This review aims to study the knowledge development and research dissemination on the influence of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) on earnings management through a social network approach using a bibliometric review. A systematic bibliometric review was carried out on 329 papers obtained from the Clarivate Analytics Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection database. The data were analyzed by year, journal, author, institution, country, affiliation, subject area and term analysis. The results reveal the growing interest of researchers in studying the impact of CSR. Although the USA and China dominate publication production, there are a large number of authors from more than 50 countries around the world. The results also show that being prolific does not imply being influential in this area. The keyword patterns showed some interesting potential areas of study on this topic. The findings of this paper provide insight to the research on the analysis of the influence of CSR on earnings management. The most important findings consist of a number of gaps in the literature, such as gender diversity, voluntary disclosure of information and existence of an audit committee, among others, that allow for future fields of research to improve the analysis of the influence of CSR in EM. This research should also prove helpful to managers, owners and auditors. This is the first bibliometric review developed on this topic and it can be extrapolated to any place in the world.

The aim of this study is to construct the assessment of the expected audit risk by the audit team leader (ATL) during the planification phase of the audit. The ATL plays an important role within the audit, and even more so regarding small and medium-sized (SME) audit firms. The audit risk assessment is critical as relying more (less) on internal controls implemented by the client leads to performing less (more) substantive audit procedures. This is determined by the ATL based on their professional judgement and previous experience. The use of fuzzy theory has powerful potential into the audit arena, as the audit risk assessment (outcome) is critically related to the auditors’ judgement and perception. We argue that ATL characteristics are core conditions in determining the audit risk assessment when planning. Using hand-collected and private data from Spanish SME audit firms, we find that a comprehensive set of conditions must be given for perceived high audit risk. The results indicate that female and inexperienced ATLs planning the audit of indebted firms with high proportions of capital assets, less profitability, and with a larger board sizes, as they are expected to have bad internal control. The same conditions are met when expecting errors, as well as shorter audit tenures. Finally, conditions such as the ATL’s experience gains importance in expecting irregularities. This paper extends our understanding of the role of ATL characteristics on the audit risk assessment when planning and raising awareness on studying SME audit firm behavior.

El objetivo de este estudio es analizar en una muestra de pequeños y medianos auditores españoles si los precios que cargan a su cliente por la prestación de su servicio cubren el riesgo de negocios. De acuerdo al modelo de precios definido por Simunic (1980), el precio de la auditoría es función del esfuerzo y del perfil de riesgo del cliente. En este estudio utilizamos diversos subrogados para inferir el riesgo de mercado percibido por el auditor en su cliente, tal como son el riesgo financiero del cliente y el nivel de riesgo de auditoría. Al objeto de verificar la cuestión de investigación de si los pequeños y medianos auditores cargan primas para cubrir el riesgo de negocios que soportan, en este trabajo se utilizan datos de 607 empresas, usando datos de honorarios para el periodo 2001–2009. Nuestros resultados revelan que existe una relación estadística significativa entre el riesgo financiero del cliente y el nivel de riesgo de auditoría que este genera y los honorarios cargados, lo cual aporta evidencia empírica que los honorarios contienen una prima por riesgo de negocios. Análisis adicionales revelan que la prima por riesgo de negocios resulta dependiente a la duración del contrato, si bien no a que los clientes adquieran junto con los servicios de auditoría otros servicios adicionales voluntarios. Nuestros resultados resultan robustos ante diferentes especificaciones en la estimación del modelo de precios.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze audit planning decisions of small and medium-sized Spanish audit firms and the resulting impact on audit risk and effort. Prior research examining audit risk overwhelmingly focuses on Big 4 audit firms, and little is known about how audit planning decisions influence audit risk in smaller firms, a significant part of the audit profession. Thus, it is important to examine the planning judgments in small and medium sized audit firms and the link between planning risk assessments and the extent of audit effort put forth to achieve an acceptable level of audit risk. Using audit engagement specific data derived from publicly available databases and survey data, this study investigates the factors assessment of their client’s risk of material misstatement and whether the effort applied in performance of the audit engagement effectively responds to that risk. We find a significant statistical relationship between audit risk and audit effort, which provides empirical evidence that auditors modify the extent of audit effort based on perceived audit risk and brings into debate the work of the small firms. Additional analysis shows that audit effort (i.e., hours) is significantly influenced by the tenure and the timing of the audit engagement (i.e., peak audit season). However, audit engagements with longer tenure do not adjust their audit effort in response related to low management integrity or weak internal controls, which suggests familiarity, that is, auditors may not be as skeptical of management incentives. This paper contributes to debate about audit quality and whether the size of audit firms serves as an observable characteristic associated with higher audit quality. El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar las decisiones de planificación de la auditoría de las pequeñas y medianas firmas de auditoría españolas en relación a la evaluación del riesgo y el esfuerzo de auditoría. Las investigaciones previas se centran casi en exclusiva en las 4 firmas de auditoría grandes y poco se sabe sobre cómo las decisiones de planificación de la auditoría influyen en el riesgo de auditoría en las firmas más pequeñas, una parte muy significativa de la profesión auditora. Por lo tanto, es importante examinar los juicios de planificación en firmas de auditoría pequeñas y medianas y el vínculo entre las evaluaciones de riesgo de planificación y el grado de esfuerzo realizado para lograr un nivel aceptable de riesgo de auditoría. Usando datos derivados de bases de datos disponibles públicamente y datos obtenidos a través de encuestas, este estudio investiga los factores que explican la evaluación del riesgo de error material del cliente y si el esfuerzo aplicado en el desempeño del trabajo de auditoría responde efectivamente a ese riesgo. Encontramos una relación estadística significativa entre el riesgo de auditoría y el esfuerzo de auditoría, lo que proporciona evidencia empírica de que los auditores modifican el alcance del esfuerzo de auditoría en función del riesgo de auditoría percibido y pone en debate el trabajo de las pequeñas empresas. El análisis adicional muestra que el esfuerzo de la auditoría, medido a través de las horas, está significativamente influenciado por la antigüedad del encargo y el momento del trabajo de auditoría (es decir, la temporada alta de auditoría). Sin embargo, los trabajos de auditoría con una antigüedad más larga no ajustan su esfuerzo de auditoría en respuesta a una baja integridad de la administración o controles internos débiles, lo que sugiere familiaridad, esto es, los auditores pueden no ser tan escépticos con respecto a los incentivos de la administración. Este articulo contribuye al debate sobre la calidad de la auditoría y si el tamaño de las firmas de auditoría sirve como una característica observable asociada con una mayor calidad de la auditoría.

The role of e-learning in the existing and challenging educational era is crucial. However, it is necessary to overcome some drawbacks such as feelings of isolation and a lack of emotional contact. In this sense, emotion management is a key driver of student satisfaction in e-learning, which is significantly related to students’ motivation, learning, cognitive strategies, self-regulation, and personality antecedents in the classroom. This article examines an online postgraduate course in financial statements auditing, describing the resources used by the e-tutor to conduct affective tutorials, reduce students’ feelings of isolation, increase student involvement, and achieve success in e-learning. The results of a survey administered to 125 students over the period 2015 to 2020 indicate that students who receive emotional support have higher levels of satisfaction with the course in terms of all satisfaction indicators. In addition, female e-learning students are more satisfied with intensive e-tutor monitoring overall but are less gratified by non-face-to-face e-tools. Our study responds to the calls in the 2021–2027 Digital Education Action Plan to improve and reset education and training for the digital age.