Title: Does audit quality mediate the relationship between audit firm size and audit fees?

Authors: Ayman Bader; Mohammad Ebrahim Nawaiseh; Halla Noor Nawaiseh

Addresses: Faculty of Business, Al-Zaytoonah University of Jordan, Jordan ' Faculty of Business, Al-Zaytoonah University of Jordan, Jordan ' Luminus Technical University College, Airport St, Amman, Jordan

Abstract: The objective of this research is to find the relationship between audit firm size (AFS) and audit fees (AF) on light of mediating audit quality on this relation. Data were collected from the published annual reports of the publicly listed companies as of December 31, these reports used to collect data, such as the name of CPA firm, amount audit fees, the name of CPA who signed the audit report, other data investigated to estimate discretionary accruals (DA) variable. The sample covers a four-year period from 2013 through 2016. The results indicated that a positive correlation coefficient exist the relationships between audit fees and audit quality, the reason for that, audit quality entails more auditors' work. Consequently, audit cost increases during the process of audit work which requires more audit time, for this, the demand on audit increases along with the demand for audit quality improvement.

Keywords: audit fees; audit quality; audit firm; Jordan.

DOI: 10.1504/AJAAF.2019.105133

African Journal of Accounting, Auditing and Finance, 2019 Vol.6 No.4, pp.279 - 294

Received: 10 Mar 2019
Accepted: 21 May 2019

Published online: 13 Feb 2020 *

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