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Explaining municipal audit costs in Sweden : Reconsidering the political environment, the municipal organisation and the audit market

Collin, Sven Olof LU ; Haraldsson, Mattias LU ; Tagesson, Torbjörn LU and Blank, Veronica (2017) In Financial Accountability and Management 33(4). p.391-405
Abstract

With the purpose of explaining professional audit costs in Swedish municipalities, we hypothesised that audit costs are partly driven by various signalling and monitoring incentives in order to manage stakeholder relationships. Our model of the determinants of audit costs was tested on data from Swedish municipalities, thus extending the study of audit costs to political organisations in a Scandinavian institutional context. The test supported to some extent the traditional propositions of organisational complexity, risk and market determinants, as well as the proposition of the political environment. Our results indicate that audit costs are used to signal accountability, thereby suggesting that audit as a signal could be managed... (More)

With the purpose of explaining professional audit costs in Swedish municipalities, we hypothesised that audit costs are partly driven by various signalling and monitoring incentives in order to manage stakeholder relationships. Our model of the determinants of audit costs was tested on data from Swedish municipalities, thus extending the study of audit costs to political organisations in a Scandinavian institutional context. The test supported to some extent the traditional propositions of organisational complexity, risk and market determinants, as well as the proposition of the political environment. Our results indicate that audit costs are used to signal accountability, thereby suggesting that audit as a signal could be managed without managing professional auditors.

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Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Audit costs, Governance, Municipality, Sweden
in
Financial Accountability and Management
volume
33
issue
4
pages
391 - 405
publisher
Wiley-Blackwell
external identifiers
  • wos:000412104700004
  • scopus:85028695711
ISSN
0267-4424
DOI
10.1111/faam.12130
project
Public Management Research
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
20d85ca2-0f3c-4368-8a2a-7e6544880877
date added to LUP
2017-09-28 08:15:59
date last changed
2024-02-13 07:02:19
@article{20d85ca2-0f3c-4368-8a2a-7e6544880877,
  abstract     = {{<p>With the purpose of explaining professional audit costs in Swedish municipalities, we hypothesised that audit costs are partly driven by various signalling and monitoring incentives in order to manage stakeholder relationships. Our model of the determinants of audit costs was tested on data from Swedish municipalities, thus extending the study of audit costs to political organisations in a Scandinavian institutional context. The test supported to some extent the traditional propositions of organisational complexity, risk and market determinants, as well as the proposition of the political environment. Our results indicate that audit costs are used to signal accountability, thereby suggesting that audit as a signal could be managed without managing professional auditors.</p>}},
  author       = {{Collin, Sven Olof and Haraldsson, Mattias and Tagesson, Torbjörn and Blank, Veronica}},
  issn         = {{0267-4424}},
  keywords     = {{Audit costs; Governance; Municipality; Sweden}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{4}},
  pages        = {{391--405}},
  publisher    = {{Wiley-Blackwell}},
  series       = {{Financial Accountability and Management}},
  title        = {{Explaining municipal audit costs in Sweden : Reconsidering the political environment, the municipal organisation and the audit market}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/faam.12130}},
  doi          = {{10.1111/faam.12130}},
  volume       = {{33}},
  year         = {{2017}},
}