Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

• zahra joudaki chegeni ¹
• mohammad hossein safarzadeh ²
• Hamideh AsnaAshari ³
• Fakhroddin MohammadRezaei ⁴

¹ Ph.D. Student, Faculty of Management and Accounting, University of Shahid Beheshti, Tehran, Iran

² Associate Prof , Faculty of Management and Accounting,University of Shahid Beheshti, Tehran, Iran

³ Assistant Prof , Faculty of Management and Accounting, University of Shahid Beheshti, Tehran, Iran

⁴ phd.accounting, Faculty of Finance, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Abstract

Considering the scientific and practical significance of research in this field, conducting a bibliometric analysis aimed at mapping the global status, trends, factors, and bibliographic relationships within this domain is a necessity that has not been comprehensively addressed so far. In this study, articles published in the research domain were collected from the Scopus database spanning the years 1986 to 2024. Subsequently, for a more focused analysis, 38 articles closely aligned with this area were selected. The VOSviewer software was employed for the bibliometric analysis. Based on the bibliometric analysis, the keyword "merger" emerged as a core term, surrounded by other closely related major nodes such as "audit firm merger," "audit quality," "audit fees," "audit efficiency," and "competition," all directly linked to the main research theme. The United States, the Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory, and the domains of business, management, and accounting were identified as the most influential in this research area. Additionally, among researchers, Moroney exhibited the highest level of collaboration with Simnett and Thavapalan. This study elucidates the intellectual and conceptual structure of audit firm mergers, highlighting emerging topics such as auditor-client alignment, audit regulation, market share, auditor switching, and audit efficiency. The findings of this research provide a relatively comprehensive overview of the literature on audit firm mergers throughout its evolution, offering future research directions for scholars.

Keywords: Audit firm mergers, bibliometric analysis, global trends, intellectual structure, keyword co-occurrence.

Introduction: Regulators and critics of mergers often express concern that a merged audit firm, due to its better market position, may harm its clients. Following a merger, the number of audit service providers decreases, making it more difficult for audit clients to switch to an alternative and appropriate audit firm with more reasonable audit costs. The merger of audit firms has become one of the key concerns in the auditing profession and has attracted the attention of recent research. Studies related to the merger of audit firms can be categorized into several phases. These phases include the pre-merger stage (antecedents), the merger stage (agreements), and the post-merger stage (consequences). A review of prior research suggests that the post-merger phase of audit firms has predominantly been the focus of researchers. Despite numerous studies on the consequences of audit firm mergers, a research gap is observed in the area of antecedents and agreements in these mergers. Therefore, given the scientific and practical importance of research in this field, a bibliometric analysis aimed at mapping the global discourse on audit firm mergers and their bibliographic relationships is essential, a topic that has not been thoroughly explored. This study, by providing a comprehensive overview of the status of audit firm merger research, identifying existing gaps in the literature, and revealing future research trends, serves as a valuable resource for researchers. Moreover, the present study highlights the trends and progression of research related to the literature on audit firm mergers.

Method: The present study employs a bibliometric methodology within a literature review approach. This quantitative method of reviewing the literature advances the intellectual structures and evolution of a specific academic field. It aids in visualizing data and performing thematic analyses to better understand the content of research on the discourse surrounding audit firm mergers. Additionally, it provides positive and valuable insights for researchers in this domain. In this paper, the process of identifying, screening, qualifying, and analyzing data was systematically conducted. The researchers initiated the process by selecting the Scopus database to collect information from relevant articles. Scopus was chosen as the bibliometric data source for its applicability across various academic fields and, in this study, for examining the literature on the topic. Initially, a search was conducted to identify articles related to the specified domain. To execute the search, the terms “audit firm mergers,” “audit firm integrations,” “audit firm acquisitions,” “audit firm consolidations,” and “professional services firm mergers” were used within the titles, abstracts, and keywords of articles in the Scopus database. Next, inclusion criteria were established, and articles were filtered based on the 1986–2024 timeframe. More precisely, based on the literature review, only articles published during this period were selected. Subsequently, English was designated as the language criterion, and the type of publication was restricted to scholarly research articles. As a result, only English-language research articles published in the fields of business, management, and accounting; economics, econometrics, and finance; and social sciences were considered for this study. The screening stage ultimately led to the identification of the targeted articles. To ensure their relevance, the titles and abstracts of the articles were reviewed, and irrelevant articles were excluded. Ultimately, 38 articles were included in the analysis. Based on the research process, the final stage involved data analysis, which was performed using the Vosviewer software. Co-occurrence analysis, defined as the repetition of similar keywords across different articles, was conducted. Co-occurrence analysis and the identification of frequently used keywords highlight key research topics. Furthermore, co-citation analysis of keywords and co-authorship analysis were performed using the softw. Specifically, if two keywords representing a particular research topic appeared simultaneously in a document, those keywords were considered to have a unique semantic relationship.

Findings: The progression of literature on audit firm mergers indicates that this field was relatively underexplored until 2002. In other words, this topic did not receive significant attention from researchers before that year. Over time, as the importance of the subject matter studied in this research grew, the number of published articles showed an upward trend, reflecting the rising significance of the topic. From 2002 onward, the field has experienced fluctuating growth, illustrating that substantial research will continue to be conducted in this area through 2024 due to its critical importance. Among the countries contributing to the body of research, the United States leads with 20 publications, followed by the United Kingdom with 8, and Hong Kong with 6. Regarding research areas, the majority of articles pertain to business, management, and accounting (57.1%), followed by economics, econometrics, and finance (38.1%), and social sciences (4.8%). Most articles were published in reputable journals such as Auditing: A Journal of Practice and Theory (4 articles), Contemporary Accounting Research, and the Journal of Accounting and Public Policy (3 articles each). The keyword “mergers” emerged as the central theme, with closely associated large nodes such as audit firm mergers, audit quality, audit fees, audit efficiency, auditor-client alignment, the audit market, knowledge transfer, industry specialization, audit reporting delays, and audit market dynamics, all aligning with the primary focus of this study. In total, 89 authors have contributed to research on audit firm mergers, forming a collaborative network of researchers. For instance, “Moroney,” in collaboration with “Simnett” and “Thavapalan,” has co-authored several studies and contributed the highest number of publications in this domain.

Conclusion: The present study systematically reviews articles on audit firm mergers published between 1986 and 2024, mapping the knowledge network through co-occurrence analysis of keywords and co-authorship analysis. The keyword "mergers" was identified as the central theme, with closely related large nodes including audit firm mergers, audit quality, audit fees, audit efficiency, auditor-client alignment, the audit market, knowledge transfer, industry specialization, audit reporting delays, and audit market dynamics, all aligned with the primary focus of the study.

Keywords

• Audit firm mergers
• bibliometric analysis
• global trends
• intellectual structure
• keyword co-occurrence

Main Subjects

• Financial audit