The professional specialization of the external auditor and its impact on financial performance

Abstract

: The research seeks to shed light on the intellectual framework of the auditor’s professional specialization, know its importance, and the approaches to measuring it, and study the extent of the impact of its elements on financial performance, by applying it to 5 private commercial banks whose shares are listed on the Iraq Stock Exchange for the period extending from 2020-2022.

  The variables were measured quantitatively, based on the data of the annual financial reports of a sample of Iraqi banks listed on the Iraqi Stock Exchange, relying on the weighted market share measure that is extracted through the product of multiplying the market share percentage by the portfolio share percentage to measure the level of professional specialization of offices and companies. The audit practiced auditing the selected banks in the research sample, and Tobin's Q model was relied upon to measure the financial performance of the banks in the research sample by dividing the ratio of the market value of the company's outstanding shares plus total liabilities by the total assets at book value. Among the most important findings of the research is that professional specialization leads The external auditor has an important role in enhancing the company’s performance because it contributes to maintaining confidence in the credibility and integrity of financial reports, through the knowledge and professional competence of the auditor, which increases his ability to detect illegal actions in the financial statements, which creates a kind of confidence among the relevant parties, which reflects positively. on the company's performance and growth, and the results of the statistical analysis showed that there is no effect of the professional specialization of the external auditor on financial performance