فصلنامه بررسی های حسابداری و حسابرسی
پیاپی 108 (تابستان 1401)

Audit quality is a complex concept whose assessment depends on many latent factors. By providing information about them to stakeholders, the public accountability of audit firms contributes to assessing the quality of auditing and determining the extent to which they rely on audit reports. In this regard, this study examined the research in audit firm’s accountability to extract factors associating firm's accountability, the importance of which was determined by audit partners as experts.

This research applied a mixed (a combination of qualitative and quantitative data) method with exploratory objective. In this study, 99 papers were analyzed, and 23 experts who selected through the snowball method, ranked the extracted factors. According to the participants’ opinion, the factors were prioritized using the quantitative Entropy-Shannon method.

Factors connecting to audit firm's accountability divided into three categories including motivating factors (nine categories), disincentive factors (three categories) and accountability dimensions (eight categories).

The results show that the legal requirements for accountability, active professional associations, stakeholders demand for accountability, active audit committee, social importance of auditor's activities, partners ‘personal tendency for disclosure, information content of auditor's report, signal to stakeholders and professional ethics play role in audit firms’ accountability context. On the contrary, raising stakeholders’ expectations and disclosure costs are obstacles for audit firms to be accountable. Furthermore, information of the quality control system, the auditing technology, the ownership, the legal and governmental structure, the independence policies, the financial position and performance, professional training and international cooperation are important for the stakeholders of audit firm's accountability.

Aggressive financial reporting is the opposite of conservative financial reporting, which means using a low degree of conservatism in preparing financial statements. Some firms are currently involved in aggressive financial reporting to conceal their adverse conditions such that they release good news, yet withhold bad news; thereby an unreal image is shown. As the release of bad news runs the risk of corporate information users including creditors and shareholders' sustaining considerable damage. The purpose of this survey, which was conducted by survey method, is to study Corporate characteristics influencing the Aggressive financial reporting.

In order to achieve the above goal, the indicators of this type of reports and factors influencing were prepared by conducting interviews with experts in the accounting and auditing profession and then testing it through a questionnaire. </em>The validity of the indicators and factors influencing was examined through structural equation modeling.

Findings showed that the Corporate characteristics (corporate operational characteristic and corporate governance characteristic) are effective on Aggressive financial reporting and obtained indicators </em>(the existence of Misstatement, unresolved Misstatement in different years, lack of provisions, negative annual adjustments, Unusual changes in sales, Fraud, CEO Changes, executive compensation, Production of non-essential goods and Monopoly firms) and factors influencing (consolidated company, Economic Conditions, Firm size, personal characteristics and attributes of manager, Political Connection, auditing Risk, auditor characteristics, board of directors financial literacy) have sufficient validity.

The final pattern also has a good fit.

An independent audit is one of the tools for evaluating the accuracy of the information and financial relations. If the done audits contain quality components, they will enable stakeholders to be relatively confident of the accuracy of the available information and relationships. Therefore, this study is to discover and identify the components of independent audit quality to meet the needs of stakeholders.

The present study is a qualitative and fundamental piece of research that relies on the interpretive and inductive approach. The "emerging approach with the Glaser method" was implemented through theoretical and purposeful sampling. Its participants included the community of academic experts and independent auditing professionals. In-depth interviews were conducted with the participants and data was collected until reaching the point of theoretical saturation.

According to the obtained results, 19 main components affect audit quality. By clustering, these 19 components were classified into three levels comprised of 1) Audit quality components at the users level (Four components including making stakeholders pay part of the costs of achieving audit quality, eliminating irrational goals and requests, increasing the level of understanding audit quality joint and several liability and responsiveness), 2) Audit quality components at the level of auditing firms and auditors (including five components: Designing and implementing infrastructure that promotes and enhances audit quality, management, empowerment and training human resource, having foresight in the field of audit quality and conducting scientific research, increasing the size of audit firms and their share of auditing services market, acquisition of behavioral and professional competence by auditing firms and auditors), and 3) Components of audit quality at the level of auditing supervisory bodies (including seven components: Correcting structural mismanagement and fighting against financial corruption and rent-seeking, encouraging audit firms to increase audit quality, effective qualitative monitoring of auditors' professional and behavioral performance, strengthening and implementing government social responsibilities towards the individuals and the society, reforming the related government laws and regulations, establishing mechanisms for reviewing the behavioral and professional competence of auditing firms and auditors by regulatory bodies, increasing joint and several liability and accountability of regulators, auditors, government officials and stakeholders for their performance towards each other and the community with the aim of reducing the expectation gap between them). The three components of observing the ethics and cultural foundations, the quality of the performance of the managers and audit staff as well as their mindset, and meeting accounting and auditing standards were </em>common among all levels.

Meeting the needs of stakeholders and their dissatisfaction with the quality of services provided in the field of independent auditing requires the use of effective components in improving the quality of services of auditing firms and auditors, reducing the level of stakeholder dissatisfaction and increasing the shares of regulatory bodies.

The accounting and financial units play a crucial role in promoting financial reporting systems of the public sector. Reliable and accurate financial accounting and reporting increase accountability, budget control, transparency of financing, and improve the effective management of assets and liabilities. The efficiency and effectiveness of financial management is essential for making any change in the quality of public sector performance. An effective financial unit in the public sector is needed to achieve the goals of an Iranian resilient economy and financial discipline. The main purpose of this study is to provide a financial management and accounting maturity model for public sector reporting units in Iran. A maturity model with a good leveling will enable managers to evaluate public sector units. It also provides sufficient motivation for managers to attain higher levels of the maturity model and to attract the support of CEOs for improving actions. Maturity models are customized to the conditions of each country in the developed countries.

Maturity-related studies were reviewed to identify the components of financial management and accounting maturity. Then, the initial maturity model was designed based on the authors' experiences and the situation in the Iranian public sector. In the next stage, semi-structured interviews were conducted with Iranian public sector specialists selected through purposive sampling. The focus group technique was used to collect data through group interaction. Findings from the group interviews were analyzed using semantic analysis.

The primary extracted components were modified using the opinions of experts. Dimensions of the maturity model include 1) information technology, 2) financial reporting, 3) budgeting and financial planning, 4) rules and regulations, 5) financial supervision and governance, 6) leadership, 7) efficiency and effectiveness, and 8) human capital. Based on the several discussions held in the focus group meetings, checklists can be used to measure the dimensions of the maturity model. It is also necessary to use experts to assess the maturity of reporting units.

Our results provide a clear framework for evaluating reporting units in the public sector. Managers can use the proposed maturity model in their policies for public sector units. Public sector organizations can use it to assess the status of their accounting and financial management units in Iran. They can also evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the public sector accounting and financial management unit and use the model as a roadmap to develop the position of financial management. The results of this paper improve the quality of financial reporting of public sector organizations. In addition, the extracted components of the maturity model may lead to the presentation of the Excellence Award to the financial management and accounting units in the public sector of Iran.

This study aims to investigate the effect of Auditor Style on the Relationship between Financial Reporting Readability and stock price informativeness of listed Companies in the Tehran Stock Exchange.

This research is an applied one in terms of purpose, and is correlation and post-event in terms of method. To test the research hypotheses, 108 companies in the period 2012-2019 were selected and analyzed using multiple regression models. These two dimensions Financial Reporting Readability in our tests: (Fog index and Text length index.

The results showed that the Auditor Style and Financial Reporting Readability (Fog index and Text length index) has a significant positive impact on Stock Price informativeness. Also, the results showed that the Auditor Style has a significant positive impact on the relationship between Financial Reporting Readability and Stock price informativeness.

Auditor Style has increased the Financial Reporting Readability. And due to the effect, it has on increasing the transparency of the reporting environment, it reduces the uncertainty and asymmetry of information about the company's shares. This brings the intrinsic value of the investment closer to the value that investors place on the market for their stocks. The proximity of the real value of the stock and the expected value of the shareholders will eventually lead to an increase in Stock Price informativeness. Blue underlines indicate that Grammarly has spotted an unnecessarily wordy sentence. You'll find suggestions that can help you effortlessly revise a wordy sentence.

The Audit Committee, as one of the corporate governance oversight committees in listed companies, has become a very important factor in the financial reporting process to increase the credibility of financial reports. Therefore, the audit committee needs to hold meetings to perform its duties, and so far Limited research has been done to examine the factors affecting the number of meetings of the audit committee. This study sought to investigate factors influencing the number of meetings of the audit committees held in companies enlisted in the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE). This study specifically aims to examine whether the number of meetings of the audit committees is affected by factors such as ownership concentration, board size, board independence, audit committee size, audit committee independence, and audit committee financial experience.

Accordingly, the financial statements of 150 companies enlisted in the TSE during the eight-year period from 2013 to 2020 were analyzed. To test the research hypotheses, Tobit regression model with combined data method and random effects method was used.

Testing the research hypotheses showed that the concentration of ownership, size of the board, independence of the board, size of the audit committee,</em> and independence of the audit committee have a significant positive effect on the number of meetings of the audit committees. The results also showed that the financial expertise of the audit committees has a significant negative effect on the number of their meetings.

The results indicated with increasing ownership concentration want more supervision over managers' performance and the number of audit committee meetings increases. In addition, any increase in the size of the board, the independence of the board, the size of the audit committee, and the independence of the audit committee as criteria for corporate governance increases the number of meetings of the audit committee. This is while any increase in financial expertise of the members of the audit committee, ends in a decrease in the need to convene the number of meetings of the audit committee.

In this research, the critiques of fair value have been studied and an interpretation of these achievements has been provided. Opinions about fair value fall into three categories. A group that strongly supports it. A group that strongly opposes it and a group that for some reason have concerns about it. Understanding the reasons for criticisms of fair value requires a better understanding of the concept of fair value, especially from a theoretical perspective and the evolution of this measurement system. Therefore, in a segment of this research, the historical, political and social contexts that have led to the formation of fair value in different parts of the world have been studied.

The method used is meta-synthesis which is one of the qualitative methods. In this regard, the steps of arranging research questions, systematically reviewing the literature, searching and selecting appropriate texts, extracting information, analyzing and combining qualitative findings, and presenting interpretations on existing interpretations have been performed.

Review, identification, typology, classification and analysis of different areas of research in the field of fair value from a theoretical-critical perspective is presented. The research represents eight areas of special interest, including theories used in measurement systems, reasons for the formation of fair value, its relationship with standardization and its uses, the role of the theoretical framework of financial reporting in development of fair value, advantages of fair value, disadvantages of fair value, effect of Fair value on financial crises, auditing challenges of fair value and the effect of capitalist and communist financial systems on fair value.

In this study, critiques and challenges on fair value from a theoretical and critical perspective over the last two decades were identified. This research can be used as a roadmap for researchers in fair value studies. It shows the areas of interest in this regard and the sections that can be studied in the future.