A Behavioral Investigation of Supplier Differentiation in the Market for Audit Services
通过多维尺度分析，检验银行家对八大会计师事务所的比较和评级，以判断审计服务市场中是否存在有效的产品差异化。
The degree of competition within the public accounting profession has received increasing attention from researchers and practitioners in recent years, stimulated first by the Metcalf Staff Report (U.S. Senate [1976]) and later by the Cohen Commission Report (AICPA [1978]). The former argued that there was insufficient competition, whereas the latter believed it to be excessive. In order for competition to exist, there must be a basis for differentiating the services of different CPA firms. However, in its final report, the Cohen Commission stated its belief that there is little or no product differentiation in the audit profession: Public accounting firms go to considerable lengths to develop superior services for their clients, but there is little effective product differentiation from the viewpoint of the present buyer of the service, that is, the management of the corporation A 'clean opinion' obtained from one reputable is about as valuable to the competent, honest financial manager as one from another reputable firm (AICPA [1978, p. 111]). The purpose of our study was to determine whether this assertion accurately describes the market for audit services. To do so we used multidimensional scaling to examine bankers' comparisons and ratings of Big Eight CPA firms. More specifically, our study addressed two