The determinants of auditor switching in China

Auditor plays a crucial role in providing credibility of financial disclosure and mitigating the agency problems. However, there is high trend of auditor switching in China. This could lead to a series of negative effects to both company and society. Although there were many past empirical studies examined the determinants of auditor switching, those studies were conducted in different countries with different national conditions which may not appropriate and suitable to China context. Thus, it is necessary to conduct this study to investigate the determinants of auditor switching and to examine the relationship between determinants of auditor switching in China context. This study used data of A-share listed companies from Shanghai Stock Exchange. The sample of this study consists of 182 listed companies from the period of year 2012 to 2014. Moreover, this study employed Logistic Regression Model to examine the determinants of auditor switching. This study measured four determinants, which are going concern issue, ownership concentration, leverage, and big audit firm. The finding shows that big audit firm is significantly and negatively related to auditor switching. Therefore, this study recommended that based on the special national conditions of China, more variables could be investigated in the future research and the implications of auditor switching, such as implications of auditor switching on audit quality or audit independence, could be investigated