A Model of Professionally Motivated Investment in Auditor-Client Relationship-Building
构建了审计师主动进行客户关系建设的模型，发现关系建设与审计努力呈非单调关系，既能提升也能削弱努力，且在某些条件下关系建设产生的准租金反而有利于审计师独立性。
This paper presents a model of auditor-client relationship-building (RB). We find that the relation between RB and audit effort is nonmonotonic, that is, it can improve or impair audit effort. On the one hand, RB improves the usefulness of exerting effort and the auditor is then motivated to work harder. On the other hand, RB improves the precision of the signal received by the auditor and reduces her expected liability, which reduces her incentive to exert effort. Moreover, existing literature suggests that quasirents arising from long auditor tenure compromise auditor independence. In contrast to this conventional wisdom, this paper shows a positive effect of quasirents resulting from relationship-building on auditor independence under certain conditions. This is the first study modeling client relationship-building initiated by auditors. It enhances our understanding of the relationship between RB and audit effort as well as auditor-client negotiations.