the Impact of Corporate Governance Mechanisms on Readability of Audit Report

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Department of Accounting, Imam Reza International University, Mashhad, Iran. shayan_fd@yahoo.com

2 Department of Accounting, Kavian Institute of Higher Education, Mashhad, Iran. zandarezoo95@gmail.com

3 Department of Accounting, Imamreza International University, Mashhad, Iran. saeedshirshekan@gmail.com

Abstract

Journal of Accounting Advances, (2020) 12(1):
DOI: 10.22099/JAA.2021.36326.1990
 
 
 
 
 
Journal of Accounting Advances (JAA)
Journal homepage: www.jaa.shirazu.ac.ir/?lang=en
 
 
 
 
 
 
The Impact of Corporate Governance Mechanisms on
Readability of Audit Report
Shayan Farhangdoust*1, Arezoo Zand Shanaghi2, Saeed Shirshekan3
 
 
Department of Accounting, Imam Reza International University, Mashhad, Iran. shayan_fd@yahoo.com
Department of Accounting, Kavian Institute of Higher Education, Mashhad, Iran. zandarezoo95@gmail.com
Department of Accounting, Imamreza International University, Mashhad, Iran. saeedshirshekan@gmail.com
 
 
 
 
 
 
ARTICLE INF
 
 
ABSTRACT
 
 
 
 
 
Received: 2020-05-17
Accepted: 2020-12-27
 
 
 
Theoretically, due to the separation of ownership and management, audit and financial reports are regarded as a communication bridge between managers and outside stakeholders. Nevertheless, the increasing weakening of the readability levels of financial and audit reports in recent years has had an adverse effect on their communication performance. Therefore, the present study aims to examine the impact of corporate governance mechanisms on audit report readability in the Tehran Stock Exchange. In this regard, the corporate governance mechanisms include corporate board’s independence, corporate board’s financial expertise, audit committee’s independence, CEO duality, board’s gender and institutional ownership. We also use Flesch and Fog readability indices as our readability measures. The statistical population of this research includes all listed companies on the Tehran Stock Exchange whose stocks are actively traded. A sample of 103 companies (721 firm-year observations) during the period 2011 to 2017 are chosen from this statistical population after lifting intended restrictions. Our findings suggest that corporate governance mechanisms significantly affect audit report readability.
 
 
 
 
 
* Corresponding author:
Shayan Farhangdoust
 
Department of Accounting, Imam Reza International University, Mashhad, Iran.
 
Email:
Shayan_fd@yahoo.com
 
 
 
 
 
 
1- Introduction
Theoretically, due to the separation of ownership and management, audit and financial reports are regarded as a communication bridge between managers and outside stakeholders. Nevertheless, the increasing weakening of the readability levels of financial and audit reports in recent years has had an adverse effect on their communication performance. Therefore, the present study aims to examine the impact of corporate governance mechanisms on audit report readability in the Tehran Stock Exchange.
 
2- Hypothesis
 The present study uses six different corporate governance mechanisms including board independence, board financial expertise, board gender, CEO duality, audit committee independence and institutional ownership as potential mechanisms likely to affect audit report readability. Accordingly, we present our main and sub-hypotheses as follows:
Main hypothesis: corporate governance mechanism affects audit report readability.
Sub-H1: board’s independence affects audit report readability.
Sub-H2: board’s financial expertise affects audit report readability.
Sub-H3: board’s gender affects audit report readability.
Sub-H4: CEO duality affects audit report readability.
Sub-H5: audit committee independence affects audit report readability.
Sub-H6: institutional ownership affects audit report readability.
 
3- Methodology
We use Flesch and Fog readability indices as our readability measures. The statistical population of this research includes all listed companies on the Tehran Stock Exchange whose stocks are actively traded. A sample of 103 companies (721 firm-year observations) during the period 2011 to 2017 are chosen from this statistical population after lifting intended restrictions.
 
4- Results
Our findings suggest that corporate governance mechanisms significantly affect audit report readability. More specifically, our findings indicate that corporate board’s independence, board’s financial expertise and CEO duality are significantly associated with audit report readability.
 
5- Conclusion
The present research is among the applied researches. The audit report serves as a bridge between the auditor and the users of the financial statements, and therefore its transparency and legibility will give credibility and legitimacy to the auditors. In other words, the difficulty or illegibility of the audit report will reduce the desirability of the audit opinion. Therefore, it is expected that the findings of the present study could inform the Tehran Stock Exchange, auditing firms and auditing standard setters, including the Certified Public Accountants, to create and strengthen strategies to increase the readability of audit reports and more appropriate governance mechanisms and prevent managerial opportunistic behaviors such as earnings management in the future.
 
 
 
 

Keywords

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History

  • Receive Date: 19 April 2020
  • Revise Date: 16 January 2021
  • Accept Date: 18 January 2021

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