DETERMINANTS OF THE SIGNING DELAY OF INDEPENDENT AUDIT REPORTS IN PUBLIC COMPANIES
Independent audit; Audit report lag; Publicly traded companies.
This study aims to analyze the determinants of the Audit Report Lag (ARL) in Brazilian publicly traded companies listed on B3. The research is primarily grounded in Agency Theory and is further supported by Regulation Theory and Signaling Theory, which help explain the determinants of the timeliness of audited financial statement disclosure. To achieve the proposed objectives, nine research hypotheses were formulated that investigate the relationship between the report signing delay and the following factors: (I) the firm size; (II) the auditor change; (III) the gender of the engagement partner; (IV) the existence of an audit committee; (V) the type of audit opinion issued; (VI) the engagement of Big Four audit firms; (VII) the listing in the Novo Mercado segment; (VIII) the company's subjection to regulation by more than one agency; and (IX) the company’s status in judicial reorganization proceedings. The methodological approach employs balanced panel data analysis covering the period from 2010 to 2024, which allows for the examination of these variables’ behavior over time.