后萨班斯时代的内部控制缺陷报告审计人员与公司治理的作用.docVIP

本科毕业论文（设计） 外 文 翻 译 外文出处 International Journal of Auditing 外文作者 Gopal V. Krishnan Gnanakumar Visvanathan 原文： Reporting Internal Control Deficiencies in the Post-Sarbanes-Oxley Era: The Role of Auditors and Corporate Governance This study addresses the role of audit committees and auditors in the reporting of internal control deficiencies after the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX). We find that a higher number of meetings of the audit committee, lesser proportion of ‘financial experts’ in the audit committee, and more auditor changes characterize firms that report weaknesses in their internal controls compared to firms with no weaknesses. Prior restatements of financial statements are also higher for firms that report weaknesses in internal controls. These results obtain after controlling for a variety of firm characteristics such as complexity of operations, profitability, and growth. Our results underscore the importance of governance characteristics beyond general firm characteristics in examining the reporting of internal control weaknesses. SUMMARY The Sarbanes-Oxley Act enacted significant regulations concerning corporate governance and financial reporting including the reporting of internal control deficiencies. This paper provides an assessment of the role of two key players, namely audit committees and auditors in the reporting of internal control deficiencies. Both corporate governance and the role of external auditors have received considerable critical attention consequent to reported accounting scandals at several firms. The quality of governance and the external auditors are likely to play important roles in maintaining good internal controls that are critical to the integrity of financial reporting. We examine a sample of firms that reported internal control deficiencies under section 404 of the Sarbanes- Oxley Act and assess the characteristics of audit committees and auditors for these firms. To this end, we compare