Discussion of The Association Between Audit Technology and Audit Delay.
本文是对Newton和Ashton关于审计技术与审计延迟关系论文的评论，指出其预期审计结构化方法能减少延迟，但实证结果相反，且模型解释力不足。
Abstract In this article, the authors present their opinion on a paper "The Association Between Audit Technology and Audit Delay," by James D. Newton and Robert H. Ashton. Newton and Ashton speculate that audit firms employing highly structured audit methods should be able to complete their audits more efficiently and that such efficiency will be manifested by a reduction in unit delay. However, their empirical results are exactly the opposite of their expectations. Furthermore, despite using a model that incorporates seven independent variables, all having a seemingly logical relationship to audit delay, they are not able to explain more than 17 percent of the variation in their audit delay variable in any of their several tests. ducted. They expect that increased audit efficiency will lead to reduced audit delay. This leads them to hypothesize that audit firms using more (less) highly structured audit methods should exhibit less (more) audit delay. The expectation that audit structure should be positively associated with audit efficiency, however, is highly tenuous. The rationale for expecting audit structure to be positively associated with audit efficiency, and therefore negatively associated with audit delay, has not been well established.