@article{b0045c0576f548c2a86007331476814b,
title = "Do Individual Auditors Have Their Own Styles? Evidence from Clients' Financial Statement Comparability in China",
abstract = "SYNOPSIS: In this study, we investigate whether individual auditors are associated with the comparability of their clients{\textquoteright} financial statements, based on a sample of Chinese companies audited by ten large audit firms. We demonstrate that individual auditors have an incremental effect on comparability, beyond the office-level effect. We also find that the style of individual auditors is stronger when they are affiliated with Big 4 audit firms (compared to non-Big 4 large audit firms) and when they are industry experts. In addition, two possible channels of enhanced comparability are identified: (1) clients{\textquoteright} accounting flexibility, which provides opportunities for auditors to exert influences; and (2) individual auditors{\textquoteright} characteristics, such as age, position, and academic degree, which affect auditors{\textquoteright} abilities to exert influence. Our results are robust to alternative comparability and industry expertise measures, to various sampling methods, and to corrections for potential endogeneity problems.",
keywords = "Financial statement comparability, Individual auditors, Industry expertise",
author = "Haina Shi and Wen Wen and Gaoguang Zhou and Xindong Zhu",
note = "Funding Information: We thank Byron Song, Song Tang, and the participants at Central University of Finance and Economics, Renmin University of China, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, and University of Waterloo for their constructive comments. We are grateful for the constructive comments from the editor and two anonymous referees. All errors are our own. Gaoguang Zhou acknowledges that the work described in this paper was supported by a grant from the Research Grant Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), China (Early Career Scheme Fund No. 22503317). Xindong Zhu acknowledges financial support by the Research Grant Council of the Hong Kong SAR, China (General Research Fund No. 11507914). Wen Wen acknowledges financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 72002014 and 72072015), the National Social Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 20AGL015), and the Beijing Social Science Foundation Project (Grant No. 19YJC040). Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2021, American Accounting Association. All rights reserved.",
year = "2021",
month = sep,
doi = "10.2308/HORIZONS-18-002",
language = "English",
volume = "35",
pages = "187--215",
journal = "Accounting Horizons",
issn = "0888-7993",
publisher = "American Accounting Association",
number = "3",
}