Delegated leadership at public accounting firms

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Lennox, Clive; Wang, Chunfei; Wu, Xi
• 署名单位: University of Southern California; Central University of Finance & Economics
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ACCOUNTING & ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0165-4101
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jacceco.2022.101572
• 发表日期: 2023
• 关键词: CORPORATE GOVERNANCE; management

摘要

Public accounting firms are owned by all equity partners, but day-to-day management is generally delegated to a team of leaders. Using data from China, this study examines which equity partners are selected to the firm's national leadership team, and whether firmwide audit quality is related to leadership attributes. We find that a partner is more likely to be selected as a leader if the partner is more experienced in public company auditing and has attracted more new clients to the firm. Firmwide audit quality is higher when leaders are more experienced in public company audits or have a past record of larger audit adjustments, and is lower when leaders have attracted more high-risk new clients to the firm. Leadership attributes exhibit a relatively strong (weak) association with audit quality at the headquarters (branch offices). Moreover, audit quality is higher when a firm has more leaders in an audit-quality role.& COPY; 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.