This study examines auditor’s behavior in issuing going concern opinions. According to prior research, financially distressed firm’s management is prone to arbitrary increase earnings through accruals. On the presumption of financially distressed firms’ earnings management, abnormal accruals of them are expected to be reverse and become negative and their distress risk becomes higher, thereby they are required to disclose information about going concern status. By comparing matched-pair sample, the relation between going concern opinion and abnormal accruals is examined. The results indicate that auditor requires clients, experiencing larger negative abnormal accruals, to disclose information about going concern status. Furthermore, the results also show that litigation risk does not influence the timing of disclosure about going concern information.
View full abstract