Auditing Industry Expertise and Corporate Digital Transformation

This study employs a sample of listed companies in the A-share market of China from 2007 to 2022 to empirically investigate the relationship between auditors' industry expertise and enterprises' digital transformation. The empirical results show that auditors' industry expertise can effectively promote enterprises' digital transformation after being tested, and the agency cost plays a partial intermediary effect in it. The degree of earnings management and current violations by firms played a significant negative moderating role, with higher levels of earnings management and firms that committed violations in the current period able to weaken the association between auditors' industry expertise and the digital transformation of enterprises.