合夥人與事務所層級審計意見購買的優先選擇：來自中國的實證證據

Abstract

本研究參考Chen et al. (2016) 和García Osma et al. (2016)針對審計意見購買的研究設計，檢驗透過更換合夥人和事務所兩種不同方式的審計意見購買現象是否廣泛存在於中國。此外，進一步研究審計客戶會選擇什麼層級來進行第一次的審計意見購買，而在審計意見購買嘗試失敗後又會選擇什麼層級進行之後的審計意見購買嘗試。本研究提出了四個假說，第一和第二個假說檢驗公司能成功的在兩個層級實施審計意見購買；而第三和第四個假說中，本研究假設審計客戶會優先選擇合夥人層級的審計意見購買作為第一次嘗試，而在第一次嘗試失敗後，則會選擇更換會計師事務所作為之後的審計意見購買嘗試。 本研究採用了中國上市公司1999年至2012年共計16,525個樣本作為事務所層級的審計意見購買研究樣本（12,765個樣本作為合夥人層級的審計意見購買樣本），並沿用Lennox (2000) 對於審計意見購買的研究方法。實證結果發現審計客戶可以成功實施事務所層級的審計意見購買，然而合夥人層級的審計意見購買現象沒有廣泛地存在於中國。對於兩個層級的優先選擇研究，研究結果符合上述預期。在失敗的合夥人意見審計意見購買後，公司會接著進行事務所層級的審計意見購買，而不會選擇在同一事務所內更換審計合夥人。這個結果意味著公司會優先選擇合夥人層級的審計意見購買作為第一次嘗試，如果審計意見失敗，則會選擇更換事務所而非再次更換合夥人。

Based on the Chen et al. (2016) and García Osma et al. (2016), this study examines the pervasive existence of opinion-shopping at both firm- and partner- level in China and further studies whether audit clients prefer to switch firms or switch partners to shop audit opinion at first attempt and following a failed opinion-shopping respectively. This studies construct four hypotheses. The first two hypotheses are to test whether the companies successfully engage in the opinion-shopping at both levels. In the latter two hypotheses, this paper supposes that companies first switch partners to shop opinions and tend to switch firms if the prior attempt fails. Using a sample of 16,525 for firm-level (and 12,765 for partner-level) firm-year over the period of 1999-2012 and following the approach of Lennox’s (2000), this research finds that while firm-level opinion-shopping exists pervasively in China, companies fail to engage in partner-level opinion-shopping. As for the preference of opinion-shopping at firm- and partner-level, the results show that the unsuccessful partner-level opinion-shopping are followed by firm-level opinion-shopping rather than another partner switch, indicating that the companies prefer to choose partner switches at the first attempt. Moreover, unsuccessful firm-level opinion-shopping leads to a higher probability of firm switches, as forthcoming firms are prone to issue clean audit opinions.