced for auditors with industry specialization than auditors without specialization. Target population Various stakeholders include investors, auditors, financial analysts, and users of financial reports. Adopted methodology Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression and logistics regression. Analyses We conducted the study in Taiwan where audit partners are required to sign audit reports. We obtained data on the religious beliefs of auditors by distributing a questionnaire to individual auditors in the Big 4 in Taiwan. We used four measures of audit quality: (a) discretionary accruals, (b) accrual estimation errors, (c) the probability of a client meeting an earnings benchmark, and (d) the propensity to issue modified audit opinions. We tested whether there is a positive association between auditors’ religious beliefs and audit quality. Findings Our study finds that firms with an audit partner who professes a religion are associated with higher audit quality. However, unlike evidence from the United States, we do not find that auditors in an area with strong religious social norms exhibit better audit quality than auditors in less religious areas when the audit partner’s religious belief is controlled in the analysis. The results suggest that auditor quality is more affected by auditor’s personal characteristics than the social norms. We also find that the positive association between auditors with industry specialization and audit quality is stronger when the auditor has religious beliefs. The results suggest that ethics and competence are complements to each other.

Industry Specialization and Audit Quality: Evidence from Audit Firm Switches in China*

AbstractNumerous studies have investigated the consequences of auditor switching. This study contributes to the existing literature by examining the impact of industry specialization on audit quality using audit firm switches in China. We find that changing from a non‐specialist to a specialist at the auditor partner level rather than the audit firm level decreases discretionary accruals and increases value relevance and the likelihood of modified audit opinions and going‐concern opinions. These results suggest that upward partner‐level industry specialization improves audit quality for clients, which attenuates the negative impact of an audit switch.

Does Industry Specialist Auditor Provide More Insights in Their audit report? An Empirical Study of Key Audit Matters Section

Abstract In 2015, International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) released new International Standards on Auditing 701 and required auditors to disclose key audit matters (KAM) in the audit report. Similar standards were also released in the United States in 2017 and the United Kingdom and Ireland Financial Reporting Council (FRC) in 2014. As KAM are expected to inform on matters of the greatest significance during an audit, before exploring the question regarding whether investors will obtain useful information from additional matter disclosures, the anterior consideration may be in regard to how audit quality affects the disclosure quality of KAM. This study use hand-collected data of the KAM disclosed in the audit reports of Taiwanese listed companies in 2016 to explore the association between auditor industry specialization and audit quality by the disclosure of KAM in new audit reports. The empirical results show that the association between the industrial specialist audit partner and the measurement of KAM quality is significantly positively related. The findings support our hypothesis that specialist auditors’ KAM are more informative than those issued by non-specialist auditors, and provide new evidence supporting prior studies about the superior auditing ability and disclosure quality of auditor industry specialist. Keywords: Key Audit Matters, KAM, International Standards on Auditing 701, International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board.

In-depth Understanding of STEM Information Needs using FGI

In the rapidly changing science and technology environment, an in-depth understanding of users of STEM information is an essential factor in designing a user-centered information system. The purpose of this study is to investigate and analyze in-depth the behaviors and needs of users who use STEM information. In this study, the needs of users for STEM information and STEM information sites are dealt with in depth using the FGI qualitative method. In addition, it includes the analysis results of grouping of similar sites according to various aspects of use of STEM information sites. As a result of grouping similar sites based on awareness and level of use,, they were grouped by domestic-international, paid-free, integrated-specific fields. As a result of grouping similar sites according to the purpose of use, they were grouped by domestic and international papers, research reports, and patents. As a result of grouping similar sites according to usage attributes, they were grouped by diversity, reliability, and specialization. As for the positions of similar sites perceived by users, Science Direct and PubMed showed high specialization and high quality, Google Scholar showed integration and popularity, and RISS showed four attributes evenly. Suggestions for information system design are discussed.

Do Seasoned Industry Specialists Provide Higher Audit Quality? A Response

Using several audit quality measures, Minutti-Meza (2013, MM) argues that controlling for client characteristics through matching eliminates the association between auditor industry specialization and audit quality. Gaver and Utke (2019, GU) argue that this result is unstable across matching techniques and, after considering specialist tenure, seasoned specialists generally provide higher audit quality than unseasoned auditors or non-specialists. Eshleman and Guo (2020, EG) propose that – for accruals-based audit quality measures only – industry fixed effects, not client characteristics, eliminate the association between specialization and audit quality. We note that EG’s (and MM’s) conclusions rely on a misinterpretation of p-values, where an insignificant p-value is taken as evidence of no effect (Cready 2020). We then revisit GU after including industry fixed effects and find that GU’s main conclusions generally hold: 1) descriptively, auditors tend to fall backwards into specialization rather than building specialization to attract clients, so that knowledge likely develops over time, 2) propensity score matching should be used with caution or not at all, and 3) specialist tenure generally plays a role in the relation between specialization and audit quality. We find new evidence that the effect of an additional year of specialist tenure is similar to the effect of an additional year of auditor tenure. Finally, we discuss future research opportunities regarding auditor industry specialization.

Investigating the relationship between auditor's specialization with information quality and investment efficiency

This study is conducted to investigate the relationship between auditor's specialization with information quality and investment efficiency. The purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between auditor's specialization in industry with information quality and investment efficiency. The temporal domain of this research is from the beginning of 2009 to the end of 2016. Since the results of this research can be used in developing laws and regulations of stock exchange, it is an applied research. Also, since this research seeks to find the relationship between several variables, it is a correlation type and its methodology is a comparative type. The statistical population in this research is 404 companies listed in Ajman Stock Exchange. The sampling method is systematic elimination that 84 companies were selected as sample. In order to calculate variables, test hypotheses, and perform other statistical tests, Limer, Hausman, Breusch-Pagan/Cook-Weisberg tests and Eviews software are used. The results indicate that there is a significant relationship between the auditor's specialization and information quality of companies listed in Ajman Stock Exchange and there is a significant relationship between auditor's specialization and investment efficiency of companies listed in Ajman Stock Exchange.

Trade Patterns in Central America and the Dominican Republic:

This paper explores international trade data, classified by technology-intensiveness and type of products, to identify stylized facts, strengths, and weaknesses of the trade patterns in the region of Central America and the Dominican Republic, between 1975 and 2016. I focus the analysis not only on the total export of the region but on its exports to the United States (main trade partner). I examine export concentration, comparative advantages, trade specialization, and relative quality of the export basket (characterizing zones with high tax incentives in the region, free zones). The main findings suggest that the region has made little progress in improving trade accounts. The gains in diversification are being lost, the comparative advantages have historically remained in traditional exports, and the region does not appear to export quality to the world. The model of tax incentives is not generating local spillovers, and the relative quality of exports, as well as the specialization patterns, revive the idea of adjusting promotion schemes for local industry and direct investment. It is time for a competitiveness agenda.

Audit Specialization and Audit Quality: The Role of Client’s Business Strategy

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Audit Quality and Specialist Tenure

ABSTRACT We argue that the association between auditor industry specialization and audit quality depends on how long the auditor has been a specialist. We measure audit quality using absolute discretionary accruals, income-increasing discretionary accruals, and book-tax differences. Our results, based on a sample of Big 4 audit clients from 2003–2015, indicate that auditors who have only recently gained the specialist designation produce a level of audit quality that does not surpass that produced by non-specialist auditors, and is generally lower than the audit quality produced by seasoned specialists. We estimate that the seasoning process takes two to three years. In contrast to prior research that finds no effect of specialization after propensity score matching, we find that seasoned specialists generally produce higher-quality audits than other auditors even after matching. This suggests that the audit quality effect associated with seasoned industry specialist auditors is not due to differences in client characteristics. JEL Classifications: M42. Data Availability: Data used in this study are available from public sources identified in the text.

Industry Specialization and Auditor Quality in U.S. Markets

This study investigates the relation between audit quality, auditor industry market share, and audit fees. Prior literature has asserted that audit providers with high market shares can be designated as industry specialists and that the fee premiums that sometimes attach to these auditors is evidence of a quality differentiated audit product. Using data from the U.S. audit market for the fiscal year 2003 we extend this literature by investigating the relationships among audit fee premiums, auditor market shares, and two dimensions of audit quality: external reporting and economies of scope in providing joint audit and non-audit services. We find little evidence to support the conjecture that high market share auditors provide increased audit quality. Further, we find that most auditors with high market shares do not seem to charge a fee premium. To the contrary, we report that the high market share fee premiums found in pooled (across industry) tests are primarily attributable to a small set of industries in which the high market share (specialist) auditor has a dominant position. This leads us to conclude that the available evidence is more supportive of the hypothesis that high-market share firms are extracting rents than the hypothesis that these auditors are providing a quality differentiated product.

Specialization, Distance, and Research Quality in Collaborations: So Far Yet so Close

Specialization, Distance, and Research Quality in Collaborations: So Far Yet so Close

Audit partner industry specialization and audit quality: Evidence from Spain

We investigate the impact of the industry specialization of individual auditors on audit quality. We aim to contribute to a quickly growing line of research examining the importance of audit partners as determinants of audit quality. To provide robust results, we use several proxies of both industry specialization and audit quality. We conduct the empirical analysis with a sample of Spanish listed companies for the research period between 2005 and 2013. Our main result is the lack of a significant impact of the industry specialization of audit partners on audit quality. This result seems sound, as it holds for the several measures of industry specialization and audit quality used in the empirical study. Our main result, which contradicts most of the scarce available evidence, would stress the importance of the institutional context in the study of the industry specialization–audit quality relationship and advocates the need for further research.

Paving the road to electric vehicles – A patent analysis of the automotive supply industry

Automotive suppliers play a key role in the development of powertrain systems for cars. The technological change towards electric vehicles requires innovative activities and therefore impacts the supply industry heavily for two reasons. First, this change is a major threat, since existing powertrain parts will become obsolete. Second, alternative powertrain technologies offer opportunities for both incumbent suppliers and new market entrants. By analyzing the current supply industry structure and prospective developments arising from technological change, this study contributes to research on automotive supply networks. In order to measure and evaluate the innovative output of incumbent suppliers and of new market entrants, a patent analysis using 91,082 patents from the years 1990–2013 within four different powertrain technologies is conducted. This reveals specialization and patent portfolio quality for all firms within the automotive supply industry. The study has three key findings: (1) Innovative pressure, based on uncertainty regarding future technological development of electric vehicles, is passed on from car manufacturers to their supply networks. (2) Although most incumbent powertrain suppliers will suffer from the technological change, few Japanese suppliers intensively specialize in alternative powertrain technologies. (3) New market entrants in the supply industry will only benefit from this change if battery electric vehicles become the new dominant design, whereas this group lost its specialization in the field of fuel cell electric vehicles. Within these findings, the study explicitly reveals firms that will benefit or suffer from the technological change towards electric vehicles.

Discussion on infectious diseases teaching of resident standardized training

Resident standardization training is an essential way in cultivating medical professionals. It is important for subject development and talent reserve. For cultivating high-quality resident physicians with comprehensive theory, independent clinical thinking, great practical ability, and innovative scientific idea, it recourses to both optimizing training scheme and evaluation system with highly specialization and comprehensive quality. In this study, the authors proposed incorporate training patterns including optimiz-ing design, innovating training, and standardized assessment based on their recent experience on resident standardization training. Key words: Standardized training; Infectious disease; Resident physician; Postgraduate stu-dents

Audit Quality and Specialist Tenure

We argue that the association between auditor industry specialization and audit quality depends on how long the auditor has been a specialist. Using a sample of Big 4 audit clients from 2003-2014, we find that auditors who have only recently gained the specialist designation (unseasoned specialists) produce a level of audit quality that does not surpass that produced by non-specialist auditors, and is generally lower than the audit quality produced by seasoned specialists. We estimate that the seasoning process takes two to three years. In contrast to recent literature finding no effect of specialization after propensity score matching, we continue to find that seasoned specialists produce higher quality audits than unseasoned auditors after matching.

Audit Firm Rotation, Auditor Specialization, and Audit Quality in the Municipal Audit Context

ABSTRACTThe topic of audit firm rotation has been debated internationally for several decades. To inform the debate, we study the effects of audit firm rotation policies on audit quality in a government audit market. Using audit firm rotation data and audit quality measures from the Florida government audit market, a setting where procurement policies vary, we find that rotation policies are indirectly associated with higher audit quality. In particular, mediation analysis suggests that the consequences of policies that encourage Florida municipalities to consider rotation impact audit quality by encouraging the use of auditors that specialize in governmental audits, rather than auditor independence, which is frequently argued to support mandatory rotation.