The Effect of Non-audit Services on Auditors’ Independence－From the Perspective of Earnings Management

• Main Authors: Chen, Hsiu-Tzu, 陳秀姿
• Other Authors: Jan-Zan Lee
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2004
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/79995643926517273172

碩士 === 國立臺北大學 === 會計學系 === 92 === For a long time, the issue that auditors compromise their independence when they provide non-audit services to their clients is concerned by different groups. However, there has not been a consensus among foreign and domestic researchers. By collecting non-audit fees data of 2002 and 2003, this study examines the relationship between non-audit fees and earnings management. The results indicate non-audit fees are positively associated with the magnitude of discretionary accruals. That means that provision of non-audit services will impair auditors’ independence. Meanwhile, audit fees are negatively associated with the earnings management indicator, which is consistent with DeAngelo (1981) analysis that provision of audit fees will increase the investment on reputation capital of accounting firms to assure auditors’ independence. Furthermore, this study separates samples into income-decreasing and income-increasing discretionary accruals groups to estimate the regression repeatedly, and then finds that the auditor’s decision is not influenced by manager’s manipulation of earnings to decrease or increase, and gets more empirical results to support the negative relationship between non-audit services and auditors’ independence.