The purpose of this study is to provide updated information and facts about the Malaysian audit market concentration and auditor workload. The global auditing services market is presently dominated by a group of four audit firms which known as Big 4; namely Deloitte, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & Young and KPMG. | An explanatory review of audit market concentration and auditor workload in Malaysia Accounting 5 2019 135 144 Contents lists available at GrowingScience Accounting homepage ac An explanatory review of audit market concentration and auditor workload in Malaysia Ali Razaa Wan Nordin Wan Hussina and Jamaliah Abdul Majidb aOthman Yeop Abdullah Graduate School of Business Universiti Utara Malaysia Malaysia b School of Accountancy College of Business Universiti Utara Malaysia Malaysia CHRONICLE ABSTRACT Article history The purpose of this study is to provide updated information and facts about the Malaysian audit Received March 11 2019 market concentration and auditor workload. The global auditing services market is presently Received in revised format dominated by a group of four audit firms which known as Big 4 namely Deloitte March 24 2019 PriceWaterhouseCoopers Ernst amp Young and KPMG. The audit industry in Malaysia offers Accepted April 14 2019 Available online several exemptions as observed that two of non-big 4 audit firms succeeded to make their place April 16 2019 into the Malaysian top 4. The study examined the audit firms share based on the number of audits Keywords and included all Malaysian public listed companies from 2012 to 2016. The findings indicate Audit Market that the Malaysian audit market falls into the category of loose oligopoly and controlled by 8 Concentration Ratio audit firms. It is noted that the market share of the Big 4 in Malaysia have been reduced over a Capital Market five-year period 2012-2016 and these firms mainly focusing more on large or more established Big 4 Audit Firms clients. The examination related to auditor workload suggests that there is a decreasing trend in Auditor Workload the workload of individual audit partners on average the Big 4 firms staffing ratio is lower as Staffing Ratio compared with non-big 4 which may indicate that Big 4 partners have less workload. The study is useful .
