The Association between Auditor Industry Specialization and Firms' Disclosure of Internal Control Weaknesses

In this paper, we examine the association between auditor industry specialization and the disclosure of internal control weaknesses (ICWs) by firms that filed first-time Section 404 reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Using both univariate and logistic regression analyses, we find that firms audited by industry specialist auditors are more likely to report ICWs than firms audited by non-specialist auditors. Our results therefore provide further evidence that industry specialist auditors are quality differentiated.