Audit theory and regulation assumes that auditors’ commercial motivation threatens audit quality. In this registered report, we use data from two Big Four firms in the Netherlands and provide empirical evidence on the relation between auditors’ commercial motivation and (1) compensation, (2) total audit effort, and (3) audit quality. We proxy commercial motivation as the time that individual auditors report allocating to commercial activities. We hypothesize that auditors’ commercial effort is positively related to compensation and we find mixed support. Next, we hypothesize that auditors’ commercial effort is negatively related to the audit effort but we find no support. Turning to audit quality, we hypothesize a negative direct relation between auditors’ commercial effort and audit quality but we find no support. We also predict a positive indirect relation in which auditors’ commercial effort increases quality control reliance leading to higher audit quality. We find some support for this hypothesis but only when we use technical consultations to proxy for quality control. Auditors with greater commercial effort maintain quality because they rely more on technical consultations. In sum, our study challenges the assumption that auditors’ commercial effort threatens audit quality and questions the need for additional regulation to constrain commercial motivation.

中文翻译：

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时间都去哪儿了？审计师的商业努力、专业努力和审计质量


审计理论和监管假设审计师的商业动机会威胁审计质量。在这份注册报告中，我们使用了荷兰四大会计师事务所的数据，并提供了审计师商业动机与（1）薪酬、（2）总审计工作量和（3）审计质量之间关系的经验证据。我们将商业动机表示为个体审计师报告分配给商业活动的时间。我们假设审计师的商业努力与薪酬呈正相关，并且我们发现了不同的支持。接下来，我们假设审计师的商业努力与审计工作负相关，但我们没有发现任何支持。谈到审计质量，我们假设负面的直接的审计师的商业努力与审计质量之间存在联系，但我们没有发现任何支持。我们还预测积极的间接审计师的商业努力增加了质量控制的可靠性，从而导致更高的审计质量。我们找到了对这一假设的一些支持，但只有当我们使用技术咨询来代替质量控制时。审计人员在商业上付出更多努力来保持质量，因为他们更多地依赖技术咨询。总之，我们的研究挑战了审计师的商业努力威胁审计质量的假设，并质疑是否需要额外的监管来限制商业动机。