Corporate Governance, Audit Quality, and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act: Evidence from Internal Audit Outsourcing
研究内部审计外包给外部审计师的行为，发现有效的审计委员会能减少常规内部审计外包，但非常规外包（如特殊项目）不受影响，且外包给非外部审计师与审计委员会有效性无关。
This study extends current literature related to nonaudit services by investigating internal audit outsourcing to the external auditor. We posit that certain types of internal audit outsourcing (i.e., those which are nonroutine, and thus tend to be nonrecurring in nature) are unlikely to lead to economic bonding, while offering significant potential for improvements in audit coverage and scope when provided by the external auditor. Alternatively, outsourcing routine internal audit tasks is more likely to lead to economic bonding, as well as potentially threatening internal auditor independence. Our results are consistent with firms with independent, active, and expert audit committees being less likely to outsource routine internal auditing activities to the external auditor. However, the outsourcing of nonroutine internal audit activities such as special projects and EDP consulting are not negatively related to effective audit committees. Additionally, outsourcing of either type of internal audit activity to an outside service provider other than the external auditor is not related to effective audit committees. Collectively, we interpret these findings as supportive of an effective audit committee's ability to monitor the sourcing of the firm's total (i.e., internal and external) audit coverage, while simultaneously exhibiting concern for external auditor independence.