Sustainable development of the company implies achieving a balance in terms of economic, social and environmental activities with the aim of making optimal use of the entity's resources without ...harming the environment and through an active involvement of the company in society. To this end, an important role is played by the financial auditor, the guarantor of transparency in financial reporting and an active player in enforcing discipline in sustainable reporting. Through the audit report, including the opinion expressed, the auditor contributes to the credibility of the audited financial statements and inspires confidence in all users. The purpose of this study is to test the influence of the audit opinion and the auditor's membership of the Big4 group of companies on key indicators of financial position and performance, as well as on the use of performance management operations. The study also tested the influence of the audit opinion, in conjunction with the influence of key financial indicators, on the probability of reporting Key Audit Matters (KAM) related to earnings management operations or going concern. The study was conducted at the level of Romanian companies listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BSE) – Regulated Market, in the period 2012-2022. Using advanced statistical methods of data analysis, the main results of the study indicate the existence of a significant influence of the previous year's audit opinion expressed by a particular type of auditor on key indicators of financial position and performance, as well as on discretionary accruals. At the same time, the prior year audit opinion as well as the current year values of the key financial indicators analysed have a significant influence on the probability of reporting on Key Audit Matters (KAM) related to earnings management operations or going concern.
Risk is one of the most controversial elements that auditors face in audit missions. This refers to the probability that significant misstatements will exist in the financial statements of companies, ...and the auditor will issue an unqualified opinion, therefore an erroneous opinion. For the auditor, the audit risk can be considered an economic risk, which requires the professional accountant to try to minimize this risk. Accurate identification and evaluation of the risk factors that characterize the three components of the Audit Risk - Inherent Risk, Control Risk and Detection Risk - contribute to a rigorous planning of the audit approach. In other words, the identified risks will be the basis for orienting the auditor's efforts towards those areas where distortions can lead to the alteration of the true image reported by the users' financial statements. In this study are identified and prioritized, based on financial reports in general, and of the audit, in particular the risk factors that characterize Audit Risk on three components: Inherent Risk, Control Risk and Detection Risk. The sample studied is represented by companies listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange on the regulated market, and the cause-effect analysis, but also cross-sectional analysis takes into account the period 2019-2020, before the crisis caused by Covid-19 and year of installation of the crisis. By testing and validating research hypotheses using regression methods and multivariate data analysis, it is highlighted that a ranking of audit risk components can be made, the inherent risk having a greater influence on audit planning than control risks and detection risks. Also, at the level of the analyzed sample, a company profile is identified, depending on the object of activity, auditor, the size of the audit risk and the opinion formulated in the audit report for the financial year closed at the end of 2020.
In today's unstable environment, one of the overarching principles for financial reporting of major importance to users of financial statements is going concern. The management of companies is ...responsible for disclosing information about whether the entity is a going concern or not. In addition, financial auditors must also obtain sufficient and reliable evidence to support their audit opinion on the appropriateness of management's use of the going concern principle in the preparation of financial statements. This study considers the following directions: it first investigates the extent to which financial auditors confirm management's use of the going concern principle in the preparation of the annual financial statements; it then tests the asymmetric relationship between going concern and earnings reporting and between going concern and loss reporting; finally, it seeks to identify the extent to which going concern issues at company level identified by the auditor, loss reporting and negative equity influence the type of audit opinion issued. The sample is represented by companies listed on the regulated market of the BSE in the period 2016-2021 and highlights that the accuracy of the use of the going concern principle in the preparation of financial statements by management is often refuted by financial auditors, that there are business areas in which there are entities for which going concern problems have been reported in one period, but rather gains are reported in the immediately following period, and for other business areas, there are entities for which no going concern problems have been reported and they report losses in subsequent periods. Also, the processing carried out showed that the type of audit opinion depends mainly on the sign of equity and the existence of going concern issues.
Over the last decades, all countries have pursued an ambitious climate policy, thus showing a growing concern about climate change, global warming, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, or environmental ...taxes. Water, air, and soil pollution caused by gas emissions directly affect human health, but also the economies of states. As people’s ability to adapt to novel changes becomes increasingly difficult, globally, they are constantly trying to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in a variety of ways. Environmental taxes, in general, and energy taxes, in particular, are considered effective tools, being recommended by specialists, among other instruments used in environmental policy. The aim of this research is to assess, empirically, the influence of environmental taxes levels on greenhouse gas emissions in 28 European countries, with a time span between 1995 and 2019. Regarding the empirical research, the proposed methods are related to Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) models in panel data and also at country level. At panel level, we used the estimation of non-stationary heterogeneous panels and also the dynamic common-correlated effects model with heterogeneous coefficients over cross-sectional units and time periods. The results obtained show that the increase in environmental taxes leads, in most countries, to a decrease in greenhouse gas emissions. To test the robustness of our results, we have included supplementary economic and social control variables in the model, such as gross domestic product (GDP), population density, exports, or imports. Overall, our paper focuses on the role of environmental policy decisions on greenhouse gas emissions, the results of the study showing, in most cases, an inverse impact of the taxation level on the reduction of gas emissions.
Gender differences can be explained by the level of development of a state, by the perception of employers, but also by the attitude of men and women towards the labor market. In recent years, more ...and more women are working in the accounting and auditing profession, but not necessarily in top-management. The quality of engagements in the field of accounting and auditing can be influenced by the characteristics that women can have compared to men, to be more conservativ, attentive, rigorous, with a great capacity for work, practicality and sociability. This study aims to what extent the existence of gender differences influences the quality of audit engagements in Romania, performed at the level of companies listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange – Regulated Market. As a variable, the quality of the audit is determined by using a model for estimating discretionary accruals, taking into account the type of audit opinion. The results show that the probability of expression a modified opinion is significantly influenced by the detection of accounting distortions in the conditions of gender differences.
Purpose
Patient-specific instruments (PSI) have been designed to improve the accuracy of performing opening-wedge high-tibial osteotomies (OW-HTO). This study aims to evaluate the lower limb ...alignment, by comparing pre-operative desired correction to post-operative achieved correction, the difference in surgical time and number of radiological exposures in OW-HTO using patient-specific instruments (PSI) versus conventional osteotomies and the specific and non-specific complications that occurred.
Methods
We performed a single-centre, retrospective, observational study, including 25 consecutive patients undergoing OW-HTO using PSI, from January 2019 to October 2020.
Results
Pre-operatively, the mean hip-knee angle (HKA) was 167°, the mean tibial slope was 7.9° and the mean medial proximal tibial angle (MPTA) was 82.5°. Post-operatively, the mean HKA was 182.2° (180.1–184.7°), the tibial slope was 6.5° (4.2–12.9°) and the MPTA was 92.8° (90.6–93°). In both coronal and sagittal plane, all knees were within 2° from the planned value. The mean tourniquet time, by which the surgical time was measured, was 40 minutes and the average number of intra-operative fluoroscopic images was 10 (range: 7–14), significantly less than when using conventional techniques.
Conclusions
The use of PSI in OW-HTO allows accurate achievement of the desired correction, while shortening the OR time. The number of radiological exposures is also decreased, in comparison with the conventional osteotomies.
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