“Internet+”, Entrepreneurs’ Investment and Audit Fee

Abstract

In the Internet era, the real economy and the internet are deeply integrated, and the “Internet+” business model comes into being. Under the modern risk-oriented theory, the risk of customer material misstatement becomes an important factor that auditors focus on, and also becomes the starting point of audit execution and audit pricing. Investment behavior is certainly a factor that auditors need to mainly focus on when assessing the risk of material misstatement. Based on the background of the enterprise’s implementation of the internet business model and drawing on the existing research results at home and abroad, this paper takes the non-state-owned listed companies in 2013-2018 as the research sample, and uses the modern audit risk-oriented theory. The investment behavior is divided into two parts—the financial investment and long-term equity investment to research the impact of the two types of investment on the audit fees from the theoretical and empirical perspectives. Besides, we also analyze the adjustment effect of “Internet+” on the relationship between investment behavior and audit fees. Studies have shown that the level of enterprises’ investment will significantly increase audit costs. Further research shows that “Internet+” strengthens the relationship between corporate investment behavior and audit fees.