감사파트너경험이 개별감사업무 차원 및 회계법인 차원 감사품질관리와 결합하여 감사품질에 미친 영향

Effects of Engagement Partner’s Audit Experiences on Audit Quality, as Combined with Auditor Quality Controls at Engagement- and Audit Firm-Levels

개정 회계감사기준 700과 미국 PCAOB는 상장회사 감사파트너 이름의 공개를 의무화하였다. 이러한 제도는 감사파트너 개인특성이 감사품질과 체계적으로 관련된다는 논리에 근거한다. 실제로 선행연구는 감사인 경험과 감사품질 관련성을 보고하였으며, 감사파트너 개인별로 체계적인 감사품질 차이를 보고하기도 하였다. 또한, 회계감사기준은 감사품질관리를 회계법인 차원과 개별감사업무 차원으로 구분하였다. 본 연구는 이러한 내용을 결합하여, 감사파트너경험과 두 가지 유형 감사품질관리가 결합하여 감사품질에 미치는 영향을 조사한다. 감사파트너경험 변수에는 해당 파트너가 달성한 감사보수수익 비율과 감사고객회사 개수(비상장 포함)를 사용하였고, 회계법인과 개별감사업무 차원 감사품질관리수준 측정변수로는 품질검토시간비율과 비정상감사시간을 각각 사용하였다. 연구 결과, 감사파트너 업무경험과 품질관리 시간이 감사품질에 미치는 영향은 두 가지 유형의 감사 품질관리 수준에 따라 다르다. 개별감사업무 차원의 감사투입시간(비정상감사시간)이 증가하면 감사파트너 업무경험이 많을수록 재량발생액이 감소한다. 반면에 회계법인 차원의 품질검토시간비율이 증가하면 감사업무 경험이 적은 감사파트너 담당 회사의 재량발생액 감소 효과가 더 크다. 이 조사결과는 감사파트너경험이 품질관리 차원의 두 유형에 따라 감사품질에 미치는 영향이 차이가 있음을 나타낸다. 이는 향후 회계감독 차원에서 감사인의 개별적･전사적 품질관리시스템 운영에 감사파트너 특성을 함께 고려할 필요가 있음을 나타낸다. 또한 위 실증결과는 회계법인의 입장에서는 감사파트너 개인적 감사품질 영향요소에 대해서 별도의 관리가 필요하다는 점과 피감사기업 입장에서는 회계법인 전체가 아닌 감사파트너 개인의 특성에 대해서도 추가로 관심을 가져야 할 필요성을 제기한다.

Recent regulatory changes mandating partner name disclosure are assuming that audit quality is systematically related to individual audit partner s characteristics, such as audit experience. The audit standards mandating partner name disclosure for public company audits include the revised International Audit Standard 700 (IAASB 2015b) as published in January 2015 and applied to financial statements for annual periods ending on or after December 15, 2016, and the consequential amendments to the Korean audit standards (Korean Audit Standards Boards 2017) in 2017 (paragraph 700.45 of the revised audit standards) and reporting standards implemented by U.S. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB 2015b). The revised standards requiring to disclose the names of partners who audit listed companies are based on the logic that partner characteristics and audit quality are systematically related(IAASB 2015a). In the same context, we can find that PCAOB (2015a) proposed the development of audit quality indicators, and proposed the use of 28 audit quality indicators, among which audit partner experience was included. Also, the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) presents the professional judgment of auditors as a key input to the quality of audit, and explained that “specialized judgment is the application of specialized training, knowledge and experience to the practice of audit.” As such, audit experience is one of the key factors in determining the professional capability of auditors to influence audit quality. DeAngello (1981) explained that the audit quality is the probability of combining the possibility of detecting errors with the reporting of errors found. Here, the auditor s ability to detect errors and report on errors found are expressed as professional competence and independence, respectively. Audit partners experience affects auditor’s competence to determine the quality of audit. The previous studies report that audit experience (van Buureen 2009; Bae et al. 2014) or industrial expertise (Choi etal. 2014; Kwon et al. 2015) are related to audit quality and such audit quality varies systematically depending on individual partners (Sundgren and Svanström 2014; Choi et al. 2015). This study focuses on individual partner’s experience among various audit partner characteristics. The audit standards classified audit quality controls (QC) into two dimensional level of audit firm and individual audit engagements. Regarding the QC efforts at the level of individual audit engagements, abnormal audit hours would improve audit qulaity (Mah et al. 2012). Also, audit firm-level QC improve audit quality(Rye et al. 2015) and such firm-level QC efforts vary depending audit risks (Bae et al. 2015). In sum, the experience of audit partners can affect audit quality, and the QC efforts at the individual audit engagement levels and audit firm levels can also affect audit quality. This study investigates how combination of two dimensional audit QC efforts and audit partner’s experiences are associated with audit quality. As specified by ISA 220, two audit QC levels are considered: audit firm- and engagement-levels. Percentage of total audit fee-to-total fees earned by the partner, and number of audit engagements in that year are used as proxies of audit partner experiences. PCAOB (2015a) explains that when using auditors experience as an indicator of audit quality, it is necessary to consider how much audit work is performed at the same time because of the “potential damage to professional doubts as a result of familiarization” over a long period of experience. In this regards, we focus on the size of audit partner experiences. In addition, we use the abnormal audit hours (AbnHour) and quality review hour ratio (QR) as proxies for the level of individual audit engagement- and audit firm-level QC efforts......