The differential impact of distracted auditors in managing portfolio of financially distressed audit clients on audit quality: the role of professional skepticism

Abstract This study hypothesizes that distracted auditors affect audit quality. As a result of resources scarcity, auditors pay more attention to financially distressed audit clients rather than non-financially distressed audit clients at the same audit client portfolio which eventually leads to differences in audit quality. In this context, earnings restatement of audit clients is used as a distraction event of auditors. Distracted auditor is measured by the percentage of the audit fees of financially distressed audit clients to total audit fees and audit quality is proxied by total accruals. The data is obtained from firms listed on the US stock market over eleven years between 2010 and 2020. The results indicate that financially distressed audit clients of distracted auditors receive higher audit quality than non-financially distressed audit clients of the same audit client portfolio. Further analysis suggests that this difference in audit quality between financially distressed audit clients and non-financially distressed audit clients decreases with skeptical auditors. This study introduces a new comprehensive approach to measure professional skepticism using KAMs disclosure. The results are robust to different measurements of distracted auditors, audit quality and professional skepticism. Overall, the empirical analyses suggest that distracted auditors have a decreasing differential impact on audit quality by professional skepticism.