Determinants of audit report lag: further evidence from Hong Kong

Bikki Jaggi and Judy Tsui

Accounting and Business Research, 1999, vol. 30, issue 1, 17-28

Abstract: This study examines whether the audit report lag (ARL) of Hong Kong companies is associated with auditor business risk and audit firm technology. The study is based on a sample of 393 Hong Kong companies for the 1991–1993 period. Financial condition and family ownership/control of a company are used as proxies for auditor business risk, and the structured/unstructured audit approach is used as a proxy for audit firm technology. Other variables, such as the number of subsidiaries, nature of client's business, company size, unexpected positive earnings news and nature of audit opinion, are included as control variables. Regression results show that there is a positive association between the audit report lag and the financial risk index for Hong Kong companies, suggesting that companies with a weak financial condition are associated with longer audit delays. The results also show that companies audited by audit firms using the structured audit approach have longer audit delays. The findings on the association between ARL and the company's family ownership and control suggest that family-owned/controlled companies may have shorter audit delays, though the results are statistically not significant. Larger companies appear to provide motivation for shorter audit delays.

Date: 1999
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (22)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00014788.1999.9728921 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:acctbr:v:30:y:1999:i:1:p:17-28

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RABR20

DOI: 10.1080/00014788.1999.9728921

Access Statistics for this article

Accounting and Business Research is currently edited by Vivien Beattie

More articles in Accounting and Business Research from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().