Industry Expertise. Prior literature has shown that a client firm is more likely to switch to (or retain) an audit firm which is an industry specialist in that firm’s industry (Xxxxxx 2009). One possible reason for switching from small audit firms to global auditors around IFRS adoption is that the global audit firms are perceived as experts on IFRS. If client firms seek any audit expertise, they should also be more likely to switch to audit firms which specialize in auditing that client’s industry. To test whether clients are more likely to choose industry expert firms following IFRS adoption I use a binary model. In this model the dependent variable is an indicator variable for industry expert auditor and the independent variables are the same as in model 1. I code an audit firm as an expert for a given industry if in country j and year t, the audit firm examined at least 5% more of the clients in that industry than any other audit firm. Untabulated results indicate that IFRS adoption is not related to the likelihood of choosing an industry expert auditor. As an additional check of my results, I modify my regression models to include additional variables: an indicator for whether an audit firm used by a client in year t-1 is an industry specialist and interaction terms between this variable and the IFRS adoption timing variables. Results from these analyses suggest that firms that used industry expert auditors in the past were less likely to switch away from small audit firms to global auditors or to other small audit firms. These firms were also less likely to switch away from small audit firms in the year following IFRS adoption. However, the coefficients associated with the prior year’s audit firm being an industry-expert are positive and significant in model 1 for the GTS and GTG specifications. The coefficient associated with IFRS_ADOPTit-1 in the STG specification remains positive and significant in models 1 and 2, and is positive and significant when interacted with regulatory quality in model
Industry Expertise a. The Contractor will act as an industry expert on behalf of the State of Indiana and any current or potential users of the Contract.
Industry Expertise. In addition to our Florida public sector team, North Highland has public sector practitioners across the country who serve state and local governments in over 14 states. Exhibit 1-1 provides a sample of the extensive breadth of public sector clients we serve nationally.
