Supplier-Customer Shared Auditors And Audit Fees:"Quality Premium" Or "Cost Savings"?

As the capital market matures,corporate alliances become more complex and diverse,and accounting firms continue to grow.The choice of an accounting firm by a listed company not only affects its own development,but also affects its stakeholders.At present,more and more listed companies have the phenomenon of choosing the same accounting firm with their stakeholders,which we call shared auditors.This article focuses on the case which a listed company and its suppliers and customers in the supply chain choose the same accounting firm,that is,the supplier-customer shared auditors.Reviewing relevant existing literature,research on supplier-customer shared auditors is still relatively scarce,most of which focus on its relationship with audit quality,but there is no systematic research conclusion on the relationship between supplier-customer shared auditors and audit fees.Therefore,the relationship between supplier-customer shared auditors and audit fees is worth further consideration and exploration.Firstly,on the basis of the theories,including information asymmetry theory,knowledge spillover theory,and stakeholder theory,etc.,this article analyzes the logical relationship between supplier-customer shared auditors and audit fees,and proposes a "quality premium" approach and "cost savings" way.Secondly,this article takes A-share listed companies from 2009 to 2018 as the research object,and the multiple regression analysis was used to explore the relationship between supplier-customer shared auditors and audit fees.It also further distinguishes between supplier-shared auditors and customer-shared auditors,and discusses their relationship with audit fees.Finally,the impact of audit quality on the relationship between the two is also considered.Empirical research finds that there is a significant positive correlation between supplier-customer shared auditors and audit fees,indicating that the existence of supplier-customer shared auditors will increase audit fees.By distinguishing between supplier-shared auditors and customer-shared auditors,it was foundthat customer shared auditors had significant positive correlation with audit fees,while supplier shared auditors had no significant correlation with audit fees.With regard to the impact of supplier-customer shared auditors on audit fees,by introducing the variable audit quality,it was found that the supplier-customer shared auditors had a significant positivecorrelation with audit feesin a sample of high audit quality,confirming that "quality premium" approach.From the perspective of research,this article explores the relationship between supplier-customer shared auditors and audit fees based on the main dimensions of the supply chain,and broadens the field of research in the field of auditing.On the basis of theory,this article combines with relevant theories such as economics and management,the use of multidisciplinary knowledge to enrich the research in the field of auditing.In terms of research methods,this article tries to use the leading-edge empirical research method-probability score matching method for robustness test to make the regression results convincing.