The Use of Shared Service Centers in the Audit Industry and the Impact on Financial Analysts’ Perception

Aktivität: VortragWissenschaftlicher Vortrag (Science-to-Science)

Beschreibung

Audit firms increasingly use Shared Service Centers (SSCs) for the production of audits. However, this process is not very obvious for users. Regarding the effect on audit quality, there are arguments for improvement and arguments for deterioration due to the use of SSCs. Using an experiment, we provide evidence regarding the effects of SSCs on perceived audit quality from an important user group of audited financial statements: financial analysts. Based on data obtained from 205 financial analysts, we investigate whether the use of SSCs impacts the perceived audit quality and whether the location of the center and the task complexity play a role. We find that SSCs involvement negatively impacts audit quality perceptions regardless of the internal outsourcing distance and the task complexity. However, the internal outsourcing of complex tasks reinforces this effect. Our results have direct implications for audit practice and regulators as they demonstrate a need to include information on the use of SSC in the auditor report. Moreover, we identify that trust in auditing and a positive attitude towards SSCs is a mitigating force.
Zeitraum11 Mai 202213 Mai 2022
EreignistitelEAA 44th Annual Congress
VeranstaltungstypKeine Angaben
BekanntheitsgradInternational