Audit Opinion Shopping and Audit Partner Switching

Abstract

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the opinion shopping phenomenon in listed firms of the Tehran Stock Exchange and its relationship with changing the auditing partner. opinion shopping means changing the auditor by the client in order to receive an improved audit opinion from the new auditor. According to the auditor- client alignment theory, in cases where there is no agreement between the auditor and the management on audit opinion, then , the management changes its auditor to improve the auditor's opinion. The research period is a ten-year period, from 2009 to 2018. The statistical sample also includes 158 listed firms in the Tehran Stock Exchange. Theoretical foundations and research data have been collected based on the library method. In order to test the research hypothesis, we use correlation research method and binary logistic regression.The results of this study show that the tendency of the client management to the opinion shopping has a significant and positive relationship with changing the audit partner.In other words, with the growth of opinion shopping , auditor switching also increase.

Keywords

• opinion shopping
• audit partner switching
• auditor- client alignment theory
• audit market