Investigating The Effect of Auditor-Client Geographic Proximity on the Audit Report Timeliness and The Financial Reporting Quality with Emphasis on the Size of the Client

Access to quality information plays an important role in investors' decisions and if quality information is available in a timely manner, its impact will be more significant. But sometimes the quality of financial statements may be sacrificed for timeliness or vice versa. The use of local auditors can lead to audit report delay. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of using local auditors on external audit report delay and the financial reporting quality. For this purpose, data related to 125 companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange during the years 2015 to 2019 were tested. The results of this study show that companies that use local auditors have more timely audit reports, but this does not affect the quality of financial reporting. Smaller companies also have more timely audit reports, if they use local auditors due to regulatory infrastructure problems. This research adds to the growing literature on auditor selection.