Investigating the Moderating Impact of the Audit Clients' Importance on the Relationship between Change of auditor's opinion and Partner-Level Turnover

The primary purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between audit opinion shopping and partner-level turnover in the Tehran Stock Exchange. Next, the moderating impact of the audit clients' importance on this relationship is measured; in the present study, 143 companies of Tehran Stock Exchange have been selected as a statistical sample in the period of 2014 to 2021 (a total of 1143 observations) according to the characteristics of the research. The method of the present study is theoretical, descriptive-documentary which is a post-event study using logistic regression and combined data to explain and measure the assumed models. The key findings of the present study show that audit opinion shopping maintains a significant relationship with the partner-level turnover and thus enriches the basic literature of audit opinion shopping in Iran. Also, audit clients' importance can not moderate this relationship, because of inappropriate disclosure of the audit fee variable in some companies, which carry out an important role in measuring the variable of audit clients' importance.