This study explores the effect of intangible assets and sub-components of intangible assets on sustainable growth and firm value in Turkey. The cumulative (i.e., aggregative) value of intangible assets of firms and sub-components of intangible assets were used as test variables in the current study. Further, intangible assets of the firms were divided into three sub-components using the classification of Corrado, Hulten and Sichel, namely computerized information and database, innovative property, and economic competence. Firms listed on Borsa İstanbul were analyzed to test the hypotheses. Two different measures of sustainable growth of firms and unique measure of firm value were used as dependent variables. The final sample includes 1353 observations for nine years between 2005–2013 in Turkey. Ordinary least square (OLS) and Heckman two-stage estimation procedures were employed to test the hypotheses. Estimation results of OLS and Heckman two-stage procedures show that the cumulative value of intangible assets affect the sustainable growth rates of firms and firm value positively. When the cumulative value of intangible assets was classified into three sub-components, both computerized information and database and economic competence impact the sustainable growth rates of firms and firm value.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of signing auditor-specific characteristics on the audit report lag using 968 firm-year observations from Borsa İstanbul in the period 2008-2013. The main findings indicate that the gender and education level of signing auditor have a positive effect on audit report lag. Also big4 audit firms in Turkey encourage auditees to present financial statements timely and they play a substantial role in the reporting. Audit opinion directly affects audit report lag. Firm performance and firm age inversely affect audit report lag. Moreover, big 4’s female signing auditors lead to more audit delay. The higher educational level of signing auditors leads to more audit report lag. Signing auditors who hold master’s or Ph.D. degrees and also female signing auditors are associated with more audit report lag in firms audited by big4 and non-big4 firms.

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Purpose Recent studies regarding auditor experience generally focus on auditor overall experience in accounting, auditing, finance and related fields (Hardies et al., 2014), auditor sector and domain experience (Bedard and Biggs, 1991; Hammersley, 2006), auditor experience as CPA (Ye et al., 2014; Sonu et al., 2016) or big N experience (Chi and Huang, 2005; Gul et al., 2013; Zimmerman, 2016) or auditors’ international working experience (Chen et al., 2017). But there is little attention paid to where auditors obtained their experience from? And how do auditors with government experience affect audit quality (AQ)? This paper aims to present the effect of auditors with government experience on AQ. Design/methodology/approach The authors used Turkish publicly traded firms in Borsa Istanbul between the year 2008 and 2015 to test the hypothesis. The sample comprises 1,067 observations and eight years. Two main proxies of government experience are used in this paper. The first proxy is auditor’s government experience in the past. The second proxy is the continuous variable which is “the logarithmic value of the number of years of government experience”. Further, auditor overall experience in auditing, accounting, finance and other related fields are also used as a control variable. Audit reporting aggressiveness, audit reporting lag and discretionary accruals are used as proxies of AQ. Besides this, the authors adopted the model to estimate the probability of selecting a government-experienced auditor, and they presented the regression results with the addition of inverse Mills ratio. Findings The main findings are consistent with conjecture. Government-experienced auditors do not enhance AQ. They are aggressive, and they complete audit work slowly and they cannot detect discretionary accruals effectively. Spending more time in a government agency makes them more aggressive and slow, and they do not detect earnings management practices. The Heckman estimation results regarding the variable of interest are also consistent with the main estimation results. In addition, the authors found in predicting government-experienced auditor choice that family firms, domestic firms and firms that reported losses (larger firms, older firms) are more (less) likely to choose government-experienced auditors. Research limitations/implications This study has some limitations. The authors used a small sample to test the impact of government-experienced auditors on AQ because of data access problems. Much data used in this study were collected manually. Earnings quality was calculated using only discretionary accruals. Real activities manipulation was not used as the proxy of AQ in this paper. The findings from emerging markets might not generalize to the developed countries because the Turkish audit market is developing compared to Continental Europe or USA. Practical implications The findings are considered for independent audit firms. Audit firms may employ new graduates and train them to offer more qualified audit work for their clients. The results do not mean that government-experienced auditors should not work in an audit firm, or that they should not establish an audit firm. It is clear that government-experienced auditors provide low AQ in terms of audit reporting aggressiveness, audit report lag and discretionary accruals. But as they operate more in the independent audit sector, they will become successful and provide qualified audit work. One other thing we can say is that it is perhaps better for government-experienced auditors to work in the tax department of independent audit firms. Originality/value This paper tries to fill the gap in the literature regarding the effect of auditor experience on AQ and concentrates on a different type of experience: Auditors with government experience.

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