Chairman’s Cultural Background Characteristics and Audit Fees: Based on Chinese Listed Companies

Abstract

Based on the panel data of Chinese listed companies spanning the period 1999-2015, this paper investigates the effects of Chairman’s cultural background characteristics on audit fees. The results show that Chairman’s cultural background characteristics significantly affect the company’s audit fees, the Chairman with the nomadic culture background compared with who with cultivation culture background tends to pay lower audit fees, and the relationship above is enhanced when the company’s Chairman and CEO is the same person. Furthermore, this paper finds that the bigger the board size, or the longer the Chairman’s tenure, the lower the audit fees the company whose Chairman has the nomadic culture background will pay.