UNT Theses and Dissertations - 82 Matching Results

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The Effect of Restructuring of Peer Firms on Investment
Firms' operational restructuring involves information relevant to strategic choices as well as future demand and cost conditions. This study examines the relationship between peer firms' restructuring and a company's responsiveness to its growth opportunities. Peer firm restructuring can increase uncertainty with respect to a company's payoffs regarding its investment projects, leading to decreased responsiveness to growth opportunities. Using a large sample of public companies during 2006–2020, I find that peer firms' restructuring is negatively associated with the responsiveness of capital expenditures (Capex) to growth opportunities. The results suggest that peer firms' restructuring activities provide information about a company's investment projects above and beyond industry shocks reflected in changes in industry sales. Furthermore, these associations are moderated by industry competition. The negative effects of peer firms' restructuring on Capex sensitivity are the strongest in high-competition industries.
Unveiling Hidden Problems: A Two-Stage Machine Learning Approach to Predict Financial Misstatement Using the Existence of Internal Control Material Weaknesses
Prior research has provided evidence that the disclosure of internal controls material weaknesses (ICMWs) is a powerful input attribute in misstatement prediction. However, the disclosure of ICMWs is imperfect in capturing internal control quality because many firms with control problems fail to disclose ICMWs on a timely basis. The purpose of this study is to examine whether the existence of ICMWs, including both the disclosed and the undisclosed ICMWs, improves misstatement prediction. I develop a two-stage machine learning model for misstatement prediction with the predicted existence of ICMWs as the intermediate concept; my model that outperforms the model with the ICMW disclosures. I also find that the model incorporating both the predicted existence and the disclosure of ICMWs outperforms those with only the disclosure or the predicted existence of ICMWs. These results hold across different input attributes, machine learning methods, and prediction periods, and training-test samples splitting methods. Finally, this study shows that the two-stage models outperform the one-stage models in predictions related to financial reporting quality.
The Effect of Social Norms on Client Responses to Audit Inquiries
Audit inquiry can be a valuable source of information for auditors, particularly when the client provides useful information about important issues that could affect the audit. Recent studies indicate that the way an audit inquiry is conducted can affect the level of cooperation in the client's response. In this study, I investigate the use of social norms as an intervention auditors could include in their inquiries to increase the likelihood of client cooperation. To test my hypotheses, I conducted a 2x2 between-subjects experiment with 138 MBA and senior accounting students who proxied for non-accounting and accounting managers, respectively. I manipulated the auditor's use of a positive descriptive norm, which informed participants that the desired behavior is typical among similar others. I also manipulated the auditor's use of a negative injunctive norm, which informed participants of social disapproval for not engaging in the desired behavior. The dependent variable was a scaled measure of the likelihood the participant would disclose useful information in their response to the auditor. I find evidence of a main effect for both social norms I test. I do not find evidence of an interaction between the two social norms. My findings contribute to the audit literature as well as to audit practice. First, I contribute to the audit literature by identifying factors that improve client cooperation with an audit inquiry, including the communication of a positive descriptive norm and a negative injunctive norm. Second, my findings contribute to practice by providing evidence that social norms included in an audit inquiry can persuade clients to cooperate with an inquiry.
ESG Misreporting: Role of Assurance, Assurance Provider, ESG Issue Characteristics and Personal Environmentalism in Employee Reporting Decisions
Corporate environmental social and governance (ESG) reporting is becoming subject to increased scrutiny by regulators, investors and public. This dissertation will contribute to several research streams in the extant literature. This dissertation is the first to show the impact of employee environmental values and attitudes on reporting and whistleblowing decisions, making contributions to accounting, management, whistleblowing and environmental psychology literatures. Next, it is among the first to examine the role of the identity of ESG assurance provider in ESG reporting context. Further, it is among the first to examine the impact of SEC assurance mandate and the value of assurance over ESG information, thus contributing to audit literature. Using experimental methodology, I examine how ESG report assurance, ESG report assurance provider, ESG issue type, and environmentalism as a personality factor influence employee decisions to accede to a supervisory request to misrepresent ESG information, to report management's actions to a corporate hotline, to post information about management wrongdoing on social media, to switch jobs, and to judge ESG misreporting actions as unethical. The results indicate that (1) employee personality factor environmentalism impacts their ESG reporting decisions; (2) pro-environmental employees are more likely to whistleblow when assurance is not mandated, and they judge management actions to be more unethical when assurance is required; (3) under pressure to misreport ESG information, employees are more likely to switch jobs and judge management actions significantly more unethical, when they are dealing with quantitative data (as opposed to qualitative data), and when ESG assurance is provided by a consultant (versus an auditor); (4) pro-environmental employees do not differentiate between the issues impacting financial statements or ESG report only, whereas, employees with low-level environmentalism judge management actions to be more unethical when facing ESG issue with immediate impact to financial statements as opposed to an issue impacting …
The Effects of Generational Stereotypes and Attribute Affirmation on the Collection of Audit Evidence
As the workplace has evolved over the past few years, several studies have documented perceived differences in personalities, values, and preferences between generations in the workplace, including in public accounting. In this study, I examine whether exposure to a negative preconceived belief about a staff auditor's generation (generational stereotype) influences the affective state of staff auditors and ultimately causes them to reduce the extent to which they communicate with a client manager to gather the necessary information to perform an audit adequately. I also investigate whether attribute affirmation from a work buddy helps elicit positive affect to mitigate the effects that exposure to negative generational stereotypes may have on audit evidence collection. I conducted a 2 x 2 experiment using graduate auditing students as a proxy for staff auditors. I find that general affect (i.e., mood) rather than interpersonal affect (i.e., likability), drives the negative effect of exposure to generational stereotypes on willingness to collect more audit evidence. I also find that high levels of negative mood can negatively impact participants' self-efficacy. I, however, failed to find evidence of a moderated mediation. The presence of an attribute affirmation results in an insignificant increase in positive affect. When staff auditors are exposed to a negative generational stereotype, attribute affirmation does not evoke enough positive affect to help auditors overcome the generational stereotype threat.
The Impact of Counter-Rumor Strategy and Source on Non-Professional Investors' Judgments over Social Media
Non-professional investors often rely on information obtained from social media to make investment decisions. Extant literature has not examined the most effective strategy for the target company to counter the rumors so that investors will be more willing to continue investing in the target firm. Drawing on source credibility theory and the moral intensity model, I propose that the most effective strategy would vary given different agents who are selected to counter the rumor. After conducting a 2 x 3 (counter-rumor source x counter-rumor strategy) experiment with 272 non-professional investors recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk, my study shows that when an internal agent (e.g., the CEO) acts as a counter-rumor source, shareholders are more willing to invest in the company when the internal agent utilizes a denial strategy rather than a reassociation or a questioning strategy. In contrast, when an external agent (e.g., a famous food blogger) serves as the counter-rumor source, the external agent can also use a questioning strategy in addition to a denial strategy to motivate shareholders to be more willing to invest in the company; however, the external agent still needs to avoid from engaging a reassociation strategy. Moderated serial-mediation analysis shows that the persuasiveness of the counter-rumor information and investors' perceived rumor intensity serially mediate the effect of counter-rumor source on investors' willingness to invest, and this effect is conditioned on the different strategy used to counter the rumor. Overall, the main effect of counter-rumor source suggests that external agents are perceived as more persuasive, which leads investors to perceive less rumor intensity, making them more willing to invest in the target company. The results of my paper can thus inform companies' social media policy.
The Effects of the Use of Natural Language Processing and Task Complexity on Jurors' Assessments of Auditor Negligence
The purpose of my dissertation is to examine jurors' evaluation of auditor negligence in response to auditors' use of natural language processing (NLP). To test my research objective, I conducted a 2x2 between-subjects experiment with 175 jury-eligible individuals. In the online experiment, I manipulated whether the audit team analyzes contracts with NLP software or by having human auditors read the contracts. I also manipulated task complexity as complex or simple. The dependent variables include a binary verdict variable and a scaled assessment of negligence. This dissertation makes several contributions to the accounting literature and practice. First, it contributes to the recent juror literature on emerging technologies by providing evidence that jurors attribute higher negligence assessments to auditors when auditors use NLP to examine contracts than when human auditors examine contracts. I also find that auditors' use of NLP leads to jurors' higher perceived causation, which, in turn, increases jurors' assessments of auditor liability. Second, this study answers the call of other researchers to examine the relationship between task complexity and negligence in different settings. I also find a marginally significant interaction effect of the use of NLP compared to human auditors to perform audit testing that is greater for complex tasks than for simple tasks. Third, this dissertation provides new insights for practitioners and accounting firms when using emerging algorithm-based AI technologies such as NLP. As more AI technologies are used in audit practice, the findings will provide helpful insights for audit practitioners to consider when they utilize technologies to design and implement audit procedures.
Client Narcissism and the Decision to Switch Tax Professionals
Contentious interactions may arise between a tax professional and client upon a disagreement over a tax position. In an increasingly competitive tax return preparation market, these contentious interactions represent a significant threat to tax practitioners' client satisfaction and retention objectives. I conduct an experiment in which I examine the effect of three factors on tax clients' (1) likelihood to accept the advice of the tax accountant and (2) likelihood to switch tax accountants upon receiving professional advice counter to their preferred tax position. The three factors are: (1) clients' antagonistic narcissism; (2) clients' relationship with the accountant; and (3) how the advice is framed by the tax accountant. The results are based on a sample of 93 taxpayers. First, this study examines how clients' measured levels of narcissistic antagonism (hereafter, antagonism) impacts their reaction to "being told no" by their tax professional. Results indicate that upon the receipt of advice contrary to their preferences, highly antagonistic clients are more likely to (1) engage in a contentious interaction with their professional and (2) switch to a new tax professional. Supplemental path analyses document that individuals with high levels of antagonism cognitively react to instances of "being told no" by simultaneously devaluing their professionals' credibility and role as a client advocate, leading to these aggressive behaviors. This study also examines how the social closeness of the professional-client relationship influences the argue and switch decisions. Multivariate analysis indicates that social closeness is significantly related to the argue and switch decision. However, univariate results do not show significant relationship between social closeness and each of the decisions individually. That is, I find partial support for the professional publications and AICPA recommendations that tax practitioners should develop personal relationships with their clients to improve client satisfaction and likelihood of retention. Clients are marginally more likely …
Who Makes the Decision? Managerial Influence on Corporate Boards and Auditor Selection, Change, and Compensation
This dissertation examines whether managers influence corporate boards of directors in their auditor selection, change, and compensation decisions. This topic is important because it addresses concerns that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) is not effective in eliminating managerial influence over auditor engagement decisions and that it may provide a false sense of security to investors. These concerns are based on the implicit assumption that managers prefer weaker governance oversight and lower audit quality. However, empirical research testing associations between managerial influence and audit-related decisions post-SOX is scarce and generally guided by agency theory. Incorporating agency, stewardship, and resource dependence perspectives, I find that managerial preferences for auditor selection are not aligned. Specifically, CEOs positively influence the selection of higher quality auditors, whereas CFOs have the opposite effect. Further, CEOs who hold powerful roles as chairs of their companies' boards of directors appear to mitigate the negative influence of CFOs and inside directors on audit quality. CEOs serving in dual roles also oppose auditor turnover when lower earnings quality prompt higher demand for audit effort. Finally, my study provides some evidence that management exercises downward pressures on audit fees, suggesting that managers utilize their authority beyond the regulations established by SOX to negotiate auditor compensation.
Three Essays on the Effects of Executives' Informal Networks on Shareholder Value, Financial and Tax Reporting Outcomes
Prior literature suggests that CEOs capitalize on their position within the hierarchy of all business executives, resulting in various – both positive and negative – firm outcomes. Using a novel data set on golf outings to measure the quality of a CEO's informal (vs. formal) network, as measured by the CEO's network centrality, this study examines whether well-connected CEOs generate private gains through insider trades. Results suggest that, among golfing CEOs, CEOs with higher quality informal networks generate significantly higher insider trading profits on sales of their firms' stock, consistent with more famous, powerful, and influential CEOs possessing superior information. The paper continues by delineating a channel through which private information flow to network participants by documenting significantly different golf patterns of CEOs during the two weeks before material firm events become public while showing that CEOs generate noticeably higher insider trading profits from stock trades executed during the two weeks following these golf outings. This study highlights a setting in which shareholders are at risk of wealth transfer and illustrates the potential limitations of regulation concerning insider trading.
The Determinants and Consequences of Having a Chief Operating Officer
This study examines the determinant and consequences of having a chief operating officer (COO). Specifically, we investigate chief executive officer (CEO) related factors that affect the choice to employ a COO and look into the impact of having a COO on firm operational efficiency using a data envelopment analysis (DEA)-based measure. Although prior literature has extensively investigated the role of CEOs and chief finance officers (CFOs) on firm outcomes, few studies focus on the impact of COOs. Thus, this study explores characteristics associated with the likelihood that a firm will have a COO. This research also sheds light on the effect of COOs on firm operational efficiency because the core duties of COOs include optimizing operational performance and improving cost efficiency. Our results imply that CEO busyness, CEO ability, CEO demographic characteristics, and CEO network size have a significant impact on the decision to employ a COO. We also find that firms that have a COO have a lower level of operational efficiency than firms that do not. This result implies that the cost of having a COO outweighs the benefit of having one. The effects last for three years on average. Further, we find that firms with a COO have lower receivables turnover and sales to cost of goods sold ratio, lower sales to PPE expense ratio than firms without a COO. Finally, we find evidence that COOs with industry expertise are associated with higher operational efficiency than those without such expertise and outside COOs perform better than inside COOs in terms of operational efficiency.
The Use of Data Analytics in Internal Audit to Improve Decision-Making: An Investigation of Data Visualizations and Data Source
The purpose of this dissertation was to examine how managers' judgments from an internal auditor's recommendation are influenced by some aspects of newer data sources and the related visualizations. This study specifically examined how managers' judgments from an internal auditor's recommendation are influenced by the (1) supportiveness of non-financial data with the internal auditor's recommendation and (2) evaluability of visual representations for non-financial data used to communicate the recommendation. This was investigated in a setting where financial data does not support the internal auditor's recommendation. To test my hypotheses, I conducted an experiment that uses an inventory write-down task to examine the likelihood that a manager agrees with an internal auditor's inventory write-down recommendation. This task was selected as it requires making a prediction and both financial and newer non-financial data sources are relevant to inform this judgment. The study was conducted with MBA students who proxy for managers in organizations. Evaluability of visual representations was operationalized as the (1) proximity of financial and non-financial graphs, and (2) type of non-financial graph as requiring a length judgment or not. This dissertation contributes to accounting literature and the internal auditing profession. First, I contribute to recent experimental literature on data analytics by providing evidence that newer non-financial data sources will be integrated into managers' judgments even when financial data is inconsistent. However, I also identified that the effectiveness of appropriate agreement with an internal auditor's recommendation depends on the evaluability of the visualizations for non-financial data. Second, I expand on the literature that examines managers' agreement with recommendations from internal auditors by examining an unexplored yet relevant context of using newer non-financial data sources and communicating these results. Specifically, I identified how the evaluability of visual representations for non-financial data interacts with the supportiveness of non-financial data with the internal auditor's …
Small world, not small competition: does spatial distance among audit partners matter?
The purpose of my dissertation is to examine whether competition among audit partners affects audit quality. While prior research on audit market competition focuses on audit firm-level or office-level analyses, I argue that audit partners, as the primary decision makers in providing audit services, are likely to engage in competitive actions in the audit market. Further, I use spatial distance among audit partners to measure partner-level competition. I conjecture that spatial distance could better reflect the dynamics of audit market competition than the Herfindahl index, the traditional proxy for competition used in most extant studies. Drawing on the spatial economics theory and the social comparison theory, I hypothesize a negative association between competition measured by spatial distance and the quality level delivered by the incumbent audit partner. Using newly available data of U.S. audit partners, this study provides evidence that audit quality is higher (lower) when the spatial distance between the incumbent partner and the closest competing partner is larger (smaller). In addition, the results reveal that the effects of competition measured by spatial distance on audit quality is mainly a partner-level phenomenon rather than an office-level one. Overall, this study highlights the importance of studying competitive dynamics among audit partners.
Information Content of Non-GAAP Earnings of Cross-Listed Companies
To supplement earnings reported under generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), public companies often voluntarily report alternative measures of earnings called non-GAAP earnings (NGE). These companies assert that NGE exclude the effect of non-recurring transactions, thereby helping users of financial information to better assess the company's past performance and prospects. Because NGE measures are not well defined, managers can exploit the inherent discretion in calculating NGE to mislead users. Prior studies provide arguments and evidence on the informative as well as opportunistic use of NGE. However, the studies have examined the characteristics and informativeness of NGE with a focus on U.S. companies. The results of studies that consider the NGE disclosure by U.S. companies may not be generalizable to the cross-listed companies because foreign financial reporting standards are different from the U.S. GAAP. Further, prior studies report a difference in earnings quality of U.S. firms and cross-listed firms, which can also result in a difference in the informativeness of their NGE. To fill this gap in literature, I examine whether the informativeness of NGE of cross-listed companies is different from that of U.S. companies. This study contributes to the debate on the informativeness of NGE. It provides evidence that in general, NGE are equally informative for U.S. and foreign companies but foreign companies are more opportunistic in excluding recurring items from NGE. The results of this study are of potential interest to investors, regulators, and academics who are interested in and interact with cross-listed companies.
Firm Performance and Analyst Forecast Accuracy Following Discontinued Operations: Evidence from the Pre-SFAS 144 and SFAS 144 Eras
Because of the non-recurring and transitory nature of discontinued operations, accounting standards require that the results of discontinued operations be separately reported on the income statement. Prior accounting literature supports the view that discontinued operations are non-recurring or transitory in nature, and also suggests that income classified as transitory has minimal relevance in firm valuation. Finance and management literature, however, suggest that firms discontinue operations to strategically utilize their scarce resources. Assuming that discontinued operations are a result of managerial motives to strategically concentrate resources into remaining continued operations, this dissertation examines the informativeness of discontinued operations. In doing so, this dissertation empirically tests the financial performance, investment efficiency, valuation, and analyst forecast accuracy effects of discontinued operations. In 2001, Financial Accounting Standards Board's (FASB) Statement of Financial Accounting Standards (SFAS) 144 (hereafter SFAS 144) replaced Accounting Principles Board's Opinion 30 (hereafter APB 30) and broadened the scope of divestiture transactions to be presented in discontinued operations. Some stakeholders of financial statements argued that discontinued operations were less decision-useful in the SFAS 144 era because too many transactions that do not represent a strategic shift in operations were separately stated as discontinued operations on the income statement. With the possibility that the discontinued operations reported in SFAS 144 era may not reflect a major strategic reallocation of resources, this dissertation examines whether the relationship between discontinued operations, firm performance, investment efficiency, and analyst forecast accuracy are different in the pre-SFAS 144 and SFAS 144 era. Using a sample of firms that discontinued operations between 1990 and 2012, this dissertation study finds limited evidence that firms experience improvement in financial performance following discontinued operations and that such improvement is only observed in pre-SFAS 144 era. The results also suggest that any improvement in financial performance documented is conditional on the profitability …
Determinants of Corporate Governance Choices: Evidence from Listed Foreign Firms on U.S. Stock Exchanges
This study analyzes corporate governance practices of foreign (non-U.S.) issuers listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and Nasdaq. Specifically, I examine the extent to which these foreign issuers voluntarily comply with U.S. stock exchange corporate governance requirements applicable to domestic issuers. My sample consists of 201 foreign companies primarily domiciled in Brazil, China, Israel, and the United Kingdom. I find that 151 (75 per cent) of the sample firms do not elect to comply with any of the U.S. corporate governance requirements. Logistic regression analysis generally supports the hypotheses that conformance with U.S. GAAP and percentage of managerial ownership are positively associated, and that percentage ownership by major shareholders is negatively associated with foreign firms electing to comply with U.S. corporate governance rules. This evidence is relevant for regulators and investors.
Loyalty and Fairness: A Study of the Influence of Moral Foundations on Auditors' Propensity to Subordinate their Judgment
Subordination of judgment is a fundamental threat to auditor objectivity. Subordination of judgment occurs when auditors agree with their superiors either in spite of or without forming their own independent judgments. Many audit procedures rely on independent, critical thinking at every level of the audit team; however, a number of studies suggest that auditors tend to agree with superiors even when a superior's views clearly run contrary to generally accepted accounting principles. While there is general agreement among scholars that subordination of judgment is "bad," very little attention has been given to moral biases that might influence an auditor's tendency to subordination of judgment, or to potential remedies that could mitigate an auditor's tendency to subordinate judgment. Moral Foundations Theory suggests that individuals tend to make intuitive, normative evaluations of situations based upon a set of personal moral biases or preferences called "moral foundations." Two specific moral foundations could influence subordination of judgment in divergent ways. The moral foundation of loyalty-respect may make agreement with a superior's views seem more acceptable than would disagreement. Meanwhile, the moral foundation of fairness may make an auditor more sensitive to the observance of rules, resulting in less subordination of judgment when a superior's views run contrary to professional rules. Social Identity Theory suggests that in-group favoritism may exacerbate subordination of judgment in general; however, strengthening an auditor's professional identity salience (PIS) could strengthen an auditor's objectivity. PIS is the temporary, heightened awareness of an auditor's identity as a professional and their role as guardian of professional rules. As a result, PIS may interact with an auditor's innate sense of fairness, resulting in less subordination of judgment than when professional identity is less salient. Results supported the hypothesis that auditors tend to subordinate their judgment to that of a superior, but not that PIS …
Auditor's Reporting Practices for an Entity's Ability to Continue as a Going Concern: The Impact of SAS no. 59
This study examines whether the probability of a firm receiving a going concern modified report or a standard audit report with note disclosure of a going concern uncertainty has increased after the issuance of SAS No. 59. This study also examines whether the probability of a firm having no reference to a going concern uncertainty in its audit report or the financial statement notes has decreased after the issuance of SAS No. 59. The findings provide support for the hypotheses that a firm has a higher probability of receiving a standard audit report with note disclosure of a going concern ('J uncertainty and a lower probability of receiving no reference to a going concern uncertainty in the audit report or the financial statement notes after the issuance of SAS No. 59. However, this study finds no support for the hypothesis that a firm has a higher probability of receiving a going concern modified report after the issuance of SAS No. 59. The findings of this study suggest that the Auditing Standards Board, the government, and the accounting profession should consider the impact of SAS No. 59 on the presence of note disclosure when assessing the success or failure of SAS No. 59 in decreasing the so-called audit expectation gap.
Taxpayer compliance from three research perspectives: a study of economic, environmental, and personal determinants.
Tax evasion is a serious issue that influences governmental revenues, IRS enforcement strategies, and tax policy decisions. While audits are the most effective method of enforcing compliance, they are expensive to conduct and the IRS is only able to audit a fraction of the returns filed each year. This suggests that audits alone are not sufficient to curb the billions of dollars of tax evaded by taxpayers each year and that a better understanding of factors influencing compliance decisions is needed to enable policymakers to craft tax policies that maximize voluntary compliance. Prior research tends to model compliance as economic, environmental, or personal decisions; however, this study models it as a multifaceted decision where these three perspective individually and interactively influence compliance. It is the first to decompose perceived detection risk into two dimensions (selection risk and enforcement risk) and investigates how these two dimensions of risk, decision domains (refund or tax due positions), and three personal factors (mental accounting, narcissism, and proactivity) influence taxpayers’ compliance decisions. I conducted a 2x2 fully crossed experiment involving 331 self-employed taxpayers. These taxpayers have opportunities to evade that employed taxpayers do not. For example, they can earn cash income that is not reported to the IRS by third parties. For self-employed taxpayers (especially those wanting to evade), perceived selection and enforcement risks may be distinctly different depending on a taxpayer’s situation, what they believe they can control, and what risk they are willing to accept. For example, selection risk may be perceived as the greatest risk for those with unreported items on their return, while enforcement risk may be more prominent for those perceiving certain levels of selection risk. Thus, I believe self-employed taxpayers are the most appropriate population to sample from and are likely have reasonable variation in the three personal factors …
A Reexamination of the Dilution of Auditor Misstatement Risk Assessments: An Experimental Study of the Impact of Client Information Type, Workload, and PCAOB Guidance on Dilution
Many external parties such as investors, creditors, and regulatory agencies, use a company’s financial statements in their decision-making. In doing so, they rely on audit opinions on whether financial statements are fairly stated. However, evidence suggests that there are factors in the audit environment that influence auditor judgments. For example, nondiagnostic client information dilutes auditor judgments when compared to judgments based on diagnostic information alone, especially for less experienced auditors (Hackenbrack 1992; Hoffman and Patton 1997; Glover 1994; Shelton 1999). High time pressure conditions mitigate this effect by refocusing auditor attention toward relevant client information, therefore reducing the impact of nondiagnostic information (Glover 1994, 1997). This research study examines other common audit environment factors to determine if they too influence audit judgment results. An online questionnaire of 149 auditors, CPAs and other accounting professionals indicate that the inclusion of nondiagnostic client information results in a significant change in auditor judgments. The direction of this change follows a theorized pattern; risk assessments that were initially high are reduced, while those that were initially low are increased. Significance was not consistently found for a workload and PCAOB effect on auditor judgment. However, a comparison of the absolute value of dilution effect means across conditions reveals some trending for the proposed unwanted effect of high workload, and the beneficial effect of PCAOB guidance. These results have important implications for auditing research and practice. It extends previous archival research on workload effects and uses a unique questionnaire design to reexamine workload pressures in a behavioral setting. The results of hypothesis testing on workload pressure and PCAOB guidance, although lacking consistent statistical significance; exhibit trends that agree with proposed theoretical relationships. Tests on the effects of nondiagnostic information show strong statistical support for previous studies in the area of psychology and audit. This study’s greatest …
What Did the Client Say? Auditor Memory of a Client Inquiry: a Study of Encoding Style and Note Taking
Client inquiry is a fundamental procedure for gathering audit evidence. Since inquiries are not audio- or video-recorded in practice, auditor memory is vital to the accuracy of evidence gathered in this manner. Due to the potential for error during memory encoding and retrieval, the effect of memory on judgment, and the cognitive complexity of conducting a face-to-face inquiry, examining factors affecting auditor memory of client inquiries is important. In this dissertation, I examine two factors likely to affect auditor memory of a client inquiry. First, encoding style is a low-level cognitive function representing how much stimuli an individual perceives before applying prior knowledge (schemata) to assist with encoding to long-term memory, affecting information noticed and remembered. Differences in auditors’ encoding style may explain variance in memory accuracy of evidence gathered from a client inquiry. Second, audit professionals often make hand-written or typed notes during client inquiries, and subsequently review the notes, which may affect memory. To address these issues, I first gather interview evidence from six professional auditors to determine how practicing auditors plan, prepare for, conduct, and document evidence from client inquiries. I then develop and execute a video-based experiment with 33 senior auditor participants, 23 masters-level accounting students, and 47 undergraduate-level accounting students to investigate whether encoding style and note taking affect auditor memory accuracy of, and audit judgments resulting from, a client inquiry. I find multiple significant results. First, I find that encoding style affects memory accuracy such that auditors quickly utilizing prior knowledge during an inquiry results in greater memory accuracy than auditors slowly utilizing prior knowledge. This finding suggests that quickly utilizing prior knowledge helps auditors to manage the cognitive complexity of a client inquiry. Second, I find that participants who take notes during an inquiry, and subsequently review his or her notes taken, have …
Effects of Auditor-provided Tax Services on Book-tax Differences and Investors’ Mispricing of Book-tax Differences
In this study, I investigate the effect of auditor-provided tax services (ATS) on firms’ levels of book-tax differences and investors’ mispricing of book-tax differences. The joint provision of audit and tax services has been a controversial issue among regulators and academic researchers. Evidence on whether ATS improve or impair the overall accounting quality is inconclusive as a result of the specific testing circumstances involved in different studies. Book-tax differences capture managers’ earnings management and/or tax avoidance intended to maximize reported financial income and to minimize tax expense. Therefore, my first research question investigates whether ATS improve or impair audit quality by examining the relation between ATS and firms’ levels of book-tax differences. My results show that ATS are negatively related to book-tax differences, suggesting that ATS improve the overall audit quality and reduce aggressive financial and/or tax reporting. My second research question examines whether the improved earnings quality for firms acquiring ATS leads to reduced mispricing of book-tax differences among investors. Recent studies document that despite the rich information about firms’ future earnings contained in book-tax differences, investors process such information inefficiently, leading to systematic pricing errors among firms with large book-tax differences. My empirical evidence indicates that ATS mitigate such mispricing, with pricing errors being lower among firms acquiring ATS compared with firms without ATS. Collectively, these results support the notion that ATS improve audit quality through knowledge spillover. Moreover, the improved earnings quality among firms acquiring ATS in turn helps reduce investors’ mispricing of book-tax differences.
A Study of Firm Location to Examine Disclosures and Governance Using a Dual Approach: Quantitative Analysis Based Upon the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and Qualitative Analysis of the Annual Report’s Management Discussion and Analysis
The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate the effect of U.S. firms’ geographic location, whether urban or rural, on their corporate disclosure and governance practices. An “urban” firm is one that is headquartered in a large metropolitan area; whereas, a “rural” firm is one that is headquartered some distance from any metropolitan area. Specifically, the study examines whether there are different stock market reactions to urban and rural firms around key event dates relative to the enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) on July 30, 2002. Also, the readability and linguistic style in the Management Discussion and Analysis (MD&A) section of public company’s annual reports (Form 10-K) to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) are investigated to determine whether urban and rural firms communicate information differently to investors.
The Impact of Social Learning and Social Norms on Auditor Choice
The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the influences of industry dynamic factors (e.g., peer selections) on a client’s subsequent decision to select the type of auditor (e.g., Big N versus non-Big N), following auditor turnover. More specifically, drawing on social norms and social learning theories, I develop testable implications and investigate whether and how industry dynamics have an incremental power in explaining auditor choice beyond traditional firm-specific variables documented in prior research. Using a large sample from years 1988 – 2012, I find that clients are more likely to imitate their industry peers’ prior selections to select the type of their succeeding auditors, consistent with the implications of social learning theory. I also find that clients in industries with stronger industry norms, as measured by a greater proportion of clients audited by Big N auditors in an industry, are more likely to select Big N auditors as their succeeding auditors, consistent with the implications of social norms theory. To my best knowledge, this is the first study to explore the impact of social dynamics measured at the industry level on auditor selection and provide large-sample evidence on the relations between industry dynamics and auditor selection at the firm level. Findings of this study provide insights into the dynamic process of auditor selection in which companies do not make auditor-selection decisions in isolation of one another as often posited in existing literature, contribute to the research on the determinants of auditor choice by incorporating industry dynamics into an agent-principal model, and provide a more comprehensive view of the phenomenon of auditor selection.
The Effects of Goal Difficulty and Monitoring Frequency on Effort and Risk Taking Decisions
Management control systems perform a vital role in facilitating the accomplishment of organizational objectives. To effectively align the objectives of employees with those of the organization, firms balance multiple control mechanisms to encourage organizationally desired behaviors and discourage undesired behaviors. The purpose of my dissertation was two-fold. First, I assessed how changes in monitoring frequency influenced employee behaviors and the overall function of the management control system. Second, I investigated the effects of stretch goals on behavior to determine whether stretch goals can lead to harmful behaviors and whether continuous monitoring can mitigate these behaviors. Results suggest that individuals exert more effort when assigned a stretch or difficult goal compared to an easy goal. My study also finds that stretch goals can be harmful because of their effect on risk taking, goal commitment, and job insecurity. Finally, results indicate that accountability mediates the monitoring frequency-risk taking relationship such that continuous monitoring increases accountability and accountability decreases risk taking. However, the ability of monitoring frequency to decrease risk taking may depend on numerous factors. Results from this study allow practitioners to understand the potential benefits and drawbacks of implementing continuous monitoring systems and the combined effects of using these systems in conjunction with compensation systems. Consequently, this study highlights necessary considerations for practitioners during the implementation continuous monitoring systems. The study also informs practitioners of the potentially harmful effects of stretch goals, the conditions under which they occur, and the possible ways to mitigate these effects.
An Empirical Investigation of the Lobbying Influence of Large Corporations on Selected FASB Standards
The Financial Accounting Standards Board is a private sector rule making body. Congressional inquiries have questioned whether the setting of accountin standards should remain in the private sector. Congressional critics have charged that the FASB has been captured by special interests and recommended that a governmental agency assume responsibility for standard setting. Specifically, critics charge that large corporations capture the Big Eight accounting firms who, in turn, have captured the FASB. Previous capture studies have concluded that the standard setting process is pluralistic and that the FASB has not been captured. The studies have focused on the influence of the Big Eight to determine if the FASB has been captured. They assume if standards do not reflect the expressed preferences of the Big Eight, then Congressional criticisms are invalid. The studies also assume a unidirectional influence between participants in the process and have ignored the intensity of preferences of the respondents.The purpose of this study is to provide a theoretical framework to specify selection of standards that would be expected to be subject to capture. This framework also recognizes the duo-directional nature of influence. The allegations of capture were tested using the standards selected in accordance with the theoretical framework. The following hypotheses were tested. HO_1 There is no positive statistically significant relationship between clients' preferences and an accounting firm's support for an outcome. HO_2 There is no positive statistically significant relationship between the preferences of large corporations and standards enacted by the FASB. HO_3 There is no positive statistically significant relationship between the preferences of the Big Eight firms and the standards enacted by the FASB. These hypotheses were tested for each Big Eight accounting firms and for each standard. A logist procedure was employed. The results of the tests, with three exceptions, indicate that any relationships that occurred …
Professional Commitment, Organizational Commitment, and Organizational-Professional Conflict in the Internal Audit Function Model: Development and Test
This dissertation is a descriptive, exploratory examination of professional commitment, organizational commitment, and conflict between those commitments in the internal audit profession. That conflict has been suggested in prior studies as the source of dysfunctional outcomes such as increased role stress, high turnover, decreased job satisfaction, and the exercise of improper judgment leading to audit failures. The descriptive aspect of this study deals with the development of a more comprehensive structural model of the factors and relationships involved in commitment and conflict than has been developed by previous research dealing with accountants. The exploratory aspect deals with the testing and refinement of the developed model utilizing the internal audit profession as the field of examination. The model developed in this study is derived from the synthesis of factors suggested by role theory, the concept of side bets, the cosmopolitan-local construct, and the concept of commitment as a process. This research utilizes a questionnaire administered to 205 practicing internal auditors in order to test 30 hypothesized relationships. Path analysis is used to determine the significant direct relationships between variables with a process of theory trimming being conducted in order to produce more parsimonious structural models. Indirect relationships between significant variables are identified and their redundant or suppressive nature determined. Explanations of these suppressive or redundant relationships are provided based on the theoretical considerations identified above. Such a determination and explanation of the redundant and suppressive indirect relationships involved in the commitment-conflict relationship has not been accomplished in earlier studies of the subject. Although the procedures used here do not support causal conclusions, the findings of this study indirectly provide evidence that conflict between the two commitments in the internal audit area is not to be considered inherent. The findings also suggest a possible undesirable relationship between organizational formalization and professional commitment.
The Contrast-Inertia Model and the Updating of Attributions in Performance Evaluation
The two problems which motivate this research concern the role of managerial accounting information in performance evaluation. The first problem is that the processing of accounting information by individual managers may deviate from a normative (Bayesian) pattern. Second, managers' use of accounting information in performance appraisal may contribute to conflict between superiors and subordinates. In this research, I applied the contrast-inertia model (C-IM) and attribution theory (AT) to predict how accounting information affects managers' beliefs about the causes for observed performance. The C-IM describes how new evidence is incorporated into opinions. Application of the C-IM leads to the prediction that information order may influence managers' opinions. Attribution theory is concerned with how people use information to assign causality, especially for success or failure. Together, the C-IM and AT imply that causal beliefs of superiors and subordinates diverge when they assimilate accounting information. Three experiments were performed with manufacturing managers as subjects. Most of the subjects were middle-level production managers from Texas manufacturing plants. The subjects used accounting information in revising their beliefs about causes for performance problems. In the experiments, the manipulated factors were the order of information, subject role (superior or subordinate), and the position of different types of information. The experimental results were analyzed by repeated measures analyses of variance, in which the dependent variable was an opinion or the change in an opinion over a series of evidence items. The experimental results indicate that the order of mixed positive and negative information affects beliefs in performance evaluation. For mixed evidence, there was significant divergence of opinions between superiors and subordinates. The results provide little evidence that superior and subordinate roles bias the belief updating process. The experiments show that belief revision in performance evaluation deviates from the normative standard, and that the use of accounting information may …
An Analysis of Smoothing of Proved Oil and Gas Reserve Quantities and an Analysis of Bias and Variability in Revisions of Previous Estimates of Proved Oil and Gas Reserve Quantities
The purpose of this study is to determine whether oil and gas producing companies smooth their ending reserve quantities. Smoothing is defined as a reduction in variance in the trend of ending reserve quantities over time compared to the trend of ending reserve quantities less the hypothesized smoothing variable over time. This study focuses on two variables that are most susceptible to manipulation—revisions of previous estimates and additions. This study also examines whether revisions are positively or negatively biased and the variability of the revisions. The sample consists of 70 companies chosen from oil & Gas Reserve Disclosures: 1980-1984 Survey of 400 Public Companies by Arthur Andersen and Company. For each company, ending reserve quantities for the years 1978-1984 were regressed over time, and the standard deviation of the estimate (SDE) was calculated. Then the ending reserve quantities less the hypothesized smoothing variable were regressed over time, and the SDE was calculated. A linear model and a semi-logarithmic model were used. A smoothing ratio (SR) was determined by dividing the SDE of reserves less the hypothesized smoothing variable by the SDE of ending reserve quantities. An SR greater than one indicates smoothing, and an SR less than one indicates that smoothing did not occur. The mean percentage revision and a t-test were used to test for positive or negative bias in the revisions. The mean absolute percentage revision was used to assess the relative variability of revisions. The number of companies classified as smoothers of oil reserves was statistically significant for the semi-logarithmic model but not for the linear model. Under both models the number of companies classified as smoothers of gas reserves was statistically significant. Few companies had mean percentage revisions that were significantly different from zero. The majority of companies had mean absolute revisions of under ten percent.
An Exploratory Investigation of Socio-Economic Phenomena that May Influence Accounting Differences in Three Diverse Countries
This dissertation attempts to provide an exploratory structure to respond to, and tries to resolve, an existing void in international accounting research. The void is a lack of coherently structured, nation-specific, descriptive research to investigate socio-economic phenomena which may influence financial accounting. This dissertation's salient features include a political economy theory, an exploratory, sociological method, and a case study format. The political economy of accounting, introduced by Tinker [1980] and refined by Cooper and Sherer [1984], emphasizes a persuasive social relations dimension. This theory motivates selection of three countries (the United States, France, and Japan) that appear to have divergent socio-cultural environments. An exploratory and analytical approach of modified (enlarged) exogenism, developed by Smith [1973, 1976] and adapted to accounting by McKinnon [1986], provides an analytic structure for this exploratory investigation. Modified exogenism focuses upon an open, dynamic social system (the process of financial accounting), and provides analysis reflecting four major areas (the environment, intrusive events, intra-system activity, and trans-system activity). After examining the nation-specific financial accounting (socio-economic) structures for each country, an analysis of selected financial disclosures attempts to gain a better understanding of how socio-economic factors have influenced the development of financial accounting. My primary objective is to attempt to provide some insight about ,how diverse socio-political factors have impacted the development of financial accounting in three countries. Library research of nation-specific literature attempts to extract a relatively accurate picture of social, political, and economic institutions and policies, and relates such findings to financial accounting processes for each nation. This dissertation attempts to provide a necessary foundation for future theoretical international accounting harmonization studies.
Alternative Social Security Taxing Schemes: an Analysis of Vertical and Horizontal Equity in the Federal Tax System
The objectives of this study were twofold. One objective was to analyze the effects of growth in the social security tax, when combined with recent changes in U.S. income tax law, on the distribution of the combined income and social security tax burden during the 1980s. The second objective was to estimate the effects of certain proposals for social security tax reform upon that distribution. The above analyses were performed using simulation techniques applied to the 1984 IRS Individual Tax Model File. The data from this file were used to estimate the income and social security tax liabilities for sample taxpayers under tax law in effect in 1980, 1984 and 1988 and under fourteen proposals for social security reform (under 1988 law). The results indicated that the income tax distribution was almost 25 percent more progressive under 1988 tax law than under 1980 tax law. In contrast, the combined distribution of income and social security taxes was almost 25 percent less progressive under 1988 income and social security tax law relative to 1980. Two types of social security tax reform were analyzed. One type consisted of reforms to the basic social security tax structure, such as removal of the earnings ceiling, provision of exemptions and replacement of the current single tax rate with a two-tiered graduated rate structure. The second type of reform consisted of proposals to expand the theoretical tax base subject to the social security levy. The results suggested that these reforms could generate substantial increases in progressivity in the combined tax distribution. In general, it would appear that changes in the social security tax structure could generate greater improvements in progressivity than expansion of the theoretical tax base, although the greatest improvement was associated with a combination of these two reforms. With regard to horizontal equity, expansion …
Venture Capital Investment and Protocol Analysis
This study used protocol analysis to identify key variables in the venture capital investment decision-making process. The study used a fictional business plan which was based on six actual business plans. This fictional business plan was presented to ten venture capitalists who were asked to review it to decide whether to interview the investee. The protocols obtained from these subjects were analyzed to determine patterns within the subjects' review. The sections of the business plan which were commonly reviewed first were the deal structure, the executive summary, and the management section. The management section was used by the greatest number of subjects. The market section was used the greatest number of times. The data were also organized by type of operators used in each subject's protocols. Information Search/Retrieval operators were most common, followed by Task Structuring/Set Goal operators. When classified into the four major categories of Task Structuring/Set Goal, Information Acquisition, Analytical/ Inferential, and Choice operators, Analytical/Inferential operators were used most frequently. Choice operators were least used. The phrases were analyzed by the relevant section in the business plan. The market received the greatest number of references, followed by references to the product and to management. However, when references to the income statement and balance sheet were combined as phrases relevant to the financial statements, the financial statements were referred to more frequently than the product or the people. The subjects appeared to use an unidentified choice program within which certain models could be identified as subroutines. The subjects used an elimination-by-aspects model to screen the business plan. If the business plan met the criteria within the elimination-by-aspects model of the subject, the subject used an additive/nonlinear model for the remainder of the review. The results of this study indicate that financial statements provide information important in the venture capital …
Income Tax Evasion and the Effectiveness of Tax Compliance Legislation, 1979-1982
The federal income tax system in the United States depends upon a high degree of voluntary compliance. The IRS estimates that the voluntary compliance level is declining and that this tax compliance gap cost the government an estimated $90.5 billion in 1981. Between 1979 and 1982, Congress made several changes in the tax laws designed to improve tax compliance. Extensive data was collected by the IRS for 1979 and 1982 through the random sample audits of approximately 50,000 taxpayers on the Taxpayer Compliance Measurement Program (TCMP), which is conducted every three years. During the period 1979 through 1982, Congress lowered the marginal tax rates, added some fairly severe penalties, for both taxpayers and paid return preparers, and increased information reporting requirements for certain types of income. In this research, it was hypothesized that voluntary compliance should increase in response to lower marginal rates, a higher risk of detection due to additional reporting requirements, and increased penalties. Multiple regression analysis was employed to test these hypotheses, using 1979 and 1982 TCMP data. Because of the requirements for taxpayer confidentiality, it was necessary for the IRS to run the data and provide the aggregate data results for the research. The results provided insight into the effectiveness of tax compliance legislation. While the overall voluntary compliance level (VCL) increased from 1979 to 1982 by 1.53 per cent, the VCL increase for taxpayers in high marginal rates was much smaller (.42 percent) than the overall increase. This is very inconsistent with the notion that high marginal rates are driving noncompliance, and suggests that marginal rates may not be strong determinants of compliance. Probably other factors, such as opportunity for evasion, may be more important. There was little change from 1979 to 1982 of the compliance of returns done by paid return preparers. Because of …
Tax Compliance in a Social Setting: the Influence of Norms, Perceptions of Fairness, and Trust in Government on Taxpayer Compliance
Many taxing authorities, including those in the United States (U.S.), rely on voluntary tax compliance and continually search for ways to increase tax revenues. Most of these methods are costly and labor intensive, such as audits and penalties for noncompliance. Prior tax compliance research has heavily investigated the influence that economic factors, such as tax rates and penalties, have on individual compliance intentions. However, economic models fail to fully predict individual tax compliance. Psychology literature suggests that social factors may also play an important role in individual tax compliance decisions. The purpose of this study is to examine the influence that social and psychological factors have on individuals' tax compliance intentions. Specifically, a model of taxpayer compliance is hypothesized that suggests that norms, perceived fairness of the tax system, and trust in government have a significant influence on compliance intentions. Results of a survey of 217 U.S. taxpayers found support for the influence of social factors on tax compliance. This research concludes that social norms have an indirect influence on compliance intentions through internalization as personal norms. Specifically, as the strength of social norms in favor of tax compliance increase, personal norms of tax compliance also increase, and this leads to a subsequent increase in compliance intentions. This dissertation also finds that trust in government and the perceived fairness of the tax system have a significant influence on compliance intentions. Supplemental analyses indicate that trust in government fully mediates the relationship between perceived fairness of the tax system and compliance intentions. This research offers several contributions to accounting literature and provides valuable insight for taxing authorities. First, this study examines taxpayer compliance from a psychological, rather than an economics driven, perspective. The suggested model of taxpayer compliance posits that social norms have a significant influence on compliance intentions. This information …
Financial Reporting in Poland: Privatization of Select Firms Traded on the Warsaw Stock Exchange
Poland's transition from a centrally-planned economy (CPE) to a market economy began in 1989. Building a market economy out of the failures of a CPE represents an unprecedented process in the history of economic development. At the core of the transition is the privatization of state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Many problems encountered during privatization are accounting related, and before privatization can occur valuation issues must be resolved. What has been the role of accounting in Poland's transition? Accounting is an interactive process that reflects and creates reality. The accounting process facilitates the calculation of the value created by a firm by attempting to trace the flow of resources through the value-creating process, and it identifies, measures, records, summarizes, and reports transactions. How these transactions are internalized determines how they flow through the accounting process, and, because the former SOEs are complex organizations in transition, decisions concerning when and how to record events can be diverse. The primary objective of this study is to provide insight into the accounting transition in Poland by addressing issues of ownership rights, valuation, financial reporting, and disclosure. The research question is: How is accounting transforming and being transformed in Poland? The research question is addressed in the context of the political and economic environment of three SOEs privatized and traded on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. To identify the role accounting played, I examined the financial reports of three of the first Polish SOEs privatized, employing case study methodology. The analysis indicates that accounting facilitated the transition by creating capital with the overstatement of assets. The overvalued assets will have to be absorbed in future periods, and subsequent research should address this problem.
Examination of the Effects of Experience and Missing Information on Tax Preparer Judgment
This research examines how experience and missing information affect judgments of tax return preparers. Tax return preparers may often be faced with the problem of incomplete information, and their responses to this problem may be conditioned by whether or not they recognize information is missing. Based on the Holland et al.'s cognitive theory of induction as applied to tax judgment by Marchant et al., it was hypothesized that experienced tax preparers would correctly classify more items as to their relevance to a specific tax issue than novice tax preparers. Additionally, it was hypothesized that the strength of recommendations of tax preparers who had no relevant information missing would be greater than the strength of recommendations of tax preparers who had relevant information missing and were prompted that information was missing. Lastly, it was hypothesized that prompting that relevant information was missing would have a greater effect on the strength of recommendations of tax return preparers with lesser specific experience than it would on the strength of recommendations of tax return preparers with greater specific experience. The results suggest that experienced tax preparers do recognize the relevance of information to a greater degree than novice tax preparers. There was no significant difference, however, in the strengths of recommendation of tax preparers who had no missing information and those who were prompted that information was missing. There was a significant difference in the strengths of recommendations of tax preparers with lesser specific experience who had been prompted that relevant information was missing and those who had not been prompted that relevant information was missing. Among tax preparers with greater specific experience, however, there was no significant difference between the two groups. These results suggest that tax preparers with greater specific experience recognized that relevant information was missing without being prompted, while tax …
An Examination of the Accounting Debate over the Determination of Business Income: 1945-1952
George O. May's (1952) prescient statement that "if accounting had not already become, it was well on its way to becoming a political phenomenon" provides the motivation for this study. Changing socioeconomic relationships in the post-World War II period make it an ideal period to examine the politicalization of accounting. Keynesian economic policies justified active government intervention in the economy to manage demand and ensure full employment. No longer could it be assumed that competitive market forces would ensure that corporations produced goods and services at a socially optimal level or that income would be distributed equitably. Claims that accounting profit provides a measure of managerial efficiency are based on these premises. This dissertation examines the political dynamics of one particular accounting measurement debate--the debate over the determination of business income. Policies, such as wage/price controls, the excess profits tax, and the undistributed profits tax, brought the accounting income determination debate to center stage. The perseverance of the historic cost allocation model in the face of significant economic changes presents a fascinating glimpse of the important role accounting played in justifying continued reliance on the private property rights paradigm. I use retrodiction (reasoning from present to past) to examine why the historic cost allocation model has been so enduring. In my examination, I use personal correspondence, transcripts of Congressional hearings, published financial statements, and relevant journal articles. My analysis indicates that, while accountants empathized with managers who claimed that inflation distorted reported earnings and recognized that a serious measurement scale issue existed, they also recognized that abandonment of historic cost would not be politically feasible. If accountants had adopted a strongly partisan position that favored management with respect to bargaining with labor, this could have undermined the profession's claim to neutrality and opened the standard-setting process to closer political scrutiny. …
An Analysis of Confidence Levels and Retrieval of Procedures Associated with Accounts Receivable Confirmations
The study addresses whether differently ordered accounts receivable workprograms and task experience relate to differences in judgments, confidence levels, and recall ability. The study also assesses how treated and untreated inexperienced and experienced auditors store and recall accounts receivable workprogram steps in memory in a laboratory environment. Additionally, the question whether different levels of experienced auditors can effectively be manipulated is also addressed.
The Impact of Contextual Variables on Internal Auditors' Propensity to Communicate Upwardly
The author examined whether contextual variables impact internal auditors' self-assessed likelihood of whistleblowing. The author synthesized a theoretical framework and developed research hypotheses that predict relationships between the self-assessed likelihood of whistleblowing and (1) magnitude of the consequences (2) channels of communication and (3) type of wrongdoing. To test these hypotheses, the author provided internal auditors (n=123) with a scenario and asked them to self-assess the likelihood of reporting evidence of a malfacation to their internal audit director even though their audit manager told them to ignore the wrongdoing.
An Analysis of Factors Associated with Voluntary Disclosure of Management's Responsibilities for Internal Control
The purpose of this study was to identify company characteristics associated with the presence of disclosures regarding internal control in the annual report. Gibbins, Richardson and Waterhouse [1990] have developed a framework from which to examine financial disclosure,. These authors define two dimensions of a company's disclosure position; opportunism and ritualism. I examined the association between variables representing the dimensions identified by these authors and a company's decision regarding disclosure of a management report on internal control. I compared specific characteristics of companies disclosing this information to those of companies not disclosing. The dependent variable represented the presence or absence of disclosure. I used logit analysis to test the significance of the chosen characteristics relative to the decision to include or exclude a management report on internal control in the annual report. My results were consistent with the existence of ritualism with respect to this issue. Reporting on internal controls was associated with membership in the Financial Executives Institute, auditor choice, certain industry designations and prior inclusion of such a report. FEI membership was closely related to initial reporting decisions as well'. I found evidence of opportunism as well. The likelihood of reporting on internal controls was related to company size (and presumably control strength), and growth rates. I also found an association between reporting and the issuance of publicly traded securities in the succeeding year and more moderate levels of debt relative to an industry average. In addition, I found that initial reporting decisions were associated with external events relating to potential legislation of the reporting issue. This research provides insight into the corporate response to reporting on internal controls.
The Impact of Ambiguity and Risk on the Auditor's Assessment of Inherent Risk and Control Risk
The purpose of this study was to try to identify the impact of ambiguity and risk on the auditor's judgment about inherent risk and control risk when planning the audit. A second purpose was to determine how ambiguity tolerance/intolerance affects judgment.
Accounting Measurement Bias and Executive Compensation Systems
This dissertation presents empirical evidence intended to help answer two research questions. The first question asks whether executive compensation systems appear to exploit the bias in accounting-based performance measures in order to reduce the volatility in executive compensation and to allocate incentives more effectively across the range of activities performed by the executive. The second question asks whether compensation systems systematically differ between firms that use alternative accounting methods and whether any such systematic difference helps explain accounting choice. Parameters estimated in fixed-effects endogenous switching regression models were used to test the risk-shielding and incentive-allocation hypotheses. The models were estimated across a dataset consisting of 1151 executive-year observations of annual compensation paid to 222 top-level executives in 40 oil and gas firms. The dataset was partitioned by accounting method and separate models estimated for the full cost and successful efforts partitions. The tests provided modest support for the risk-shielding and incentive-allocation hypotheses, revealing that accounting measurement bias is used to focus incentives for effort in the exploration activity and to reduce executives' exposure to production risk. The design also allowed an estimate of the proportional change in compensation that was realized from the accounting choice actually made.
A Process Analysis of Lenders' Use of FAS 95 Cash Flow Information
This study uses concurrent verbal protocol analysis to examine the decision processes of lenders as they evaluate the financial information of a loan applicant. Of specific interest is the lenders' use of Statement of Financial Accounting Standards Board No. 95 (FAS 95), Statement of Cash Flows, in that decision process.
The Effect of Auditor Knowledge on Information Processing during Analytical Review
Auditors form judgments by integrating the evidence they gather with information stored in memory (knowledge). As they acquire experience, auditors have the opportunity to learn how different patterns of evidence are associated with particular audit problems. Research in experimental psychology has demonstrated that individuals with task-specific experience can match the cues they encounter with patterns they have learned, and form judgments without consciously analyzing the individual cues. Accounting researchers have suggested that auditors develop judgment templates through task-specific experience, and that these knowledge structures automatically provide decisions in familiar situations. I examined whether auditor knowledge leads to reliance on judgment templates. To test this thesis, I synthesized a theoretical framework and developed research hypotheses that predict relationships between task-specific experience (my surrogate for knowledge) and (1) measures of cognitive effort, (2) accuracy of residual memory traces, and (3) performance with respect to identifying potential problems. To test these predictions, I provided senior auditors with comprehensive case materials for a hypothetical client and asked them to use analytical procedures to identify potential audit problems. Subjects acquired information and documented their findings on personal computers using software that I developed to record their activities.
An Analysis of the Accounting System of the Quincy Mining Company: 1846-1900
This historical study examines the evolution of the accounting system of the Quincy Mining Company between 1846 and 1900. The external financial reporting practices and internal accounting procedures of the firm are defined and interpreted in the context of three time periods that portray the formation, growth and maturation of the firm. Each period reflects unique economic and social conditions that are associated with changes in the firm's accounting system. A cross temporal analysis of these changes highlights three factors: the relationship between the accounting system and the labor force, the emergence of accounting as a control mechanism and the diminishing informational content of the firm's annual reports. Primary sources are used to document the perspectives of the Quincy management and to assess the motivations for accounting processes such as internal control, auditing procedures, responsibility centers and other managerial practices. This study addresses the inherent nature of accounting information and its relationship to the economic and social environment of an individual firm in the nineteenth century.
Environmental Accounting: The Relationship Between Pollution Performance and Economic Performance in Oil and Gas Refineries
A research study is undertaken to determine if economic incentives exist for noncompliance with regulatory standards, and if accounting related disclosure of regulatory enforcement actions is a determinant of environmental performance.
Cultural Influences on the ABC Implementation Under Thailand's Environment
This study examines the influences of culture on the implementation of a U.S.-based Activity-Based Costing (ABC) in three Thai organizations.
An Exploratory Investigation of the Origins and Regulatory Actions of the United Kingdom's Financial Reporting Review Panel
In 1990, the accounting profession and the British government worked together to establish a new regulatory framework for financial reporting in the United Kingdom (UK), the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) and its two subsidiaries, the Accounting Standards Board (ASB) and the Financial Reporting Review Panel (FRRP). The FRRP enforces companies' compliance with the ASB's accounting standards and the accounting provisions of the UK Companies Act. Only one study, Brandt et al. (1997), has examined the activities and effectiveness of the FRRP. This dissertation attempts to extend Brandt et. al (1997) and add to understanding of the origins and regulatory actions of the FRRP.
The Role of Accounting Information in Investor Assessments of Corporate Takeovers
The objective of this research is to assess whether the financial markets impute motives to bidding firm managers in setting the new equilibrium share price at the time a tender offer is announced.
The Early Adoption of Accounting Standards as an Earnings Management Tool
Many corporate managers elect to adopt a new Statement of Financial Accounting Standard (SFAS) early instead of waiting until the mandatory adoption date. This study tests for evidence that managers use early adoption as an earnings management tool in a manner consistent with one or more positive accounting theories.
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