Examine market competition, audit fee stickiness, and audit quality

Agency problems arise as a result of conflicts of interest between managers and shareholders. Auditing is seen as an effective way to limit the authority of managers in contractual relationships. The purpose of this paper is to examine the market competition, audit fee stickiness, and audit quality.

The subject of the study was based on the regression model of the combined data. During the period of 2008 to 2018, the data of the 72 companies accepted in the Tehran Stock Exchange were collected and used to test the research hypotheses.

The results show that the competitiveness of the audit services market has a negative and significant relationship with the upward stickiness. The results show that the insignificant relationship between the competition of the audit services market and the downward stickiness. Also, the relationship between upward audit fees stickiness and audit quality is significant. Finally, the results show the insignificant relationship between the downward audit fees stickiness and audit quality.

Based on the results of the study, it can be stated that higher competition leads to a change in the stickiness and thus, the downward price correction rate may reflect the limited bargaining power of the auditors over the clients that leads to a change in audit quality.
Contribution: Clients can bargain with the audit fee, anticipating a downward trend in audit fees. Also, auditors should be aware of the risks and opportunities associated with changes in audit fee factors, as there may be opportunities to increase the fee, reduce the audit work, or delay the fee reduction.