The Impact of Accounting Information Comparability on Audit Time Lag

DOI

10.2991/assehr.k.200401.048How to use a DOI?

Keywords

accounting information comparability, audit lag, information efficiency, audit risk

Abstract

The comparability of accounting information of companies in the same industry reflects the similarity and relevance of the company’s operating environment and financial reporting. Comparability helps users of accounting information to identify similarities and differences in economic matters, and improves the usefulness of accounting information. Although both the FASB and the SEC have emphasized the importance of comparability of accounting information, few empirical studies have examined the impact of comparability of accounting information on audit lags. From an information efficiency perspective, comparability helps auditors reduce the cost of information acquisition, processing, and testing, thereby speeding up the release of audit reports. From the perspective of audit risk, the increase in the comparability of accounting information may lead to the tendency of executives to adopt more real earnings management for more hidden self-interest, thereby increasing audit risk and audit complexity. As a result, auditors need to spend more time reducing audit risks. So, is the impact of comparability of accounting information on audit lags positive or negative? In order to explore this issue, this paper conducts research by using 8,223 observations of listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2013 to 2017 in the CSMAR database. After empirical research, the results show that under the same conditions, the higher the comparability of accounting information, the longer the audit report lag. This paper makes up for the lack of research on accounting comparability in the existing literature, enriches the relevant literature on audit delays, and has a certain impact on the audit activities of audit institutions and corporate management.

Copyright

© 2020, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Fenting Zheng
PY  - 2020
DA  - 2020/04/06
TI  - The Impact of Accounting Information Comparability on Audit Time Lag
BT  - Proceedings of the International Conference on Education, Economics and Information Management (ICEEIM 2019)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 214
EP  - 224
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.200401.048
DO  - 10.2991/assehr.k.200401.048
ID  - Zheng2020
ER  -