تاثیر کمیته حسابرسی و به موقع بودن گزارشگری مالی: تونس Audit committee effectiveness and financial reporting timeliness: The case of Tunisian listed companies

1. Introduction Timeliness has long been recognized as one of the important aspects of financial reporting (IASB, 2010; FASB, 2010; Sultana, Singh and Van der Zahn, 2015, Ika and Ghazali, 2012; Abbott, Parker and Peters, 2012; Nelson and Shukeri, 2011). This qualitative attribute suggests that an audit report “must be made available before it loses its ability to influence the decision makers” (Delaney, Epstein, Adler and Foran, 1997, p. 24). In the emerging capital markets, financial reporting is the primary source of information available to shareholders (Al-Ajmi, 2008). It follows that timely publication of the audited financial statements in the annual report affects its decision-making utility (Piot, 2008) and reduces information asymmetry among stakeholders in the capital market (Owusu-Ansah and Leventis, 2006). However, the timely publication of corporate financial information depends on the time taken by the external auditor to complete the audit process (Leventis, Caramanis, and Weetman, 2005; Van Beest, Braam and Boelens, 2009). Consequently, there is pressure on the external auditor to issue the audit report without undue delay. Academic research and regulatory bodies have become increasingly concerned with the varying factors influencing audit delay as well as the development of effective corporate governance and financial reporting quality. Prior studies have investigated a number of factors associated with the time taken by the external auditor to issue the audit report (e.g., Hassan, 2016; Baatwah, Salleh and Ahmad, 2015; Sultana et al., 2015; Ettredge, Li and Sun, 2006; Sengupta, 2004) but little research has investigated the association between audit committee characteristics and financial reporting timeliness. Moreover, empirical studies examining the role of the audit committee in audit report timeliness remain scant and are largely limited to developed countries where corporate governance quality is generally much higher. Sultana et al. (2015) and Bédard and Gendron (2010) highlight the need to study the linkage between audit committee effectiveness and external audit delay. As such, research examining the influence of audit committee characteristics on audit delay certainly requires in-depth investigation and provides the motivation for this study.