The Association between Companies' Earnings Management Risk and the Type of Switching Audit Firms

As the business scandals increase, the litigation and settlement of claim encountered by accounting firms increase. The auditors become more conservative when they consider whether receive the engagement or not for avoiding the audit failure. The more earnings management activities by companies increase the possibility of litigation to auditors. Compared with the non big4 firm, the big 4 firms suffers more severe damage when they conduct a failure auditing service. Thus big 4 firms are more likely to refuse the clients' engagement with high earnings management risk than non big4 firms. The companies which switch audit firm between year 2001 and 2007 are used to examine the effect of earnings management risk on the type of switching audit firms. The result indicates that companies with higher earnings management risk are more likely to transfer the engagement from big4 firms to non big4 firms. Additionally, the above phenomenon is more obvious after the Procomp scandal.隨著重大企業弊案的發生，會計師事務所面臨的訴訟或賠償風險日益漸增。為了降低審計失敗之機率，會計師不論是在決定是否接受客戶委託或是在執行查核工作時都會變得更加謹慎。隨著客戶進行盈餘管理的程度越高，查核之會計師未來面臨訴訟風險的機率就越高。相較於非大型會計師事務所，大型會計師事務所發生審計失敗導致的損失會更為明顯，因此，較可能拒絕盈餘管理風險較高的客戶之委託。本研究以2001年到2007年更換會計師事務所的公司為樣本，並探討公司盈餘管理的程度，是否會影響其更換會計師事務所的型態。研究結果顯示當公司盈餘管理程度越高時，其較可能從大型會計師事務所更換至非大型會計師事務所。特別是在國內博達事件之後，此種現象更為明顯