Impression Management in Public Sector Audit Proposals: Language and Fees
研究了美国公共部门审计提案中专业主义和商业主义语言的使用，发现小型非专业事务所更多使用商业语言，而政府专业事务所更多使用能力语言；商业语言使用越多，提案成功率越高，但仅在政府内部审计职能薄弱的州成立。
We adapt impression management theory to investigate: (1) whether governmental audit proposals include the values of ‘professionalism’ (i.e. independence and competence) and ‘commercialism’ (i.e. client cooperation, auditor trustworthiness, client satisfaction, commercial interests), and, (2) the relations of audit proposal language and contextual influences on proposed audit fees and proposal success. The results suggest that proposals accord with audit firms’ market strategies. Compared to other firms, proposals from small, non-specialist firms use more commercial language, while proposals from governmental specialist firms use more competence language. The results also suggest that the market for US public sector audits includes many low cost, low quality firms; specifically, the modal proposal (41.2%) includes high use of commercialism language and low proposed audit fees. We also find that audit firms propose higher audit fees in US states with a weak governmental internal auditing office, and, that greater use of commercial language correlates with higher rates of proposal success, but only in US states with weak governmental internal auditing functions. The finding of inter-relations between proposal language, the strength of governmental internal audit functions, and proposed fees suggests the value of considering multiple influences on the quality of the public sector financial controls.Acronyms : American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) ; Certified Public Accountant (CPA) ; Corporate social responsibility (CSR) ; European Court of Auditors (ECA) ; European Union (EU) ; fixed effects (FE) ; General Accountability Office (GAO) ; Governmental Financial Officers Association (GFOA) ; Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors (IRBA) ; Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) ; International Accounting Education Standards Board (IAESB) ; International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) ; International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI) ; National Association of State Auditors ; Comptrollers and Treasurers (NASACT) ; not-for-profit (NFP) entities ; natural language processing (NLP) ; Office of Management and Budget (OMB) ; Request for proposal (RFP) ; Two-stage least squares (2SLS) ; United Kingdom (UK) ; United States (US)