Study on factors affecting audit fees and audit quality through auditors’ perceptions: Evidence from an emerging economy

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Audit fees and audit quality have received the attention of stakeholders, clients, audit firms, and third parties. Each subject has its own opinion on determining influencing factors and their relationship. This study aims to investigate the determining factors of audit fees and audit quality in Vietnam. Using random data collection, a questionnaire was created on Google forms and sent to auditors from the 4th quarter of 2020 to the end of the 1st quarter of 2021. 267 valid auditors’ responses in 28 audit firms were used for data analysis. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was used to determine relationships between observed variables and factors. The measurement model and recommended hypotheses were confirmed by structural equation modeling (SEM) using SPSS 26 and AMOS 26. The study results show that contract types and audit complexity, audit firms’ reputation, size, and risk significantly impact audit fees and audit quality. In addition, the specialization of the audit firms does not have a positive effect on audit quality but on audit fees. The audit tenure has no statistical impact on audit fees and audit quality. Notably, audit fees statistically affected audit quality. Several implications can be applied, such as increasing the firm size, performing the procedures in response to audit risk, separating audit contract types, and determining the complexity of audit projects and specialties.

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    • Figure 1. Conceptual research model
    • Figure 2. Results of the model testing (standardized)
    • Table 1. Characteristics of the research data sample
    • Table 2. Dimensions and scales
    • Table 3. Matrix results of factors and CRA, composite reliability, average variance extracted from observables
    • Table 4. Testing results about the correlation between terms in the model
    • Table 5. Effect decomposition summary
    • Table 6. Testing the sample differences using ANOVA analysis
    • Conceptualization
      Hau Nguyen Van, Hai Phan Thanh, Cuong Nguyen Thanh
    • Data curation
      Hau Nguyen Van, Hai Phan Thanh, Cuong Nguyen Thanh, Giang Ha Hai
    • Formal Analysis
      Hau Nguyen Van, Hai Phan Thanh, Cuong Nguyen Thanh, Giang Ha Hai
    • Investigation
      Hau Nguyen Van, Hai Phan Thanh, Cuong Nguyen Thanh, Diep Nguyen Ngoc
    • Methodology
      Hau Nguyen Van, Hai Phan Thanh, Cuong Nguyen Thanh, Diep Nguyen Ngoc
    • Project administration
      Hau Nguyen Van, Hai Phan Thanh
    • Resources
      Hau Nguyen Van, Hai Phan Thanh, Cuong Nguyen Thanh
    • Supervision
      Hau Nguyen Van, Cuong Nguyen Thanh
    • Validation
      Hau Nguyen Van, Cuong Nguyen Thanh, Diep Nguyen Ngoc, Giang Ha Hai
    • Writing – original draft
      Hau Nguyen Van, Hai Phan Thanh, Cuong Nguyen Thanh, Diep Nguyen Ngoc, Giang Ha Hai
    • Writing – review & editing
      Hau Nguyen Van, Hai Phan Thanh, Cuong Nguyen Thanh
    • Software
      Hai Phan Thanh
    • Visualization
      Cuong Nguyen Thanh