Auditor Tenure Disclosure and Shareholder Ratification Voting

The PCAOB mandated, over the objections of the large audit firms and others, that for fiscal years ending on or after December 15, 2017, the audit report shall include information about auditor tenure. In this paper we answer the call for academic research about “the impact and usefulness of the auditor tenure disclosure as it becomes implemented” from Franzel (2017). We use data from 2,718 firms in our analyses. We find that in the case of clients with long (short) auditor tenure, the proportion of shareholder votes not ratifying the auditor increased (decreased) after public disclosure of auditor tenure. Thus, it appears that public disclosure of auditor tenure influenced shareholder voting and sensitized shareholders to longer audit tenures.