Abstract:

Excess goodwill not only carries operational risk, but is often associated with the risk of financial misstatements, thereby increasing the risk faced by auditors. Will excess goodwill affect the stability of audit contract？This paper, using the data of Chinese A-share non-financial listed companies from 2007 to 2019,  examines the impact of excess goodwill of listed companies on auditor change. The results show that the higher the excess goodwill of the client, the more unstable the audit contract, i.e., the greater the possibility of auditor change. Moreover, this impact only exists in situations where the client’s control risk and legal risk are high. Further tests show that the client’s excess goodwill has a significantly positive correlation with the possibility of auditor’s resignation and upward change, but there is no significant correlation of goodwill risk with the possibility of auditor’s downward change. In addition, the mechanism analysis finds that excess goodwill will increase the client’s operation risk and financial misstatement risk, which then leads to an auditor change. This paper expands the literature on auditors’ attitudes and responses to client’s excess goodwill risk from the perspective of stability of audit contract.

Key words:

excess goodwill, audit contract, auditor change

摘要：

超额商誉不仅蕴藏着经营风险，而且往往与财务报表错报风险相联系，从而增加审计师面临的风险，那么，超额商誉是否会对审计契约的稳定性产生影响？利用2007~2019年A股非金融类上市公司的数据，考察了上市公司超额商誉对审计师变更的影响，发现超额商誉与审计师变更之间存在显著正向关系，并且，这种影响主要存在于客户控制风险与法律风险较高的情况。进一步检验发现，公司的超额商誉与其审计师辞聘以及向上变更的概率显著正相关，而与其向下变更的可能性之间不存在显著关联。此外，机制检验发现，超额商誉会增加公司的经营风险和财务报表错报风险，进而引发审计师变更。这一研究从审计契约稳定性的角度拓展了关于审计师对客户超额商誉风险的态度与应对的文献。

关键词:

超额商誉, 审计契约, 审计师变更