One possible explanation for this finding may relate to the unique of the multi- employer pension plan audit market. In this market, Big 6 firms may have a disadvantage resulting from their perceived association with management, rather than labor.8 Most of the multi-employer pension plans are administered by unions for their members. CPA firms are said to protect the shareholder’s interest in a traditional audit and establish links with man- agement to assist in the audit process, and potentially to obtain consulting services. From a union perspective, shareholders and management interests potentially in conflict with labor. As such, union officials who administer pension plans may associate the larger CPA firms with the shareholders and management of their members’ employers and be reluctant to hire such firms to audit the union pension plans. This reluctance may help to explain both the small market share and lack of fee premiums for Big 6 firms in the pension audit context.
Limitations
The study is subject to a number of limitations. First, the overall predictability of audit fees in the pension audit context is comparatively low. The R2s in the present study are 0.41 and 0.43 for the model specifications presented in tables 2 and 3, receptively. While these results compare favorably to Current’s (1997) pension audit fee R2 of 0.39, the current Study’s audit fee model has less explanatory power than other audit fee models developed for public company audit markets (e.g.,Craswell
8 I am grateful to an anonymous official at the Pension and Welfare Benefits Administration for suggesting this possibility