????審計事務所的審計意見似乎是憑空捏造的。

????根據美國上市公司會計監管委員會上個月公布的一項報告，至少可以說，有超過四分之一的審計結果是這樣的。該報告稱，一家審計事務所對公司賬目的簽字保證，有超過25%的可能性是不可靠的，因為審計師并沒有執行提供這些保證所需要的工作。所以，除非你喜歡用1/4的“輪盤賭”賠率來押注財務報表的真實性，親愛的投資者們，請不要相信一家公司公布的財務數據，因為審計事務所捏造事實的可能性，超出了我們的想象。

????上市公司會計監管委員會的調查結果，基于2012年和2013年進行的數百次詳細審查。委員會還表示，對2014年審計結果的審查，同樣發現了類似的問題。

????審計事務所在哪些方面特別容易犯錯？據委員會的研究顯示，審計事務所并沒有按照理應采取的步驟，確定欺詐和其他重大風險，沒有評估“財務報表披露數據的準確性與完整性”，未充分檢查“公司提供的信息的準確性和完整性。”而如果不對這些方面進行適當的審查，便無法通過審計發現重大錯報。

????審計質量似乎變得越來越差。《今日會計》報道稱：“亞特蘭大估值與訴訟咨詢公司Acuitas在10月15日發布了一份分析報告，對上市公司會計監管委員會近期的審查結果進行了分析。這項分析發現，在2013年審查的所有審計結果中，有43%存在不足，而在2009年，這一比例僅有16%。

????此外，操縱盈余的情況，也比我們想象的更加普遍。就在上市公司會計監察委員會的報告發布前不久，另一份名為《盈余管理蔓延的證據》的相關研究也備受關注。這項研究的作者之一、羅格斯商學院教授思米·柯迪亞曾告訴我，她的研究顯示，如果一家公司在財務報告中作弊被抓，其他公司會“知道作弊的代價”。研究發現，如果“代價并不嚴重”，其他公司便會開始以相同的方式作弊。如果處罰非常嚴重，其他公司便會受到震懾，打消效仿的念頭。柯迪亞表示，最近的研究專門調查了其他公司爭相模仿已公開的財務作弊信息這種行為。她將其稱為“公開蔓延”。這項研究表明，強有力的監管執法是多么重要。

????在傳播利潤操縱方面，董事會也扮演了不光彩的角色。柯迪亞表示，她和其他作者對公開蔓延所作的研究，是對2010年一項研究結果的補充。這項名為《董事會聯動與盈余管理蔓延》的研究，探討了一家公司作弊且尚未被發現時的情形。柯迪亞表示，對眾多案例的研究發現，如果不同公司的董事會有相同的成員，作弊可能會從一家公司蔓延到另一家公司。2010年的研究指出，“如果共同的董事在易受影響的公司擔任領導職位（如董事長或審計委員會主席）或與會計相關的職位（審計委員會成員），這種蔓延會更加嚴重。”

????當然，審計事務所也有老板：聘用（和解雇，但并不常見）他們的審計委員會。審計委員會應該確保，其聘用的審計事務所將嚴格履行職責。上市公司會計監管委員會10月發布的報告提出了一些審計委員會應該詢問審計事務所的問題。然而根據2010年和最近的學術研究，我只能很遺憾地告訴投資者們，這些問題的效果恐怕無異于讓狐貍看守雞窩。（財富中文網）

????本文作者于1999年創立了獨立董事會培訓和咨詢機構價值聯盟和公司治理聯盟，并擔任首席執行官。她自2010年4月起成為《財富》雜志的固定撰稿人，并著有兩本有關公司治理與估值的書《經濟價值管理：應用與技巧》和《價值主導的組織》。

????譯者：劉進龍/汪皓

????審校：任文科

????Audit firms seem to be spinning opinions out of thin air.

????At least that’s the case in more than one in four audits, according to a report issued on?Ocober 15?by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB). According to the report, an audit firm’s blessing of company financials isn’t reliable more than 25% of the time because the auditors never performed the work necessary to provide their signoff. So unless you like the 1-in-4 odds in financial statement roulette, no, Ms. Investor, you cannot put your faith in the company’s reported accounting because more often than we’d like, audit firms seem to be making stuff up.

????The PCAOB’s findings are based on hundreds of detailed inspections it conducted in 2012 and 2013. The PCAOB also said it is finding similar issues based on its review of 2014 audits.

????Where in particular are audit firms dropping the ball? According to the PCAOB study, firms didn’t do what they were supposed to do to identify fraud and other significant risks, they didn’t evaluate “the accuracy and completeness of financial statement disclosures,” and they didn’t adequately test “the accuracy and completeness of information produced by the company.” Material misstatements can go undetected when these areas are not properly reviewed.

????Audit quality seems to be getting worse. Accounting Today reported that “the Atlanta-based valuation and litigation consultancy firm Acuitas released an analysis Thursday of recent PCAOB inspections and found that 43 percent of all audits inspected by the PCAOB in 2013 had deficiencies, compared to 16 percent in 2009.”

????Earnings manipulation is also more prevalent than we might think. The PCAOB report comes on the heels of a recent study titled, “Evidence on Contagion in Earnings Management.” One of the authors, Rutgers Business School professor Simi Kedia, told me that her research showed that if a company is cheating on its financial reporting and gets caught, other firms will “learn about how costly it is to cheat.” If it’s “not so bad,” she says her research shows, other firms will start cheating in the very same way. If, however, the penalties are severe, other companies are deterred from following suit. This recent research specifically reviewed instances of copycat behavior that followed public information about the cheating, Kedia told me, calling it “public contagion.” The research shows how important strong regulatory enforcement can be.

????Boards of directors also can have a role in spreading earnings manipulation. Kedia says the work she and her co-authors did on public contagion complements research done in 2010. That study, titled “Board Interlocks and Earnings Management Contagion” looked at situations where a company is cheating and hasn’t been caught yet. In those instances, if boards share similar members, that research shows that cheating may spread from company to company, Kedia says. The research from the 2010 study states that “the contagion is stronger when the shared director has a leadership position (e.g. board chair or audit committee chair) or an accounting-relevant position (audit committee member) in the susceptible firm.”

????Of course, audit firms are supposed to have bosses: The audit committees that hire (and less frequently, fire) them. Audit committees should be ensuring that the audit firms they hire do their jobs properly, and so the PCAOB report issued Thursday provides audit committees with some questions they should ask their audit firms. But given the 2010 and more recent academic research, I’m sorry to say, Mr. Investor, that could be just about as effective as asking the fox to watch the hen house.

????Eleanor Bloxham is CEO of The Value Alliance and Corporate Governance Alliance (http://www.thevaluealliance.com), an independent board education and advisory firm she founded in 1999. She has been a regular contributor to Fortune since April 2010 and is the author of two books on corporate governance and valuation, Economic Value Management: Applications and Techniques and Value-led Organizations.