Investigating The Relationship between Financial Distress and Audit Report Delay

The effect of audit report delay on investors’ decisions has motivated numerous researchers to investigate factors affecting that delay. Most studies have focused on markets in developed countries. The informative value of audited financial statements decreases proportionately as the number of days it takes to obtain audit report signatures increases, because users will seek information from alternate resources. Moreover, audit report delay adversely affects the timeliness of financial reporting.The main purpose of this study is investigating the impact of financial distress on the audit report delay in the companies listed in the Tehran Stock Exchange. It is assumed that companies with a weaker financial condition will expose the auditor to greater audit risk, thus increasing the audit report lag. The dataset includes 110 companies listed in the Tehran Stock Exchange during the period 1385-1389 and for processing and testing hypotheses, linear regression method is used.The study finds no evidence of the impact of financial distress on the audit report delay in the companies listed in Tehran Stock Exchange.