Diversity of Individual Characteristics of Audit Institutions Partners and Audit Quality

Audit quality is an important part of the information disclosure system that directly affects the quality of financial reporting. Considering that in practice, the audit process of a company is the responsibility of the audit team, and also, due to the small size and partner-oriented nature of most audit institutions in Iran, examining the characteristics of Individual partners are important as people who influence the quality of auditing. For this purpose, the diversity of the individual characteristics of the audit partners, including gender, level of education, work experience, and their tenure in the institution on three factors that determine the quality of the audit, including modified audit opinions, the restatement of annual financial reports and discretionary accruals were investigated. The statistical analysis of the research was carried out based on the data extracted from 119 companies listed in the Tehran Stock Exchange, from 2017 to 2022; Also, to test the research hypotheses, multivariate regression was used. Based on the findings of this research, the diversity of the individual characteristics of the partners of audit institutions has a negative and significant effect on the modified audit opinions, the restatement of annual financial reports, and discretionary accruals. Also, in general, the diversity of the characteristics of audit institutions' partners has a positive (negative) and significant effect on the (lack of) audit quality.