Audit Team Distance and Audit Quality Threatening Behavior

Abstract

SUMMARY This paper uses unique survey data from a Swedish Big 4 firm to examine the association between audit quality threatening behavior (AQTB) and two types of distance between team members in audit teams (i.e., audit team distance): subjective distance as the perception of proximity, and communication distance as the percentage of communication via technology. Investigating the factors influencing AQTB is important because AQTB adversely affects audit quality. The results show that team members with greater subjective and communication distance engage in more AQTB, which suggests that audit firms should pay attention to team members’ subjective and communication distances and take actions to curb their negative impacts. Using rich data collected from real-world audit team experience, this study deepens our understanding of how different types of audit team distance impact auditors’ AQTB.