The Influence of Nonpublic Audit Concentration on Public Client Audit Outcomes

摘要

Nonpublic clients make up a substantial portion of audit firm client portfolios and the demands they place on the audit firm differ from those of public clients. As such, I investigate the influence of nonpublic audit concentration (NPAC) on the quality, timeliness, and cost effectiveness of public client audits. I find that NPAC is unrelated to audit quality and negatively related to the likelihood of late filing financial statements and audit fees for public clients. My study contributes to audit literature that investigates the effect of audit firm portfolio characteristics on audit outcomes by 1) providing a new measure that allows researchers to proxy for nonpublic audit influence and 2) investigating the potential impact of NPAC on public client audit outcomes. My findings are important because they suggest that timely and cost-effective audits of similar quality are available from providers that do not concentrate on public client audits.