Impact of the External Audit Quality and Corporate Governance on the Tunisian Company’ Financial Performance of Before and After the 2011 Revolution

Abstract

The latest financial scandals have challenged the accounting systems adopted and the quality of external audit and corporate governance.

The purpose of the study is to analyze the impact of the determinants of the external audit quality and corporate governance on the Tunisian company’s financial performance before and after the 2011 revolution.

Using a sample of 31 companies listed on the Tunis Stock Exchange this impact is tested for a period of eight years, divided into two periods. The first period spans from 2007 to 2010, before the revolution, and the second period spans from 2013 to 2016, after the revolution.

The results show that after the revolution, a significant relationship exists between the financial performance of the companies and their size and indebtedness, whereas before the revolution, the relationship was significant between financial performance of the companies and the existence of an audit committee and managerial property. The behavior of Tunisian companies changed after the revolution and the 2011 revolution allowed the various parties who were against good governance to negatively affect investor confidence in auditors and the performance of the company. It's a crisis of the crisis.