New clients, audit quality, and audit partner industry expertise: Evidence from Taiwan

New client acceptance decisions are critical for auditors. Audit quality can be negatively affected by limited knowledge of the new client's operations and finances. This may be mitigated for auditors with industry specialization. We examine whether new clientele negatively affect audit quality at the individual level and how the association with audit quality varies across auditors with different levels of industry specialization. Our study fills a gap in the literature by directly addressing the effects of new clients on audit quality for specialist and non-specialist auditors, as well as portfolio-concentration experts, and sheds light on the nature of risks associated with new client acceptance decisions. We find both industry specialists and portfolio-concentration experts can maintain their audit quality when accepting new clients, while there is a decline in quality for auditors who are neither industry specialists nor portfolio-concentration experts.