Overseas Experience Of Senior Executives,Team Characteristics And Audit Fees

In recent years,in response to the requirements of the "talent power strategy",China has issued a series of "overseas talent introduction" policies to attract a large number of overseas talents to return home for development,setting off a "wave of returnees".More and more overseas talents become enterprise executives and participate in the production,operation and decision-making of enterprises.As a special experience of returnee executives,overseas experience will inevitably affect the shaping of their values,thinking mode and the formation of decision-making preferences,which will be reflected in the strategic decision-making and production and operation of enterprises.The effectiveness of enterprise decision-making,business risk and financial situation are important reference basis for auditors to evaluate audit risk and formulate audit expenses.The reasonable formulation of audit fees can improve the quality of financial reports and standardize the development of capital market.Therefore,it is necessary to study the impact of executives’ overseas experience on audit fees and its mechanism.At the same time,the different characteristics of the senior management team do not play a role alone.It is necessary to further study the impact of the interaction between the overseas experience of senior managers and other characteristics of the senior management team on audit fees,so as to better optimize the senior management team.Taking Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies from 2010 to2019 as the research sample,this paper explores the relationship between executives’ overseas experience,team characteristics and audit fees based on high-level echelon theory,branding theory,social capital theory,audit risk theory and team conflict theory,and further analyzes the intermediary role of agency costs and the regulatory role of property rights.The results show that:(1)executives’ overseas experience will significantly increase audit fees,That is,the higher the proportion of overseas executives in the senior management team,the higher the audit fee;(2)The average tenure of senior management team,the proportion of female senior managers and the proportion of financial senior managers play a significant negative regulatory role between senior managers’ overseas experience and audit fees,which also shows that there is a certain interaction between different characteristics of senior management team;(3)Agency cost plays a part of intermediary role between executives’ overseas experience and audit fees;(4)After further distinguishing the nature of property rights,it is found that the overseas experience of senior executives plays a more significant role in improving audit fees in state-owned enterprises,and the adjustment effects of the average tenure of senior management team,the proportion of female senior executives and the proportion of financial senior executives are only significant in state-owned enterprises.In view of the above research conclusions,this paper gives substantive suggestions for enterprises,governments and accounting firms.For enterprises,this paper suggests:(1)improve relevant safeguard measures to help returnee executives get rid of the dilemma of "acclimatization";(2)When optimizing the configuration of senior management team,we should consider the possible interaction effects between different characteristics of senior management team.For the government,this paper suggests:(1)deepen the reform of state-owned enterprises and improve the current situation of "absence of owners";(2)Strengthen cultural exchanges and reduce the cultural conflict effect brought by overseas talents.For accounting firms,this paper suggests that when considering the influencing factors of audit fees,we should take into account the overseas experience of senior executives and the interaction between them and the different characteristics of senior management team.