The Effect of CEO's financial knowledge on Audit Quality: Considering the Moderating Effect of Managerial Ability CEO's financial knowledge

Introduction:
In the new era, the financial, administrative and operational activities of economic enterprises in the world have turned complex, extensive and, at the same time, knowledge-based, and relied on professional management. Leading, directing and controlling these companies in the third millennium require specialized managers with financial knowledge and high intellectual capabilities. The diversity and complexity of production and the expansion of geographical operations have increased the issue of separation of ownership and management more than ever. The need for CEOs with financial knowledge and managers with more capabilities to be profitable and to transmit quality and reliable economic information for rational decision-making is felt more than ever. On the other hand, certain factors such as the need to increase internal controls, improving the quality of financial reporting, the need for consistent financial reporting, improve audit quality, reducing information risk, creating value for the firm and the need for tax avoidance, explain why companies need managers with financial knowledge and higher capabilities.
Due to the important and influential role of managers in the new era on the quality of economic reports, profitability and sustainability of companies, some new researches in the field of accounting have examined the impact of management factors, such as financial knowledge of CEOs and management ability on other accounting and auditing variables. Financial experts play an important and vital role in creating internal controls, making optimal financial decisions, accounting policy, improving the quality and content of reporting information, tax avoidance, profitability and continuity of operations in national and transnational markets. While increasing the quality of audit report, promoting the quality of financial statement reduce fee, time and auditing cost and abnormal auditing fees. This process also improves the quality of reports transmitted to the money and capital markets, reduces audit and information risk, and improves the rational decisions of investors. The personal features of CEOs including their financial knowledge and ability might affect their organizationl behavior and decision making and increase the profitability, flexibility, stability and transparency of financial reporting. This is why, such executives could be called superstars.
Research questions and hypotheses:
Base the above points, the important question is whether managerial factors such as the financial knowledge of the CEO and their ability affect other accounting and auditing variables, such as audit quality or not. According to the materials presented in the introductory sections, theoretical foundations and research background, three hypotheses have been proposed and evaluated. Hypothesis 1: Financial knowledge of CEOs has a positive and significant effect on audit quality. Hypothesis 2: Management ability to have a positive and significant effect on audit quality. Hypothesis 3: Management has reinforced the relation between Financial CEO knowledge and audit quality.
Research Methods:
The present reseach injoys the statistical population including all companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange.The statistical sample covers 147 companies seselcted by the systematic elimination method from­ 2011 to 2020. In this study, the model of Gounopoulos and Pham (2018) was used to estimate the financial knowledge of CEOs, the model of Demarjian et al. (2013) was used to estimate the management ability, and the model of Chi Lin et al. (2016) was used to calculate the audit quality. Also, to test the research hypotheses, combined data and multivariate regression using the generalized least squares method have been employed.
Results:
The results show that the CEO's financial knowledge and managerial ability affect audit quality both positively and significantl while the study’s other result reveals that Managerial ability has no significant effect on the relationship between CEO's financial knowledge and audit quality.
Discussion and Conclusion:
The first result of this study showed that having a university degree of CEO in the fields of accounting, auditing, financial management, management, banking and other fields related to financial management and accounting, can affect the quality of auditing. This impact is due to promoted internal controls, increased quality and content of financial reporting information, as well as increased quality characteristics of financial statements. This process ultimately improves the quality of information and audit reports and increases the public's reliance on audited information for decision-making by investors and other stakeholders. The second achievement of the research indicated that the ability of company managers can have the same results to improve the quality of auditing. Another result of the study was that managerial Ability does not have a significant effect on the relationship between CEO financial knowledge and audit quality. This result indicates that if in a company both features are used simultaneously with each other, it cannot increase the quality of the audit.