The Impact of Audit Committee Attributes on Audit Report Lag and Financial Performance: Evidence from Pakistan Stock Exchange
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Author:
NAZIK HUSSAIN
Citable URI :
https://vspace.vu.edu.pk/detail.aspx?id=57
Publisher :
Virtual University of Pakistan
Date Issued:
11/13/2017 12:00:00 AM
Abstract
During the last couple of decades, some serious scandals like Waste Management, Enron, WorldCom, Satyam, Swissair etc. were observed in corporate sector around the World. This loses confidence of stakeholders and due returns on their investment. The research proves that directors’ standards, audit quality and audit report lag (ARL) play significant role in controlling corporate mishaps and consequently ensure due returns to firms and investors. In order to address this issue, the US Senate approved a framework on its Code of Corporate Governance (CCG) by the name of Sarbanes-Oxley Act 2002 which was amended in 2012. A lot of countries of the world also adopted this Act in year 2002. In order to be at par with international community, Pakistan introduced its own CCG in 2002 which was also amended in 2012.
As per CCG, board of directors has to constitute various sub-committees to provide safeguards to the stakeholders’ interest. One of the boards’ subcommittees is an audit committee (AC) which is constituted to perform number of functions to ensure timely release of truly audited corporate financial statements, protect assets and monitor various accounts of company. The research has proved that mere existence of AC in a company is not much fruitful rather it has number of distinctive attributes that affect its working with respect to ARL and firms’ financial performance. The most common attributes of an AC includes AC size, proportion of non-executive directors in AC, number of AC meetings per year, AC gender, AC members skill and experience and AC chair independence etc.
This study is conducted to observe the impact of AC attributes on ARL and firms’ financial performance as evidence from Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX). A sample of 137 companies from 28 diversified non-financial sectors for years 2013, 2014 and 2015 is taken from PSX to observe the phenomenon. STATA software is used to measure descriptive and regression results of panel data based on fixed effect model.
The results show that all sample firms used to comply CCG in respect of AC size and frequency of AC meetings while compliance in respect of non-executive directors in AC and independent AC chair in some companies has not been found. The overall ARL in non-financial sector firms has been found almost 83 days. AC meetings, AC gender diversity and AC chair independence have negative and significant impact on ARL while, AC size and existence of non-executive members in AC have insignificant impact on ARL.
Financial performance of firms is measured via Tobin’s Q and return on equity (ROE). Tobin’s Q has been gradually increasing in this period. Positive and significant impact of AC size and AC meetings while insignificant impact of non-executive members in AC, AC diversity and independent AC chair has been found on Tobin’s Q. ROE has also increased over the period of three years. Negative and significant impact of non-executive directors in AC and AC meetings, while insignificant impact of AC size, AC chair independence and AC diversity has been found on ROE.
URI :
https://vspace.vu.edu.pk/details.aspx?id=57
Citation:
Hussain, N. (2017). The Impact of Audit Committee Attributes on Audit Report Lag and Financial Performance: Evidence from Pakistan Stock Exchange. Virtual University of Pakistan, (Lahore, Pakistan).
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Final Version
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All the material and results are copyright of Virtual University of Pakistan
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