محمدعلی باقرپور ولاشانی

Purpose- The present study aims to figure out whether audit market competition and large shareholders and auditor’s interlock(Interlocking) is associated with the quality of financial reporting or not. Design/Methodology/Approach - The auditor’s concentration is used for audit market competition for this study's purpose. The absolute value of accruals is employed for measuring the financial reporting quality. The required information is collected from 112 listed companies on the Tehran Stock Exchange from 2012-2018 and analyzed using the pooled regression model. Findings - The study results show that auditor’s competition is associated positively with accruals and negatively and significantly with financial reporting quality. The findings also indicate that the quality of financial reporting goes up by declining competition in the audit market and increasing the auditors' interlock and large shareholders. Originality/value - In contrast to the conducted studies on different types of interlock, this paper has focused on the interlock of large shareholders and auditors in an emerging market with increased competition

The study aims to investigate and comparatively identify the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on fraudulent reporting motives in three emerging markets, namely Iran, Iraq, and Egypt. The present research method is a descriptive survey. The statistical population consists of independent auditors in three countries, and field methods and questionnaires have been used to collect data. The results indicate that COVID-19 pandemic affects management motives for committing fraud. They include respectively: sudden personal financial needs, need to receive financial resources for firm, pressure from owners in family companies, tax incentives, greed, government pressure in state-owned firms, concealing financial distress, avoidance of exclusion or deterioration in stock market, trust and self-esteem, tendency to increase compensation/payment of the management, pressure due to threats and compulsion, concealment of personal and illegal exploitation of assets, implementation or going beyond analysts’ forecasts, high levels of market competition, revenge, manager’s culture and values, management ideology or beliefs, and comparison of social status. This is the first study to investigate and compare the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on fraudulent reporting incentives in emerging markets. Further, this study was conducted in three countries of Iran, Iraq, and Egypt, which have different contextual conditions (political, economic, cultural, etc.), indicating the impact of environmental conditions on the effects of Covid outbreaks. It can help stakeholders, including legislators,  capital market regulators and auditors in other markets, especially emerging markets, to deal with the risk of fraudulent reporting during the COVID -19 and other similar crises.