Client Importance and Audit Quality at the Individual Audit Partner, Office, and Firm Levels
研究了审计合伙人、分所和事务所三个层面的客户重要性指标，发现审计合伙人层面的客户重要性更能预测审计质量，即客户越重要，审计质量越高。
We investigate whether audit partner level data provides a more powerful measure than office or firm level measures of client importance. We find that the likelihood of issuing a going‐concern opinion (any and first‐time) increases, and the absolute value of discretionary accruals decreases, in relation to the proportion of audit fees to the total audit fees received by audit partners from all their clients. We also find that the likelihood of issuing a going‐concern opinion (any and first‐time) increases, and the absolute value of discretionary accruals decreases, in relation to the proportion of non‐audit services fees from a client to total non‐audit service fees, and the proportion of total audit and non‐audit service fees from a client to total fees from all their clients at the office and firm levels. Our findings provide evidence to regulators, audit clients, and stakeholders that audit partners do not succumb to pressure from economically more important clients as audit quality has a positive association with client importance.