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Strategic Auditor Behavior and Going‐Concern Decisions
Author(s) -
Matsumura Ella Mae,
Subramanyam K.R.,
Tucker Robert R.
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
journal of business finance and accounting
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.282
H-Index - 77
eISSN - 1468-5957
pISSN - 0306-686X
DOI - 10.1111/1468-5957.00131
Subject(s) - dismissal , audit , business , going concern , accounting , auditor's report , public relations , actuarial science , political science , law
This paper analyzes a game‐theoretic model in which a client can potentially avoid a going‐concern opinion and its self‐fulfilling prophecy by switching auditors. Incumbent auditors are less willing to express a going‐concern opinion the more credible the client's threat of dismissal and the stronger the self‐fulfilling prophecy effect. Similarly, the client is more willing to switch auditors the more likely it is that auditors' reporting judgments will differ and the stronger the self‐fulfilling prophecy effect. Further, with greater noise in the auditor's forecast of client viability, the auditor tends to express fewer going‐concern opinions.