Abstract

     This paper updates how archival audit research has evolved since the summary in Francis (2004) of what we knew then about audit quality. The paper describes an evolution from “going big” and asking basic questions about the audit market, institutions, and audit quality, to “going small” with a focus on smaller units of analysis (offices, partners, and engagement teams) as the key to understanding audit quality. I used to believe that audit firm differences, and differences across offices within firms, were the most important audit-related sources of variation in quality, and that differences in people and audit teams were relatively unimportant. However, the evidence in Cameran, Campa, and Francis (2022) using UK partner data convinced me otherwise. I now believe the behaviors of partner-led engagement teams are just as important (and maybe more important) than audit firms and offices in understanding audit quality. However, to learn more about partner-led teams means going inside the black box of audit firms, which requires proprietary data from audit firms and research access to their professional staff. I conclude with an example of collaborative research with audit firms.

Auditing, accounting and audit research

     Francis (2004) provided an assessment of what we knew at the time about audit quality from archival research.1 The current paper updates Francis (2004) by describing the arc of audit quality research in recent years. The phrase “going big, going small” is a metaphor for how we frame audit research. The broad goal in “going big” is to understand fundamental propositions about auditing, institutions, and audit markets. For example, why is auditing demanded, and what are the role of institutions in giving audits their economic value? In contrast, “going small” views auditing in more granular ways and in more situation-specific and localized contexts. It also poses counter-factual propositions. For example, why are audits valuable in some settings, but not others? Earlier studies suggested that large international audit firms generally do better audits. However, more recent research shows that this is not universally true and identifies conditions in which audits by larger audit firms may (or may not) be of higher quality relative to the audits of smaller firms.2

     The goal of audit research is to understand the institutional, organizational, and individual-level factors that drive high-quality audits. This knowledge is important to the audit firms that produce audits so they can improve their audits, to the people who rely on audited accounting information, and to the regulatory bodies that monitor auditors and oversee the quality of audits.

Conclusion

     Economics-based archival research that “goes big” will continue to be important in studying institutions, regulations and their effects on audit markets and audit quality. As stated earlier, institutions in particular are important and have a first-order effect on audit quality. However, an organizational behavior research approach that “goes small” is needed to understand the internal workings of the audit itself, to learn how individual differences in people and their leadership behaviors affect audits, how people work best together in effective engagement teams, and how audit firms can develop an internal organizational culture that enables and rewards the team-based production of high-quality audits. These are the kinds of research questions we need answers to in order to fully understand the drivers of audit quality, over and above the effects of country-level institutions.