Research On The Influence Of The Signature Accountant’s Information Technology Professional Background On Audit Quality

With the rapid development of mobile Internet,informatization has penetrated into multiple application scenarios of enterprises,and digital transactions have gradually become an important part of enterprise accounting,which will inevitably produce huge changes to the existing accounting system.In order to adapt to the changing business models of clients in the digital era,the informatization construction of accounting firms has been constantly expanding vertically.If certified public accountants only have accounting or audit-related financial backgrounds,they may have biased understanding and cognitive barriers to information systems and emerging technologies,making it difficult for them to perform complex audits and increasing the risk of audit failure.Audit quality is not only closely related to the development of the audit profession,but also has an impact on the national economy and capital markets.Audit quality is determined by the characteristics of accounting firms and the characteristics of individual auditors.As the research on audit quality continues,the focus of research has shifted from "macro-level" characteristics of accounting firms to "micro-level" characteristics of individual auditors.The audit business is highly professional.Certified public accountants are entrusted by the owner of the audited entity to audit the financial situation and operating results of the company,which requires the certified public accountants to have strong professional competence.The signing accountants lead and coordinate the entire audit project throughout the audit process,so the personal characteristics of the signing accountants are particularly critical to the audit quality.In the context of deepening informatization level of accounting firms,the information technology background of the signing accountants has a crucial impact on audit quality.Therefore,this paper discusses the impact of the signing accountants’ information technology professional background on audit quality.This paper first sorts out the domestic and international literature on three aspects: the factors affecting audit quality,the research on the relationship between auditor’s personal characteristics and audit quality,and the research on the impact of the development of accounting firm’s informatization on audit quality.Then the relationship between the information technology background of the signing accountants and audit quality is demonstrated using the upper-echelons theory,theory of personality trait and learning effect theory to provide a basis for this paper on the effect of the information technology background of the signing accountants on audit quality and to propose the hypothesis of this paper.This paper takes all A-share listed companies from 2012 to 2021 as research sample.The preliminary experimental results show that:(1)The higher Information technology capability of the signing accountants,the higher audit quality.(2)Audit input plays a partial intermediary role between the information technology background of the signing accountants and audit quality.(3)The higher Information technology capability of the first signing accountants and the second signing accountants,the higher audit quality.In addition,the impact of the information technology background of the second signing accountant on the audit quality is greater than that of the first signing accountant.(4)The information technology background of the signing accountants in non Big Four accounting firms has a significant impact on the audit quality,while the information technology background of the signing accountants in the Big Four accounting firms has no significant impact on the audit quality.The innovation of this paper is that previous research on auditors’ background characteristics mainly focused on the impact of personal characteristics such as financial background,gender,age,and experience on audit quality,while few literature focused on the impact of signing accountant’s information technology background on audit quality.From the perspective of the information technology background of signing accountants,this paper provides a theoretical basis for the study of the economic consequences of the application of information technology application in accounting firms from the perspective of the impact of information technology on audit quality.