The Influence of a Family Firm Structure on Auditor Judgments: Effects of Managerial Control and Ownership Concentration

We employ an experiment with experienced Chinese auditors to examine how family firm structures influence auditors' reliance on management's explanations for evidence and their assessments of fraud risk. Our findings indicate that for firms with family ownership, high levels of family managerial control cause auditors to rely less on management's explanations and assess higher levels of fraud risk when a firm's control environment is strong. However, when the control environment is weak, auditors' judgments are not influenced by family firm structure.