Table 2 Definition of variables... | Emerald Publishing

Table 2

Definition of variables

Variables	Description	Notation	Expected relationship	Reference
Dependent variable (audit report lag)
Audit report lag	Natural logarithm of difference between end of the financial year and the day external auditor signs the audit report	ARL
Explanatory variables (audit committee characteristics)
Audit committee size	Number of members in the audit committee	ACSIZE	+/−	Sultana et al. (2015) and Raweh et al. (2019)
Audit committee independence	Proportion of independent directors in the audit committee	ACIND	–	Sultana et al. (2015) and Raweh et al. (2019)
Audit committee gender diversity	Proportion of female directors in the audit committee	ACGD	+/−	Sultana et al. (2015)
Audit committee diligence	Number of audit committee meetings held in a financial year	ACD	–	Sultana et al. (2015) and Raweh et al. (2019)
Audit committee expertise	Number of audit committee members with professional expertise (professional affiliations like CA, CMA, CFA, etc.)	ACE	–	Sultana et al. (2015) and Raweh et al. (2019)
Control variables
Big 4 audit firm	Dummy variable with an assigned value of 1 if the client is audited by a Big 4 audit firm, otherwise 0	BIG4	–	Sultana et al. (2015) and Habib et al. (2019)
Audit report type	Dummy variable with an assigned value of 1 if the auditor issues a qualified report, otherwise 0	ART	–	Habib et al. (2019)
Firm size	Natural logarithm of total book value of asset	FSIZE	–	Habib et al. (2019)
Leverage	Ratio of total book value of debt to total book value of asset	LEV	+	Habib et al. (2019)
Profitability	Ratio of profit before tax to total asset	ROA	–	Habib et al. (2019)

Variables	Description	Notation	Expected relationship	Reference
Dependent variable (audit report lag)
Audit report lag	Natural logarithm of difference between end of the financial year and the day external auditor signs the audit report	ARL
Explanatory variables (audit committee characteristics)
Audit committee size	Number of members in the audit committee	ACSIZE	+/−	Sultana et al. (2015) andRaweh et al. (2019)
Audit committee independence	Proportion of independent directors in the audit committee	ACIND	–	Sultana et al. (2015) andRaweh et al. (2019)
Audit committee gender diversity	Proportion of female directors in the audit committee	ACGD	+/−	Sultana et al. (2015)
Audit committee diligence	Number of audit committee meetings held in a financial year	ACD	–	Sultana et al. (2015) andRaweh et al. (2019)
Audit committee expertise	Number of audit committee members with professional expertise (professional affiliations like CA, CMA, CFA, etc.)	ACE	–	Sultana et al. (2015) andRaweh et al. (2019)
Control variables
Big 4 audit firm	Dummy variable with an assigned value of 1 if the client is audited by a Big 4 audit firm, otherwise 0	BIG4	–	Sultana et al. (2015) andHabib et al. (2019)
Audit report type	Dummy variable with an assigned value of 1 if the auditor issues a qualified report, otherwise 0	ART	–	Habib et al. (2019)
Firm size	Natural logarithm of total book value of asset	FSIZE	–	Habib et al. (2019)
Leverage	Ratio of total book value of debt to total book value of asset	LEV	+	Habib et al. (2019)
Profitability	Ratio of profit before tax to total asset	ROA	–	Habib et al. (2019)

Source(s): Authors’ own creation