Iranian Journal of Accounting, Auditing and Finance
Volume:4 Issue: 2, Spring 2020

Firm characteristics influence systematic risk and, according to life cycle theory, these characteristics change over the life cycle following a predetermined pattern. Therefore, changes in systematic risk are expected following a predicted pattern. Given the different nature of companies and the different abilities of managers in various industries and different stages of the life cycle, it can be assumed that systematic risk in different industries and the ability to manage to affect this relationship. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the systematic risk behavior over the life cycle and the moderating role of management ability. So, the systematic risk of 124 companies listed on the Stock Exchange during the years 2011-2017 and during different stages of the life cycle using three models of Anthony and Ramesh (1992), Dickinson (2010) and Saravia et al. (2016) and methodology Data were analyzed by simple regression and T-Student. The results show that corporate life cycle risk behaves differently in some industries such as basic steel and sugar and food industries except sugar. The management ability as a moderator relationship over the whole company rather than industry-level is effective in this relationship.

The present study is concerned about the relationship between the cash flow statement and payment balance sheet of listed companies on the Iraq Stock Exchange, compared with the conducted studies on the Tehran Stock Exchange. In other words, the present study attempts to figure out whether or not the change of cash flow statement items and balance sheets can lead to an increase or decrease in the changes in audit fees. The multivariable regression model was used for hypothesis testing. Research hypotheses were tested using a 774 firm-year sample on the Tehran Stock Exchange and 210 firm-year on the Iraq Stock exchange during 2012-2017 using multiple regression models based on the mixed data technique. The obtained results indicate that there is a significant relationship between the change of cash flow statement items and balance sheet and audit fees, which means the relationship between changes in debts, assets, dividends, operational, investment, and financing cash flow and tenure, audit fee, and auditor change is significant. The current study is the first study that compares the relationship between cash flow statement items and balance sheet and audit fee of listed companies on the (Iran and Iraq) stock exchange, so this study contributes to the development of knowledge in this field.

The purpose of the present study is to investigate the factors affecting audit quality. For this purpose, the concepts of audit quality were extracted using the proposed conceptual model. The factors affecting audit quality, including policy-making, supervision, and operations (including the categories of input, process, and output), were identified by a systematic approach. The dimensions of supreme council independence, financial reporting requirements, audit institutions' size, industry auditor, audit fees, corporate governance system, stockbrokers or non-stockholders, thought-based auditing, formulating various industry guidelines, auditors' perceptions of governance, the use of information technology, and the establishment of a professional supervisory body constitute the conceptual model of audit quality. After identifying and designing the primary model, a questionnaire was developed and distributed among the audit firm's partners. The audit quality measurement model was designed using Structural Equation Modeling, and the research hypotheses were identified. According to the research results, the audit quality has a moderate positive and significant relationship with the audit profession's policy-making factors and a strong positive and significant relationship with the audit operations. Also, in terms of the operational factors, the audit quality has a strong positive significant relationship with the input, and a strong positive significant relationship with processes, and a moderately significant positive relationship with the output; finally, the audit quality has a moderately positive and significant relationship supervisory factors. To date, the empirical evidence that justifies the validity of the influence of the factors such as policy making, supervision, and operations (including the categories of input, process, and output) all together on the development of the audit quality measurement modelin Iran has not yet to be found.

The present study is concerned about the relationship between earnings quality and audit quality of audit firms to figure out whether the earnings quality of firms audited by larger audit firms is more than that of the smaller firms or the earnings quality of firms audited by longer tenure audit firms is more than that of the shorter tenure firms or not. The study's hypotheses were tested using a sample of 129 year-company listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange during 2012-2016 and by using the multiple regression pattern based on the data integration technique. Hence, the multivariable regression model is used for testing the hypotheses. The obtained results show that the earnings quality of firms audited by small audit firms outweighs that of the large audit firms. Moreover, the findings indicate that those firms audited by longer tenure audit firms, compared with those audited by shorter tenure audit firms, enjoy a better earnings quality.

The present study aims to assess the relationship between intellectual capital and competition in the audit market. The audit market concentration index is used to measure competition in the audit market, calculated according to three auditor concentration indices, client concentration and competition pressure. The study period is from 2013 to 2017, during which 705 firm-years is selected among the listed firms on the Tehran Stock Exchange as the sample of the study and is tested using the panel method. The results indicate a negative and significant relationship between human, structural, and relational capital and auditor concentration. There is a positive and meaningful relationship between relational and structural capital and client concentration and a negative and significant relationship between human capital and client concentration. Furthermore, the relationship between structural and relational capital and competition pressure of rivals is positive and meaningful. The relationship between human capital and the competition pressure of competitors is negative and significant. This paper enables the firms to lower their auditors' fees by employing exert and experienced people in making the best use of intellectual capital. This paper also causes the wise people to benefit from all production capacities of the firm. It enhances products' sales to increase the competition in the audit market and sometimes lower clients' costs for audit fees.

The present study aims to analyze the relationship between normal and abnormal audit fees on financial restatements. This article benefits from an applied method, and the statistical method used includes a panel regression pattern. Five hypotheses are formulated and tested for this study. The study's statistical sample comprises 116 enlisted companies on the Tehran Stock Exchange from 2012-2016. The results obtained from hypothesis testing show that the audit fees and audit fees shortage sensitivity significantly affect the Tehran Stock Exchange's financial restatements. Furthermore, these results suggest that abnormal audit fees, high-standard audit fees, compared with low-standard audit fees, and excessive audit fees sensitivity could not influence the financial restatements.

To discover the possible weakness of knowledge and the use of a diverse group of technologies among independent auditors. The descriptive survey study was used to describe the level of usable importance of innovative technologies among 196 auditors and find any correlation between 31 emerging technologies and the audit firms' quality ranking. In general, this paper's results enumerate that Iranian auditors have a relatively acceptable knowledge and willingness to use emerging technologies, including Blockchain, Audit 4.0, etc. In auditing. However, due to various reasons such as lack of access to global markets, political and economic constraints, such facilitators are rarely used in auditing. For instance, technologies, including RPA, AI, and CPS, are not used by Iranian auditors. Although some items were deficient, the related tools' Importance level was moderate. This research suggests that due to businesses' failure to grow as much as innovative technologies, partners and decision-makers may believe that there is no need for emerging technologies in auditing. However, this may not be the case, as auditors generally emphasized that the importance level of technologies was moderate and high. There seems to be a positive correlation between audit firm's quality rankings and the use of emerging technologies in audit processes. There is no meaningful correlation between audit firms' quality rankings and the importance of emerging technologies.