Auditing, Financial Distress and Auditor Switching of Listed Companies: An Empirical Research Based on Data from 2000 to 2003

The markets, investors and researchers have paid more and more attention to auditor switching.In this paper we develop eight hypotheses,based on overseas relevant researches and characteristics of Chinese stock market and listed companies, and do hypotheses tests with Logistic regression models to examine the relationship between modified audit opinions, auditor size, financial distress, audit delay and auditor switching on the base of Chinese listed companies data from 2000 to 2003.To sum up Logistic regression results,we can conclude that ceteris paribus, the frequency of auditor switching is positively associated with receiving modified audit opinions in this year and last year, annual reports disclosure delay of this year and last year and ST institution, and negatively associated with operating cash flow per share, auditor size and firm size.