Investigation of the relationship between company characteristics and independent audit firm selection: A research on BIST-100 companies

The aim of this study is to investigate whether the characteristics of companies traded in the Borsa Istanbul 100 index have an effect on the selection of independent auditors. For this purpose, 468 firm-year data belonging to non-financial companies traded in the Borsa Istanbul 100 index between 2016-2021 were analyzed using the logistic regression analysis method. According to the results of the analysis, there is a positive and statistically significant relationship between preference of the big four audit firms and the natural logarithm of total assets and the leverage ratio. Also, there is a negative and statistically significant relationship between preference of the big four audit firms and the free float ratio, the age of going public and the number of independent members of the board of directors. However, it is observed that there is no statistically significant relationship between the preference of the big four audit firms and the profit or loss disclosure status, return on assets ratio, firm age and number of board members.