Abstract

     The objective of this study is to examine the role of CEO duality in audit quality of Chinese firms. To address the effect of CEO duality, this study considered four characteristics of CEO duality; corporate audit culture, audit committee independence, decision making through enormous power and single leadership. The indirect effect of audit committee decision is considered between CEO duality and audit quality. A questionnaire survey is carried out to collect primary data. A questionnaire was designed to collect data from Chinese firms. Respondents of the study were the CEO’s and directors of Chinese firms; therefore, questionnaires were distributed among them by using online survey. 135 valid questionnaires were used in data analyses which is carried out by using Partial Least Square (PLS)-Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Results of the study highlighted that; CEO duality has both positive and negative effect on audit quality. Due to the single leadership style and supportive corporate audit culture, the audit quality may be improved. However, CEO duality influences negatively on audit committee independence which has negative effect on audit committee decisions. Similarly, CEO duality allows to enjoy enormous power which may affect negatively on the decision making. Thus, decision-making through enormous power has negative effect on audit committee decisions. Finally, while making the strategies to enhance audit quality, the practitioners can consider the important points highlighted by the current study to promote audit quality.

Introduction

     CEO duality is a phenomenon where the chief executive officer (CEO) of a company occupies the chair of the company’s board of directors, along with his/her regular management position (Oak & Iyengar, 2009; Voinea et al., 2022). This phenomenon is considered by the several previous studies. Several studies have examined the CEO duality among the business organizations through several aspects (Azhari et al., 2020; Voinea et al., 2022). Therefore, CEO duality remained the intention of the researchers as well as practitioners. The advantages and disadvantages are comprehensively discussed by the previous studies among different business organizations (Ramdani & Witteloostuijn, 2010). However, the phenomenon of CEO duality is still under discussion and its role among the organizations is not clear (Aghmiuni et al., 2020). The role of CEO duality among the companies is still unclear in the performance of organizations. Few studies show the positive effects of CEO duality, on the other hand, few studies highlighted the negative effects of CEO duality. Therefore, CEO duality is still a problematic area for the management of business organizations as well as academicians. In this way, the current study examined the role of CEO duality among Chinese firms. Particularly, this study is attempted to observe the role of CEO duality in audit quality among Chinese firms (Dhiman & Arora, 2020).

Discussion and conclusion

     The objective of this study was to observe the role of CEO duality in audit quality among the Chinese firms. Therefore, the current study carried out a survey among the Chinese firms and data analysis is carried out by using statistical tool. To achieve the study objective, the current study proposed various direct effects and indirect effect hypotheses. In this way, this study proposed 9 direct hypotheses and four indirect hypotheses based on audit committee decision. The results of the study fulfilled the objective of the present study and clearly highlights the effect of CEO duality on audit quality among Chinese firms.

     The direct hypothesis 1 is considered between corporate audit culture and audit committee decision. This hypothesis shows the positive effect of corporate audit culture on audit committee decision. It indicates that if the CEO duality exist among the Chinese companies, it can promote corporate audit culture which can enhance the audit committee decisions. Therefore, in this way the audit quality has significant positive role in audit practices. However, the effect of corporate audit culture on audit quality is not significant. There is no effect of corporate audit culture on audit quality. In this way, the audit quality is influenced by indirect way from corporate audit culture, however, the corporate audit culture has not direct effect on audit committee decision. The effect of corporate audit culture on audit quality is considered in hypothesis 2. The hypothesis 3 highlighted the connection between audit committee independence and audit committee decision. Outcomes of this study highlighted that audit committee independence has positive effect on audit committee decision. It indicates that CEO duality in form of audit committee independence has effect on audit committee decisions. However, this relationship is not positive which indicates that audit committee independence has negative effect on audit committee decisions. All the previous studies have highlighted that audit committee independence has positive effect on audit practices (Alderman & Jollineau, 2020; Cohen et al., 2008; Toumeh et al., 2020), however, results are not consistent with previous studies. In relation to the CEO duality,