International Journal of Accounting and Taxation

An Empirical Investigation into the Pricing of Audit Services in Bahraini Listed Companies
Hussein Khasharmeh

Abstract
The current study aimed to investigate the factors influencing the pricing of audit services from the viewpoints of financial managers, accountants, and internal auditors who are working in listed companies in Bahrain. To achieve this aim, a questionnaire was used in the study. In addition to descriptive statistics, non-parametric tests such as the Chi-square Test were used. The results of descriptive analysis showed that all of the questions (1-33) in all groups prove to be important factors that affect pricing of audit services in Bahraini listed companies with the average means ranging from 3.43 to 4.5 and standard deviations ranging from 0.47434 to 0.63851. The results of the Chi-square test confirmed the results of descriptive statistics that all questions were significant for the seven groups (p < 0.05) indicating that respondents‟ answers for each question were not equally distributed among the different levels of agreement on determinants of auditor‟s fees in listed companies in Bahrain in all groups. Thus, the respondents‟ answers were not equally distributed among the different levels of agreement on the factors affected pricing of audit services in Bahraini listed companies in all groups. Based on the results of the Chi-square Test, all of the hypotheses developed (H1 – H7) are accepted. The study recommended that future research is needed to investigate this issue in other developing countries in general and GCC countries in particular. The study also suggested that other respondent groups such as external auditors, shareholders, regulators and members of the audit committees might be included in future research.

Full Text: PDF     DOI: 10.15640/ijat.v6n1a8