The Impact of Covid-19 on the Type of Auditor’s Opinion: Evidence from the Largest Non-Listed Portuguese Companies

Abstract

In 2020, the world was surprised by a pandemic caused by Covid-19, which emerged and devastated the entire world economy, forcing several companies to adapt to a new health reality that affected the lives of people and the companies themselves, forcing the population to readapt. In this follow-up, the present research arises with the aim of analysing the impact of Covid-19 on the Audit Report of the largest Portuguese unlisted companies, namely regarding the type of opinion. This research included the analysis of 114 audit reports, referring to the years 2018 (pre-pandemic), 2020 (during pandemic) and 2022 (post-pandemic) of the largest and best Portuguese non-listed companies, according to Exame Magazine for the year 2022.  The data were collected through a content analysis of the Audit Reports of these companies, and then statistically treated through a bivariate analysis using association tests between the variables (dependent and independent). The results obtained proved that Covid-19 did not significantly influence the type of opinions issued. However, we were able to verify that there is a lower probability of the Big four firms issuing modified opinions. This study, in a way, contributed to the literature on this topic, clarifying some impacts of the pandemic on audit work, as well as the impacts of other variables on the Audit Reports.