tailieunhanh - Summary of doctoral thesis: Research on factors affecting audit quality of financial statements of listed companies in the Vietnamese Stock Market

The topic’s focus is to identify factors affecting audit quality of financial reports of listed companies in the Vietnamese stock market by independent auditing firms. The research objects are joint stock firms with securities (stocks and bonds) listing on the Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi Stock Exchanges. | 1 INTRODUCTION 1. The necessity of the thesis Auditing plays an important role in maintaining and issuing financial reports with high quality. However the bankruptcy of Enron Corporation one of the leading energy corporations in the US in 2001 resulting in the downfall of Arthur Andersen a world-class prestigious auditing firm in 2002 raised the concerns about audit quality. A series of scandals about audit quality of independent auditing firms was disclosed after that has involved incorrect opinions about financial reports like in the bankruptcy cases of WorldCom or Kmart corporations. In Vietnam the incident of Bach Tuyet Cotton Corporation in 2008 became a focal point for Vietnamese stock market when disputes arose concerning audited business results in its 2005 and 2006 financial reports. Other cases relating to the reliability of information in audited financial statements also caused financial loss to investors. Financial reports of listed companies in the Vietnamese stock market receive much attention from different groups. Among which the most popular and sensitive group is the group of investors. Financial statements can be distorted for the sake of companies managers and financial report preparers not for the sake of investors. Auditors are responsible for ensuring the reliability of financial reports which displays audit quality. However it is not easy to evaluate or recognize audit quality. Evaluation criteria for audit quality can show audit quality but they do not demonstrate which factors resulting in such quality and more importantly basing on what basic can audit quality be improved. Therefore the thesis s topic namely Research on factors affecting audit quality of financial statements of listed companies in the Vietnamese Stock Market reflects the necessity of this issue and aims to clarify the issue of interest. 2 2. Literature review Review of Literature that have been conducted in oversea and Vietnam Applied research methodologies Research .