CEO narcisista e honorários de auditoria

Abstract

Studies claim that executives with narcissistic personalities have a strong influence on how companies can induce unethical behavior, thus reflecting on risks and fraud (APOSTOLOU et al., 2013; COHEN; KRISHNAMOORTHY; WRIGHT, 2002), manipulation of information in financial-accounting reports and internal controls (AMERNIC; CRAIG, 2010; ANDERSON; TIRRELL, 2004). Considering that the audit has the responsibility to assure users that the accounting and financial information declared by the companies is true (HASSAN; NASER, 2013), imparting credibility and confidence to the market, when providing services to companies with narcissistic CEOs, auditors need to increase the scope of work and the level of scrutiny, in order to reduce the overall audit risk to an acceptable level (APOSTOLOU; et al., 2013; BEAULIEU, 2001; CHEN; GUL; TSUI, 2003; KIZIRIAN; MAYHEW; SNEATHEN, 2005), thus being able to generate an increase in their fees. So, it is believed that narcissistic CEOs influence the determination of audit fees, and that, due to the narcissistic traits of the executives, aspects such as internal control, customer risk and their complexity, can also increase these fees. In the light of the assumptions of the theory of high scheduling, an end of scope or study objective - to analyze a relationship between a narcissistic personality of CEOs and auditors' fees -, to carry out a descriptive research, with a quantitative approach, from a data collection in a sample of 181 companies listed in Brazil, Bolsa, Balcão - B3 SA, with Conde Law system, with no period from 2015 to 2018. For data treatment, the difference test between mean (T Student), multiple regression and mediation analysis was used, the Breusch-Godfrey, Breusch-Pagan, Variance inflation factor test (vif test) was applied and Shapiro-Wilk, to confirm or refute the relationship between narcissistic CEOs and audit fees. The results show that narcissistic CEOs positively influence audit fees. As for the mediation analysis, it was found that there is an influence of narcissistic CEOs on internal controls (audit committee), thus reflecting on audit fees. Thus, it is inferred that the factors internal control (material weakness and significant deficiency), client risk and complexity are not mediating variables. Thus, the hypothesis that narcissistic CEOs influence auditor fees is confirmed and the hypotheses regarding material weakness and significant deficiencies (internal control), client risk and complexity as mediating variables are refuted.