Authors

Joseph Kingsley Badu, Jobo Dubihlela

Abstract

Audit quality is the primary element of financial reporting through which the financial statements and related reports are attested to be free from material misstatements, actual or potential (PwC, 2017:5). Financial reporting is about the quality of the audits that auditors perform. In this study, we examine the trends in the inspection findings reported by only the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) in South Africa’s (SA) Big Four audit firms. The study is important to examine the impact of these inspection findings, specifically, PCAOB inspection deficiencies identified in integrated audits (i.e., Financial Statement (SF) and Internal Control Over Financial Reporting (ICFR)) of South Africa’s Big Four audit firms identified in audit firms in South Africa on audit quality. This paper is a sequel to the previously published article that used primary data by Badu, & Dubihlela (2024), however, it extends the discourse and findings derived from the research through the analysis of secondary data. The secondary data for this paper was gathered from existing inspection reports sourced from the publicly available PCAOB database for audit firms in SA. The findings of the trend analysis reveal a recurring pattern of integrated audit deficiencies in PCAOB inspections. These deficiencies can impact audit quality within SA audit firms, including those within the Big Four.

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Suggested Citation (APA 7th)

Badu, J., Dubihlela, J. (2024). Analyzing Trends of the PCAOB Inspection Deficiencies in South Africa and Implications for Audit Quality of the Big Four Firms. International Journal of Applied Research in Business and Management, 5(2). https://doi.org/10.51137/ijarbm.2024.5.2.5