Investigating Effectiveness of Audit Quality on Reduction of Audit Report Delay in Companies Listed in Tehran Stock Exchange

Abstract

It is important to understand the factors that affect audit report delay, since this directly affects the timeliness of financial reporting, which is one of the most important qualitative attributes of financial statements. Old accounting information has not worth in the economic and financial decisions. This paper investigated the relationship between effectiveness of the audit quality (in terms of auditor change, auditor industry specialization and type of auditor’s report) and reduction of audit report delay for the companies listed in the Tehran Stock Exchange. In this study, the sample consists of 64 companies in the period 2005-2012, and for testing the hypothesis the statistical panel data regression was used. The results showed that there is a positive and significant relationship between types of auditor’s report with audit report delay. That is, audit report delay is higher for receiving qualified audit report. Also, the results showed that there is not a significant relationship between either auditor change or auditor industry specialization and audit report delay. That is, auditor change and auditor industry specialization do not lead to reduction in audit report delay.

Keywords

• quality
• auditor change
• auditor industry specialization
• type of auditor’s report and audit report delay