We examine the relative importance of audit firm versus partner decision styles in key audit matter (KAM) reporting. Standard setters intended KAMs to increase the usefulness of the audit report by requiring the partner-led engagement team to disclose engagement-specific information about the most significant judgments they made during the audit. However, stakeholders expressed widespread concern that audit firms' longstanding efforts toward standardization would result in generic KAMs at the audit firm level and provide partners little opportunity or incentive for engagement-specific reporting. We evaluate this high-stakes tension between standard setters' goals for audit reporting and auditors' deep-rooted practices by leveraging data from the United Kingdom, which has required partner identification since 2009 and expanded audit reports since 2013. We find that clients sharing the same partner receive KAMs that are 10% more textually similar than clients with different partners. In contrast, clients sharing the same audit firm receive KAMs that are just 2% more textually similar than clients with different audit firms. This implies that partner decision styles are more important in influencing KAM outcomes than audit firm styles. Collectively, our results suggest that partners make unique KAM reporting judgments, countering concerns that audit firms' efforts toward standardization will yield boilerplate KAMs. This evidence extends the literature on expanded audit reporting and partner decision styles and provides valuable insights into a contemporary issue in audit regulation with broader implications for understanding dynamics within the profession.

中文翻译：

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这是风格问题：审计事务所和审计合伙人在关键审计事项报告中的作用

我们研究了审计公司与合伙人决策风格在关键审计事项 (KAM) 报告中的相对重要性。标准制定者希望 KAM 要求合作伙伴领导的项目团队披露有关他们在审计过程中做出的最重要判断的特定项目信息，从而提高审计报告的有用性。然而，利益相关者普遍担心，审计公司长期以来为标准化所做的努力将导致审计公司层面的通用关键审计管理（KAM），并且为合作伙伴提供很少的机会或动力来进行特定业务的报告。我们利用英国的数据来评估审计报告标准制定者的目标与审计师根深蒂固的实践之间的这种高风险紧张关系，英国自 2009 年以来就要求进行合作伙伴识别，并自 2013 年以来扩大了审计报告范围。我们发现，客户共享同一合作伙伴收到的 KAM 文本相似度比不同合作伙伴的客户高 10%。相比之下，同一家审计公司的客户收到的 KAM 文本相似度仅比不同审计公司的客户高 2%。这意味着合作伙伴的决策风格在影响 KAM 结果方面比审计公司的风格更重要。总的来说，我们的结果表明，合作伙伴做出了独特的 KAM 报告判断，反驳了审计公司标准化工作将产生样板 KAM 的担忧。这些证据扩展了有关扩展审计报告和合作伙伴决策风格的文献，并为审计监管的当代问题提供了宝贵的见解，对理解行业内的动态具有更广泛的影响。