Audit Office Growth Under Analysis

Abstract

This study researches whether potential indicators of auditor dependence will affect the negative relationship between audit office size and audit quality in growing audit offices. I consider high market concentration and the low average number of public clients available to auditors in a city as indicators of dependency, and an auditor being a market specialist as an indicator of independency. Although the majority of my tests proved inconclusive, I do find some evidence indicating that there may be more to the growth effect than workload balancing. I provide some evidence supporting the hypothesis that the growth effect would be weaker (stronger) when there are more (fewer) potential clients in a local audit market.