Bakomliggande faktorer till revisorers utfärdande av going-concern varningar
En studie om vad som orsakar going-concern varningar för finansiellt belastade företag
Introduction: The auditor's going-concern warnings express the quality assurance of information and if these are wrongly based, the stakeholders become deluded. Previous research has shown that auditors do not have any major difficulties in identifying companies that are financially distressed to the extent that they risk receiving a going-concern warning. International studies on the determinants of going-concern warnings have instead focused primarily on the auditor's decision regarding companies that are already in bad shape financially. Auditor grounds for issuing a going concern warning may be linked to factors related to the client, the auditor, the audit firm, the relationship between the client and the auditor and the environment. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to find out what specific factors that affect the auditor issuing going concern warnings for financially distressed companies. Method: Initially, we conducted a qualitative study by doing interviews with auditors to expand our knowledge on the subject and produce hypotheses. The main part of the study used a quantitative method in which we collected data from financially distressed companies? financial statements and analyzed it. Conclusions: Our results demonstrate that financially distressed companies that have additional financial problems because they consumed more than half of its share capital, are more likely to receive going-concern warnings. We also found that the financially distressed companies with poor procedures regarding payment of taxes and fees are more likely to receive going-concern warnings than companies that have efficient procedures. Furthermore, the results also suggest that larger audit firms are more likely to issue going-concern warnings to financially distressed companies than smaller audit firms. We also find indications that the auditing firm's economic dependence on the client reduce the likelihood of the client receiving a going-concern warning, given that there is a financial distress.