The impact of ownership structure on external audit quality: A comparative study between Egypt and Saudi Arabia

The objective of this study is to investigate the effect of the ownership structure, which includes concentration ownership, institutional ownership and foreign ownership in the light of the debt ratio and company size as controlling variables in limiting the earnings management practices of the Jordanian industrial companies for the period 2012–2016. The hypotheses of the study were tested using the multiple regression models. Among the most prominent findings of the study are: the explanatory factor (R2) for the independent and control variables accounts for 38% of the change in the earnings management of the Jordanian industrial companies, moreover, a significant effect of the concentration ownership was found in the limitation of earnings management practices; while, there was no significant influence of institutional ownership and foreign ownership on the earnings management practices in Jordanian industrial companies. Major limitation to this study is the only considered listed industrial Jordanian firms. Thus, the generalization of the results to other sectors and diverse economic conditions and regulations may be constrained. Finally, Jordanian policymaker reform policies motivate companies to increase their interest on concentration ownership structure, as the study showed the significant effect of the concentration ownership in the limitation of earnings management practice.

This literature review evaluates empirical studies which concentrate on economic effects on joint audits from an international perspective. We briefly introduce the theoretical and empirical joint audit framework that comprises an adequate structure of the state-of-the-art of empirical research in this field. This is followed by a discussion of the following output factors of joint audits: (1) audit quality; (2) audit costs and (3) audit market concentration. We will summarize the key findings in each area, and provide a description of the analyzed proxies. Finally, we will discuss the current limitations of the studies and give useful recommendations for future empirical research activities in this topic.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the performance of banks in Indonesia. Specifically, this study has examined the static effect of ownership structure on bank performance in Indonesia over the period 1995–2006. The sample consists of 74 banks, namely 56 private banks, 15 community development banks (BPD), and three federal banks from 1995 to 2006. The data was analyzed using least-squares regression method, the general least squares method, and the method of random effects. The findings of this study show that the BPD performed better compared to private banks. This indicates that BPDs have better performance rather than private banks which is due to the fact that customers can be able to pay loans, they have special knowledge on that area and the performance of BPD is supervised by local government. In addition, the amount of equity, economic growth, financial crisis, and the financial ratios affect the performance of the bank. However, bank status has no effect on bank performance.