This study investigates how key audit matter (KAM) characteristics influence financial statement understandability and subsequent investor decision making. Using Structural Equation Modeling-Variance Based (SEM-VB) through Partial Least Squares (PLS), the analysis was conducted on a diverse global sample of investors from Europe, North America, Asia-Pacific, Africa, and Latin America. The results indicate that KAM accuracy, reliability, audit quality, and financial reporting quality significantly enhance perceived financial statement understandability, which in turn positively impacts investor judgments. The mediating role of understandability is confirmed, emphasizing its crucial influence on investors’ decisions. Additionally, an importance-performance map analysis (IPMA) identified KAM reliability and accuracy as the most critical factors. This study contributes to the theoretical and managerial understanding of audit practices and investor behavior.

This study investigates how audit quality moderates the effect of financial performance indicators on the stock returns of Amman Stock Exchange-listed firms (ASE). The panel data analysis selected the data of 95 ASE-listed firms from 2013 through 2021. This analysis demonstrates a significant inverse relationship between a company's book value and its stock returns. A statistically negative relationship was observed between cash flow, dividends per share, and stock return. The empirical results of this study confirm the moderating influence of audit quality in the relationship between financial performance and stock return. Firstly, auditor's fees have a significant impact on the relationship between firm stock returns and EPS, BV, DPS, and cash flows (CFO). The size of the auditing firm moderates the relationship between company stock returns and EPS, DPS, and the CFO, but not with book value (BV). The auditor's opinion moderates the relationship between business stock returns and EPS, BV, and DPS but not the relationship between firm stock returns and cash flows (CFO). The study suggests that regulatory bodies like the Companies Control Department (CCD) and ASE should make sure that local audit firms in Jordan improve their audit quality to be on par with the Big 4 audit firms in order to improve their financial performance measures and stock returns.

This study aims to present further evidence of cost stickiness by employing Selling, General, and Administrative (SG&A) costs. It also provides empirical evidence on the effect of audit committee meetings and audit quality on cost stickiness. The study used data from listed companies on the Saudi Arabian stock exchange during 2015–2019. Based on pooled panel data regression, the study proves that the SG&A costs are sticky. The results show the level of SG&A costs increases more with an increase in sales revenue (activity) while it decreases less with an equivalent reduction in sales revenue (activity). Also, this study finds that the frequency of audit committee meetings decreases the magnitude stickiness of SG&A costs, which supports the view that frequent meetings of AC significantly enhance its overseeing function and effectiveness. The study further reveals that audit quality “by BIG4 audit firms” is not related to reduced cost stickiness. This result implies that there is no difference in CS between companies audited by BIG4 or by non-BIG4. In general, the research highlights the importance of AC diligence (i.e., meetings) in improving its effectiveness and controlling management’s discretions affecting the cost structure in the context of sticky cost behavior.

The article aims at investigating whether audit quality impacts the relationship between ownership structure and dividends in companies listed on the Amman Stock Exchange (ASE). The article is constructed on the analysis of time-series–cross-section (TSCS) (Panel Data). The study sample comprises 34 companies listed on the Amman Stock Exchange between 2016 and 2021. The study sample’s content of the financial reports is analyzed to attain appropriate data for the study. The Findings indicate that family ownership and ownership of board members negatively impact dividends. In contrast, institutional ownership and concentrated ownership positively impact dividends, as no effect of foreign ownership is found on dividends. By introducing audit quality as a modified variable on the relationship between ownership structure and dividends, the findings demonstrate that audit quality positively enhances and strengthens this relationship. This article with its results is of great significance to future stockholders and shareholders, as they help in selecting companies capable of distributing higher dividends than other companies and achieving satisfactory investment returns. The findings of the study also focus on the significance of audit quality as a guarantor for regulating the relationship between forms of ownership structure and the distribution of dividends. This study is regarded among the little research investigating the factors that would impact the relationship between ownership structure and dividends. This article plays a key role in bridging the research gap related to the lack of studies dealing with the relationship between ownership structure and dividends in emerging markets.

In today's dynamic business landscape, the audit profession encounters numerous obstacles, particularly in adapting to the necessity of computer-assisted audits due to the immense volume of data requiring scrutiny. Despite the emergence of different digital auditing tools, there is a gap in research regarding the level of adoption, and its effects on the quality of audit services especially in the context of developing countries. This study seeks to investigate the impact of digitalization of audit tasks on the quality of audit services of accounting firms in Nigeria. The study, which has its foundation on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) integrated with the Technology, Organization, and Environment (TOE) framework, adopted the survey research design. The population of study was made up practitioners of accounting firms in Abuja and Lagos, Nigeria. A self-designed questionnaire was used as a tool for data collection for the study. Findings of the study indicate that automation of audit tasks enhances the quality of audit services suggesting that adopting IT infrastructures leads to more reliable audit procedures, improved efficiency and accuracy, as well as mitigating audit risks. Results also revealed that Big Four auditors are significantly ahead in the adoption of digital technologies compared to the non-Big Four auditors, confirming the dominance of larger accounting firms in application of emerging technologies in performing audit tasks.

This paper performs an empirical investigation on the effect of audit quality on performance of companies listed in Hanoi Securities Trading Floor, Vietnam. For the purpose of the article, the study conducts a comprehensive analysis of data based on 228 companies listed on Hanoi Securities Trading Floor using software SPSS 22 and Smart PLS 3.0. The results indicate that audit quality positively impacted the financial performance of the companies listed on Hanoi Securities Trading Floor. The results also indicate that audit quality also positively impacted to customer loyalty and employee satisfaction. The study also provides some recommendations for the improvement of the audit quality in Vietnam.

This study is conducted to investigate the levels of factors influencing audit fees for clients of Vietnamese garment and textile firms. Data are collected from 186 auditors in independent audit firms in Vietnam. We use PLS analysis on Smart PLS 3.0 and test the scale’s reliability with Cronbach’s Alpha index and the total correlation on the software of SPSS 22.0. The results show that the characteristics of audit firm, customers, auditors, characteristics of the audit and the relationship between the audit firm and customers had positive effects on the audit fee. The moderate role of auditor's age, qualification in the relationship between the auditor's characteristics on the audit fee are also verified. The findings reveal that the higher level the auditors are, and the more experiences the auditors are, the higher the cost of audit fee is. The results of multi-group analysis between auditors and customers group show that auditors believed that the characteristics of customers had the strongest impact on audit fees, whereas the audited clients claim that the characteristics of audits had the strongest impact on audit fees.

This paper investigates the potential correlation between the performance of Audit Committees (AC) and Audit Quality (AQ). Data is derived from capital goods firms listed on the main stock exchange of Saudi Arabia (TASI). Logit regression analysis is used for this purpose and the dependent variable of BIG4 is used as a proxy for AQ, while AC meetings (ACMT), size (ACSZ), and AC members with a financial background (ACEX) are used as explanatory variables. The results show no statistical association between ACMT and AQ. However, the analysis indicates a positive statistical relationship between ACSZ and AQ, and a strong negative association between ACEX and AQ. These findings provide insights into the impact of AC attributes on AQ, and would be of interest to decision makers, policy-makers, investors, and senior management.

The issues of audit quality and audit committee have received huge consideration from the auditing profession, the general public population and the government controllers particularly after the prominent corporate outrages in firms like Enron, Global Crossing, Tyco, and WorldCom. These concerns discourage investors to invest in foreign and local businesses. The primary objective of the current study is to explore the impact of internal and external governance mechanisms such as board size, audit committee independence, audit committee expertise, and audit committee meetings on the quality of audit in selected firms. The study is carried out on a sample of Iraqi non-financial firms. The dependent variable is the audit quality measured as a dummy variable and it receives 1 if a firm receives audit services of big five auditing firms and zero, otherwise. To achieve the research objectives the study uses logit regression technique. The results indicate that there was a positive relationship between audit quality and the percentage of non-executive directors in the audit committee. The findings of the current study will be helpful for policymakers, researchers, accountants, financial experts, and audit practitioners in understanding the importance of the concept of audit quality and the key factors which affect the audit quality of any non-financial firms in Iraq.

This study seeks to investigate the variables that affect small and medium enterprises (SMEs) adoption of the usage of artificial intelligence (AI) and audit quality analysis from the perspectives of external auditors and accountants in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Additionally, it seeks to determine whether external auditors and accountants in Saudi SMEs have different perspectives on AI adoption and how it affects audit quality. Data were gathered via an internet questionnaire from eighty accountants and forty audit companies in Saudi SMEs to accomplish these research goals. The study's findings indicate that accountants and external auditors in the KSA believe that utilizing AI improves the quality of audits. Also, it was discovered that there is no statistically significant difference in how accountants and auditors evaluate ’AI’s contribution to audit quality.