Audit-Employee Turnover, Audit Delivery, and Auditor-Client Realignment
成果类型：
Article
署名作者：
Khavis, Joshua A.; Szerwo, Brandon
署名单位：
State University of New York (SUNY) System; University at Buffalo, SUNY
刊物名称：
ACCOUNTING REVIEW
ISSN/ISSBN：
0001-4826
DOI：
10.2308/TAR-2022-0249
发表日期：
2025
页码：
237-264
关键词：
摘要：
Although the PCAOB and the Center for Audit Quality have raised concerns about the negative consequences of audit-employee turnover (PCAOB 2015, 2024; CAQ 2019), these consequences remain largely undocumented due to data limitations. We use novel data to measure how audit-employee turnover within individual offices of accounting firms explains the auditor's ability to deliver for their clients and shapes the auditor-client relationship. We document that audit-employee turnover hampers the auditor's ability to deliver the audit and leads to auditor realignment. Specifically, audit-employee turnover is associated with costlier, less timely, and less thorough audits that are of lower quality, which damage auditor-client relationships and lead to greater auditor switching and clients selecting auditors with lower turnover. We find that the presence of other strains to the auditor-client relationship exacerbates turnover's link with auditor realignment. We further find that the impact of turnover varies by employee rank and when turnover occurs.