The study investigates the association between the effectiveness of the board of directors and the likelihood that a company receives a modified audit opinion (as a measure of the quality of companies’ external financial reporting) in Malaysia. The sample companies were extracted from the population of publicly-available information mainly the annual reports of publicly-listed companies on the Bursa Malaysia. 136 firm-year observations listed on Bursa Malaysia were identified to examine the relationship between the effectiveness of the board of directors and a modified audit opinion. Data used in this study are collected from two separate sources – annual reports and Datastream. Any missing financial figure from Datastream was acquired from the annual reports. To test the study’s hypotheses, we use the pooled cross-sectional logistic regression analysis for 136 firm-year observations listed on Bursa Malaysia over the period 2009-2011. The evidence we have uncovered is consistent with the hypothesis that companies with large score of the board of directors’ effectiveness are less possible to receive a modified audit opinion. Therefore, the result confirms that the combined effect of the board of directors’ characteristics has a significant negative association with the likelihood of the companies receiving a modified audit opinion.

This paper examines whether the combination of risk management and audit committee functions are associated with audit report lag. Audit report lag is considered an important aspect of the financial reporting. The financial reports are the main source of information for shareholders through which they make their decisions and it assists in reducing the information asymmetry. As the internal control mechanisms substitute the external ones, the internal board committees formed by the board of directors can reduce the audit work and, consequently, reduces the audit report lag. A key committee is the risk management committee. This paper examines whether the combination of risk management and audit committee functions are associated with audit report lag. We posit that a combination of such functions in one committee refereed as audit committee affects the audit report delay. Data were obtained from 198 manufacturing companies listed on the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) for the years 2016-2018. A pooled OLS regression analysis shows that a combination of risk management and audit committee functions in a stand-alone committee named “audit committee” is associated with longer audit report lag. The outcomes suggest companies should prioritize the establishment of standalone risk management committee with activities separated from those of audit committees.