Commercialization and Audit quality : Evidence from Chinese audit market

Abstract: In recent years, the commercialization of the audit market has become more and more apparent, which is an inevitable trend. After the Enron scandal broke out, researches about commercialization and audit professions, audit quality have arisen. Most of these studies are focus on western audit firms. The purpose of this study is to look at the impact of commercialization of the Chinese audit industry from the auditor perspective. This paper is based on 109 responses to a survey distributed to Chinese auditors, including Big 4 firms and non-Big 4 firms. This study use market orientation, customer orientation and process orientation as indicators of commercialization. Auditor independence and auditor competence as two main cornerstones of audit quality. The data were analyzed by multiple statistics test. Our finding indicates that all three indicators of commercialization of audit market have a positive relation with auditor independence and competence. We are thus concluding that commercialization of the audit market has a positive relation to audit quality. Also, we find that auditors in Big 4 and non-Big 4 audit farm are not much difference. This may be because the Big 4 in the Chinese market do not have the same dominance as in the Western market.