ABSTRACT

Title: The effect of regulatory reforms on audit quality in a lax enforcement and high trust environment: A quantitative study on Swedish companies                     

Level: Student thesis, final assignment for Master Programme in Business Administration 

Author: Julia Owczarek Blom 

Supervisor: Asif M Huq 

Date: 2023 - May

Aim: The aim of the study is to investigate the impact of regulatory changes on the consumption of non-audit services and the audit quality among the Swedish publicly listed firms on the Nasdaq Stockholm Stock Exchange. Specifically, the study focuses on whether there is a relationship between the 8th Directive on Statutory Audit and the EU Audit Package on non-audit services and the quality of audits. Furthermore, the study additionally investigates if the Swedish ownership structure has a negative impact on the audit quality among the companies. 

Method: The method used in this study is based on a quantitative approach where the final sample that is empirically tested includes 626 Swedish large-, mid-, and small-cap firms listed on the Swedish stock market, Nasdaq OMX Stockholm. Moreover, the data consist of 5517 firm years and annual reports between the years 2001 and 2021. 

Result and Conclusions: The result of this study suggests that the implementation of the 8th Directive on Statutory Audits has positively impacted audit quality, although it has not limited the consumption of non-audit services. Furthermore, the study further suggests that the EU Audit Package efficiently increased audit quality among the Swedish firms while, at the same time, decreasing the consumption of NAS. Although both regulations enhanced audit quality, the second regulatory change has been a lot more impactful than the previous one.

In addition, the findings of the study suggest that the Swedish ownership structure, consisting of a single or few strong shareholders and companies being majority family owned, has a positive impact on audit quality.

Contribution of the thesis: There have not been any studies investigating the impact of the 8th Directive and the EU Audit Package in a Swedish setting, and therefore this study provides insight on the topic. Furthermore, this is one of the first European studies investigating whether a concentrated ownership structure with the majority of firms being family owned has a positive or negative impact on audit quality.

Suggestions for future research: For future research, it would be interesting to complement this study through a qualitative method with surveys or interviews to see what kind of NAS is currently most consumed by Swedish companies.

Keywords: non-audit services, NAS, non-audit services in Sweden, audit fees, non-audit fees, auditor, audit quality, and auditor independence.