The Influence of Public Welfare and Audit Findings on Audit Opinion: Empirical Evidence from Provincial Data in Indonesia

The aim of the study is to empirically investigate and analyze the influence of public welfare, audit findings, and follow-up of audit recommendations on audit opinion with the disclosure level of financial reports as an intervening variable using agency theory and signaling theory. To achieve this purpose, a quantitative research method was employed. Population of this study is Provincial Government Financial Reports in Indonesia for fiscal years 2016 to 2018. There were 84 financial reports that met the criteria of purposive sampling. The data were gathered from the websites of the Audit Board of the Republic of Indonesia and the Indonesian Central Bureau of Statistics. In this study, the hypothesis-testing tool is path analysis using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 15. Based on the multiple regression analysis, the results show that audit findings, public income, and the disclosure level of financial reports significantly influenced audit opinion. Besides, the follow-up of audit recommendations and public health significantly influenced audit opinion through the disclosure level of financial reports. This study suggests that, in order to have better audit opinion, local governments need to improve public welfare, follow-up audit finding, and disclose more details in financial report.