Media Supervision,Institutional Environment And Audit Opinion Shopping

The audit opinion shopping behavior of listed companies has always been a major issue in the field of accounting,auditing and regulatory agencies at home and abroad.With the rise of media power,the media has been regarded as the"fourth power"independent of legislation,judiciary and administration.Its information mediation function and public opinion supervision function have become an important part of modern corporate governance research.As a possible external governance mechanism,the media is theoretically independent of listed companies and accounting firms,and at the same time builds the external information environment of listed companies to a certain extent,then whether it can be used as a supervisory governance role in the capital market to reduce the audit opinion shopping of listed companies?In addition,considering that the role and function of media reports are restricted by the macro-institutional environment,will the level of the institutional environment affect the media's role in the audit opinion shopping behavior of listed companies?This paper takes the 2008-2017 A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen as the research samples,and uses the negative media reports related to listed companies as the proxy variables of the media supervision and governance role.Based on Lennox's(2000)audit opinion purchase model,using the form of regulatory variables,using logistic regression,Heckman two-stage analysis and other empirical analysis methods,it is tested whether there is audit opinion shopping on China's A-share listed companies during the sample period.On this basis,it further analyzes the impactof negative media reports on the auditing opinions shopping.Finally,from a more macro perspective,the research samples are grouped according to the level of the system environment to discuss the influence of the institutional environment on the effect of negative media reports on the audit opinion shopping behavior of listed companies for the first time.The research indicates:China's A-share listed companies have audit opinion shopping behavior.And the negative reports of the media can alleviate the audit opinion purchase behavior to a certain extent.The difference in the level of development of the macro-institutional environment will affect the effect of media supervision on alleviating the audit opinions shopping behavior of listed companies.Compared with the areas with high level of institutional environmental development,media negative reports can significantly play its positive role in reducing audit opinion shopping in areas with low level of institutional environmental development.