This paper examines audit offices’ human capital investment in response to client restatement announcements and the resulting effects on audit quality and audit office client base. We find that audit offices attempt to acquire human capital and talent by posting more audit-related job positions just after a client announces a restatement. The increase in job postings follows restatements with more negative announcement returns and restatements of annual financial statements, and is concentrated among more senior and experienced positions. Importantly, the increased job postings are not driven by replacement hiring due to individual auditor departures and reflect more auditors joining the office. These human capital investments reduce future client misstatements and losses in client portfolios, indicating improvements in actual and perceived audit quality. Audit offices are also more likely to replace audit managing partners and prevent the signing partners of the misstated financial statements from signing new audit reports after restatement announcements.

中文翻译：

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客户重述公告、审计办公室人力资本投资和审计质量改进


本文研究了审计事务所为响应客户重述公告而进行的人力资本投资，以及由此对审计质量和审计事务所客户群的影响。我们发现，审计署试图通过在客户宣布重述后立即发布更多与审计相关的职位来获取人力资本和人才。在重述后，负面公告回报和年度财务报表重述数量增加，职位发布量增加，并且集中在更高级和更有经验的职位上。重要的是，招聘信息的增加并不是由于个别审计师离职而导致的替代招聘，而是反映了更多的审计师加入办公室。这些人力资本投资减少了未来客户错报和客户投资组合中的损失，表明实际和感知审计质量的提高。审计署也更有可能更换审计管理合伙人，并阻止错报财务报表的签署合伙人在重述公告后签署新的审计报告。