The Impact of Moderating Role of the Independent Auditor's Characteristics on the relationship between Internal Control Weakness and the Accruals' Quality of the Companies Listed in Tehran Stock Exchange

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of the characteristics of the independent auditor on the relationship between internal control weakness and accruals quality in listed companies in Tehran Stock Exchange. Accrual quality, dependent variable, and weak internal control were considered as independent variables. Three different characteristics of the independent auditor, including expertise in the auditor industry, auditor firm, and audit firm rank are used as moderating variables. In order to calculate the research variables, the data of 159 companies in the period 2011-2011 were used. The research is applied, descriptive and correlational. Testing hypotheses using regression models shows that there is a significant inverse relationship between weak internal control and accrual quality It is also observed that by incorporating variables related to the characteristics of the independent auditor in the model, the relationship between the two variables has been adjusted in some cases, so that expertise in the auditor industry and auditor tenure as one of the dimensions explaining the weakness of internal control over the relationship between The weakness of internal control and the quality of accruals are effective and confirm this finding. On the other hand, the rating of the audit firm is not an effective variable on the relationship between the weakness of internal control and the quality of accruals of companies.