The Effect of CEO Overconfidence and Turnaround Plan on Audit Reporting for Distressed Companies

Abstract

The objective of this research is to investigate the effect of CEO’s overconfidence and different turnaround plan on the auditor‘s audit report decision. Using a sample of 2002-2012 S&P 1500 distressed firms, The empirical results show that when overconfidence CEO imply both short-term cash flow potential and long-term cash flow potential strategic turnaround plan, will have a mitigating impact on the auditor’s going concern decision. The results suggest that auditor will include CEO’s overconfidence factor in the evaluation of strategic and operating turnaround plan and have different impact on the auditor’s going concern decision.