Examining a French Exception: The Determinants of the Choice of Joint Auditors
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92
This paper examines the determinants of the choice of joint auditors (zero, one, or two Big 4) by French listed companies. This choice is theoretically associated with corporate governance mechanisms. We test our hypotheses on a sample of 175 listed companies from the SBF 250 Index and find only weak empirical evidence. Consequently, we partition our sample into more homogenous subsamples with respect to auditee size. For small and medium companies, family ownership is negatively associated with the selection of at least one Big 4 but not related to the choice of two Big 4 auditors. For medium-sized companies, the choice of at least one Big 4 is also associated with other corporate governance mechanisms, either positively (board independence and separation of the roles of chairman and CEO) or negatively (existence of an audit committee). For large companies, the choice is limited to two options (one or two Big 4) and is driven by operational constraints (size and internationalization level of the auditee).
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