Effect of Audit Fees on Audit Quality: Evidence from Cement Manufacturing Companies in Nigeria. (Published)
This paper aims to examine the effect of audit fees on audit quality in Nigeria using a sample of listed cement companies on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange. In specific terms, the study investigates the relationship between audit fee, audit tenure, client size, leverage ratio and audit quality. Ordinary Least Square Model estimation technique was employed to analyze the relationship between the explanatory variables and the dependent variable. Secondary data derived from the published annual reports of the selected companies for a six year period (2010-2015) was used for the study. Findings from the study show that audit fee, audit tenure, client size and leverage ratio exhibit a joint significant relationship with audit quality given coefficient of determination (R2) being 0.6006 and a combined p-value of 0.001 and Fcalc=7.14. This implies that the predictive power of the independent variables as used to explain changes in audit quality is about 60%. Audit fee in particular shows a significant positive impact on audit quality with a t and p-values of (4.04 and 0.001) respectively as well as a high positive correlation coefficient of 0.7513 with audit quality. The study recommends that Government through the various professional bodies should develop robust policies that will help improve audit quality in Nigeria.
Keywords: Audit Quality, Audit fee, Audit tenure, Client Size, Leverage Ratio .