Maria I. Kyriakou

This study examines the relationship of auditor tenure and audit quality in four European countries, namely Germany, France, Italy and Spain, with the innovative GMM (Generalized Methods of Moments) model during the period from 2005 to 2013.
Two GMM methods are used with two alternative definitions of crisis – the main and the robustness method. The results agree regardless of the fact that some of the control variables are excluded in the robustness test.
The results support the finding that in Spain, there is an impact of auditors’ long-term tenure on discretionary accruals, affecting auditors’ quality and independence indirectly. In addition, the crisis affected Germany and France as far as the change in negative and positive values of GDP is concerned. In this respect, the crisis affected the above two countries when the years before and after the crisis are considered as a robustness check. The results contain important implications for accountant regulators and policy makers.

This study evaluates the impact of corporate governance variables on audit quality in the United Kingdom (UK). The aim of the study is to ascertain the influence of board size, chief executive officer’s (CEO) dual role, and audit committee independence on audit quality. Two different proxies of audit quality were employed: the level of discretionary accruals and auditor size. The sample comprised 1,306 firms listed on the FTSE All Share Index for a long period covering 2012–2022. Different methodologies were employed to reach conclusions. Panel least squares and logit regressions provided robust results. Specifically, the results imply a positive relationship between board size, audit committee independence, and audit quality. Interestingly, CEO duality does not seem to alleviate audit quality levels. Contrary to many research findings and regulatory concerns, the CEO’s dual role is positively related to both audit quality proxies. All independent variables in the panel least squares model are statistically significant at conventional significance levels. The logit model provides unequivocal support to the beneficial role of board size on audit quality, at all levels of significance (p-value 0.00). The UK’s “comply or explain” regime offers a unique setting for future research on several corporate governance variables.