The impact of corporate governance and big 4 audit on the financial performance of UK’s supermarket industry

This research proposal aims to investigate the impact of corporate governance and big 4 audit on the financial performance of UK’s supermarket industry. The motivation for selecting this topic arises from the highly competitive and monopolistic nature of the industry, as well as recent innovations and developments. A gap in the literature has been identified regarding the impact of big 4 audit firms on the financial performance of the entire industry. The research will use a total of 5 organizations, including the 4 big audit firms and Tesco as a representative of the UK’s supermarket industry. The research objectives include identifying the impact of corporate governance and big 4 audit on the financial performance, analyzing the tools for assessing financial performance, and exploring ways to minimize the influences of corporate governance and big 4 audit on the industry's financial performance. Secondary data will be collected from books, journals, articles, company websites, and annual reports. The researcher has average proficiency in using SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences).

Research proposal

Contents
TOPIC..............................................................................................................................................1
Motivation of selecting the topic.................................................................................................1
Gap identified in the literature.....................................................................................................1
Number of organisations which will be used in research............................................................1
Research objectives and questions...............................................................................................2
Sources of data collection............................................................................................................2
Knowledge of software................................................................................................................2

TOPIC
“The impact of corporate governance and big 4 audit on the financial performance of UK’s
supermarket industry”
Motivation of selecting the topic
The topic selected for the investigation has the dependent variable as financial performance
of UK’s supermarket industry. It has been seen that UK’s supermarket industry is highly
competitive and involves big giant organisations that do not provide scope for small
organisations to enter in this market. Considering the present situation of this supermarket
industry which is highly competitive and monopolistic at the same time, the motivation is gained
to analyse the financial performance of such industry. Recent innovations and development has
provided the motivation of select this topic. Furthermore, the independent variables of the
selected topic are corporate governance and 4 big audit firms which has even hyped the curiosity
to analyse such topic as these two factors play a major role in influencing the financial
performance of an organisation.
Gap identified in the literature
This topic has also been selected to investigate upon, as a gap in literature review was
identified for this topic. There are various previous research reports has already been developed
for this topic but such reports are identified to have a gap which is aimed to be bridged in this
investigated. This gap which has been identified is that audit firms are always regarded as a
financial check firms for business organisation and there is no appropriate information in
previous reports about the impact of big 4 audit firms on the financial performance of an entire
industry.
Number of organisations which will be used in research
For this research in total of 5 organisations will be used. The first 4 organisations will
comprise the 4 big audit firms and 1 organisation will represent the entire UK’s supermarket
industry. The big 4 audit firms are Deloitte, PwC, Ernst & Young and KPMG. Apart from this,
Tesco will be used to represent entire UK’s supermarket as this company is the market leader of
UK’s supermarket industry and is appropriate for investigation because its numerical and
financial information is easily available.
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Research objectives and questions
Research Aim
“To identify the impact of corporate governance and big 4 audit on the financial
performance of UK’s supermarket industry”.
Research objectives
 To identify the impact of corporate governance on the financial performance of UK’s
supermarket industry.
 To identify the impact of big 4 audit on the financial performance of UK’s supermarket
industry.
 To identify the tools to analysing the financial performance of UK’s supermarket industry
 To analyse the ways to minimise the influences laid by corporate governance and big 4
audit on financial performance of UK’s supermarket industry”.
Research questions
 What are the impacts of corporate governance on the financial performance of UK’s
supermarket industry?
 What are the impacts of big 4 audit on the financial performance of UK’s supermarket
industry?
 What are the tools to analysing the financial performance of UK’s supermarket industry?
 How the influences laid by corporate governance and big 4 audit on financial performance
of UK’s supermarket industry can be minimised?
Sources of data collection
This particular research is planned to be conducted using secondary data gained from
books, journals, articles, website of the company and the annual report of the company to assess
the financial performance.
Knowledge of software
Yes, I have average proficiency of using SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences).
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