Investor sentiment and audit-related human resource input: Evidence from audit-related job postings

This paper finds that less favorable investor sentiment is associated with a higher level of audit-related job postings, driven by reduced corporate reputation, increased investor attention and greater regulatory pressure. Furthermore, the impact of investor sentiment on audit-related job postings is less pronounced when companies are audited by industry-specialist audit firms and more pronounced when the importance of clients to the audit firm is higher. The main findings remain robust after a series of endogeneity and robustness tests.