The Influence of Audit Committee Characteristics on Audit Quality: An Empirical Examination of Listed Firms in Ghana.

Abstract

The aim of this study was to examine the impacts of the characteristics of audit committee (AC) on audit quality in Ghana, using empirical evidence from listed firms in Ghana. The study adopted the quantitative research approach and targeted all listed firms in Ghana but purposively selected 34 listed firms. The data was collected from the financial statements of the selected sampled firms of four (4) years, thereby resulting in 136 yearly observations. The data was analyzed using binary logistic regression. The study found that AC size and independence significantly contributed to the prediction of audit quality. Also, although AC expertise showed a direct influence on audit quality, the result was not statistically significant while gender diversity of AC made a significant negative contribution to the prediction of audit quality. Furthermore, firm size and corporate board size as control variables made insignificant contributions. The study proposed the following recommendations: First, management and boards of the listed firms should increase the size of their AC to help guarantee the quality of their audit reports. Second, the board of listed firms should ensure that most of the members of the audit sub-committee are non-executive or independent directors. Third, although AC expertise has made insignificant contributions to the prediction of audit quality, the study argued that its contribution could become significant, if the current low representation of experts on AC of listed firms could be increased. The results of this study are however limited to the 34 sampled listed firms in Ghana due to non-availability of data at the time of this research.