Do audit efforts increase the future equity value of client firm?

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sang Ho Lee ◽  
Seung Uk Choi ◽  
Ji Yeon Ryu

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the association between additional audit efforts and clients’ future equity value. The study hypothesizes that auditors’ additional audit efforts directly increase clients’ stock return performance. Additionally, this study expects that the additional audit effort lowers the likelihood of audit failure and improves accounting information quality, thereby indirectly increasing clients’ future equity return performance. Design/methodology/approach The regression and portfolio return tests are conducted using observations from 2003 to 2016. This study uses the abnormal audit hours as a proxy for additional audit effort using mandatorily disclosed audit hour data from Korean listed firms. The study also conducts mediation analyses to examine the causal intermediate steps that link audit effort to client equity return performance. Findings The paper documents a significant and positive association between abnormal audit hours and clients’ subsequent years’ stock return performance and Tobin’s Q. This finding is accentuated for clients audited by Big N auditors or with greater demand for superior audit service. This finding is robust after controlling for various proxies of accounting quality. The portfolio return tests also find evidence that investors cannot fully perceive the value of audit efforts. A battery of additional tests does not alter the main findings. Practical implications The results provide implications for investors and policymakers by emphasizing the importance of audit efforts in value-creation. Moreover, this study’s findings suggest that auditors’ assurance, insurance and information roles are all the important drivers of this value-creation. Originality/value This study highlights a prominent feature of audit effort that enhances the value of auditees.

2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 474-497 ◽  
Author(s):  
Krismiaji ◽  
Y. Anni Aryani ◽  
Djoko Suhardjanto

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to discuss empirical research examining the impact of International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) adoption and board governance on the accounting quality, in terms of relevance and faithful representation. Design/methodology/approach The research uses a sample of 454 observations of publicly listed companies on the Indonesian Stock Exchange for the fiscal year that ends on December 31, 2008 through 2011. Relevance is measured by predictive value, whereas faithful representation is measured by absolute discretionary accrual as an inverse measure. Board governance is measured by the board of commissioner score whereas IFRS adoption is measured by the percentage of IFRS adopted. The data used in this study are obtained both from Indonesian Capital Market Directory, Indonesian Stock Exchange database, and from company annual reports. Findings This research found evidence of a positive association of IFRS adoption on the relevance of accounting information quality. With respect to faithful representation, this study proves a positive association after IFRS adoption. This research also found that board governance has a positive impact on accounting information quality after IFRS adoption both in relevance and faithful representation. This result is in line with investor’s expectations that fair value IFRS adoption enhances the relevance of accounting information. Originality/value This study provides further evidence on the effect of IFRS adoption and board of governance on accounting information quality using data from Indonesia. Moreover, this study measures and tests both dimensions of earnings quality which are relevance and faithful representation and portrays a complete story about the quality of earnings. This study uses the qualitative characteristics of accounting information as proxies for accounting quality, so that it enriches the accounting literature about the role of accounting standards in financial reporting quality.


2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (5) ◽  
pp. 725-740 ◽  
Author(s):  
Enrique Bonsón ◽  
Michaela Bednárová

Purpose Technological developments such as blockchain seem to be the next step in a digital era and might reshape the way we do business. They are expected to have an impact on both business and society in the next few decades. This paper aims to provide general insights into blockchain technology and the extent to which it might transform the accounting system. Design/methodology/approach Analysing the previous literature, the paper provides a general overview of this phenomenon, identifying pending technical as well as non-technical issues that will have to be addressed for the full potential of blockchain technology to be embraced. The paper also proposes ways in which the information quality dimension might be improved. Findings The paper identifies the pending challenges for blockchain, such as scalability, flexibility, a suitable architecture and cybersecurity. Additionally, to integrate blockchain technology fully into a real accounting ecosystem, a consensus between regulators, auditors and other parties is needed. Originality/value A general overview of this new phenomenon, as well as a summary of how the quality of accounting information might be improved, is provided. Given that it features elements such as decentralization and transparency, blockchain certainly has the potential to improve information and accounting quality.


2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 323-343
Author(s):  
Hyunkwon Cho ◽  
Robert Kim

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether analysts’ optimism affects the stock crash risk. Design/methodology/approach The sample covers 49,246 firm-year observations for the period between 1995 and 2015. The authors use OLS regressions with firm and year fixed effects for analyses. Findings The study finds that there is a positive association between analysts’ optimism and stock crash risk. Such a positive impact is more pronounced for firms with opaque information environment and for analysts who are considered ex ante credible. Research limitations/implications The results indicate that analysts’ optimism can be an important source of stock crash risk. Practical implications The findings can be useful for informational users of analyst reports. Given that information provided by analysts might have negative consequences, the empirical results can be useful in assessing future stock return behaviors. Originality/value This paper has the potential to shed light on the large literature of crash risk. Prior studies suggest that crash is driven by the agency tension between shareholders and managers. It remains possible that crashes could be caused by overpriced stocks in the absence of bad news hoarding. The paper investigates crash from a perspective, financial analysts, that is underexplored.


2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 799-817
Author(s):  
Dominique Dufour ◽  
Philippe Luu ◽  
Pierre Teller

PurposeThis paper analyses the role of accounting information quality on leverage adjustments. More specifically, the authors investigate whether a better accounting information leads to a higher speed of adjustment to the target financial leverage.Design/methodology/approachThe authors use a two-step method. They first estimate the target financial structure and then the influence of accruals quality on the speed of adjustment to this target. The study sample consists of French listed companies in the CAC All-Tradable index. The sample contains 210 companies and 1,713 observations.FindingsAccounting literature showed the positive influence of accounting quality on financial management. The study findings are in line with these results. The authors give evidence of that a better quality of accruals is associated with a greater speed of adjustment.Research limitations/implicationsA common limitation in this field is the use of proxies. This makes results harder to generalize. For this reason, the authors implemented several models to improve the robustness of their results.Practical implicationsThe authors give evidence that firms have an incentive to disclose a good-quality accounting information. A weak accounting quality prevents firms from adjusting their leverage to their financial target and therefore reduce their value.Social implicationsThis work shows the need for accounting standardization bodies to strive to produce accounting standards allowing the production of high-quality accounting information. In a teaching dimension, these results highlight the importance in corporate finance of acquiring expertise in quality accounting information analysis.Originality/valueThis work is original because the authors study the influence of accounting quality on speed of adjustments of firms operating in the same legal environment and using the same accounting standards, when previous work compared different accounting frameworks. The French context is characterized by the weakness of market mechanisms and the important role of banks. These characteristics are known to reduce the role of accounting information in financing process. This result is interesting because the authors demonstrate that firms operating in this context still have an incentive in producing high accounting quality information.


2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 455-471
Author(s):  
Jorge Cruz-Cárdenas ◽  
Jorge Guadalupe-Lanas ◽  
Ekaterina Zabelina ◽  
Andrés Palacio-Fierro ◽  
Margarita Velín-Fárez ◽  
...  

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to understand in-depth how consumers create value in their lives using WhatsApp, the leading mobile instant messaging (MIM) application. Design/methodology/approach The study adopts the perspective of customer-dominant logic (CDL) and uses a qualitative multimethod design involving 3 focus groups and 25 subsequent in-depth interviews. The research setting was Ecuador, a Latin American country. Findings Analysis and interpretation of the participants’ stories made it possible to identify and understand the creation of four types of value: maintaining and strengthening relationships; improving role performance; emotional support; and entertainment and fun. In addition, the present study proposes a conceptual model of consumer value creation as it applies to MIM. Practical implications Understanding the way consumers create value in their lives using MIM is important not only for organizations that offer MIM applications, but also for those companies that develop other applications for mobile phones or for those who wish to use MIM as an electronic word-of-mouth vehicle. Originality/value The current study is one of the first to address the topic of consumer behavior in the use of technologies from the perspective of CDL; this perspective enables an integrated qualitative vision of value creation in which the consumer is the protagonist.


2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (6) ◽  
pp. 1061-1082 ◽  
Author(s):  
Merve Acar ◽  
Hüseyin Temiz

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate the association between environmental performance of firms and the level of voluntary environmental disclosure in emerging markets.Design/methodology/approachWe used tobit regression OLS and t-test methods to reveal the association between environmental performance and the level of voluntary environmental disclosure.FindingsWe find a significant positive association between the level of discretionary environmental disclosures and corporate environmental performance. The result is in line with the arguments of economics disclosure theory that argues environmentally good performers disclose more.Practical implicationsMany of the environmentally good firms in Turkey are also listed in the “BIST Sustainability Index,” and this situation can be the result of the relative power of external regulations. Accordingly, it can be suggested to increase the community and governmental pressures for environmental reporting but also gives importance to increase intrinsic motivations for companies to engage in disclosure practices.Originality/valueThis study shed light on relation between environmental performance and environmental disclosure in an emerging market context. Also, it is revisited that the relation between environmental performance and the level of environmental disclosure by testing two different predictions on the level of environmental disclosures.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 495-529
Author(s):  
Mohamad Hassan ◽  
Evangelos Giouvris

Purpose This study Investigates Shareholders' value adjustment in response to financial institutions (FIs) merger announcements in the immediate event window and in the extended event window. This study also investigates accounting measures performance, comparison of post-merger to pre-merger, including several cash flow measures and not just profitability measures, as the empirical literature review suggests. Finally, the authors examine FIs mergers orientations of diversification and focus create more value for shareholders (in the immediate announcement window and several months afterward) and/or generates better cash flows, profitability and less credit risk. Design/methodology/approach This study examines FIs merger effect on bidders’ shareholder’s value and on their observed performance. This examination deploys three techniques simultaneously: a) an event study analysis, to estimate and calculate abnormal returns (ARs) and cumulative abnormal returns (CARs) in the narrow windows of the merger announcement, b) buy and hold event study analysis, to estimate ARs in the wider window of the event, +50 to +230 days after the merger announcement and c) an observed performance analysis, of financial and capital efficiency measures before and after the merger announcement; return on equity, liquidity, cost to income ratio, capital to total assets ratio, net loans to total loans, credit risk, loans to deposits ratio, other expenses and total assets, economic value addition, weighted average cost of capital and return on invested capital. Deal criteria of value, mega-deals, strategic orientation (as in Ansoff (1980) growth strategies), acquiring bank size and payment method are set as individually as control variables. Findings Results show that FIs mergers destroy share value for the bidding firms pursuing a market penetration strategy. Market development and product development strategies enable shareholders’ value creation in short and long horizons. Diversification strategies do not influence bidding shareholders’ value. Local bank to bank mergers create shareholders’ value and enhance liquidity and economic value in the short run. Bank to bank cross border mergers create value for bidders’ in the long term but are associated with high costs and higher risks. Originality/value A significant advancement over the current literature is in assessing mergers, not only for bank bidders but also for the three pillars FIs of the financial sector; banks, real-estate companies and investment companies mergers. It is an improvement over current finance literature because it deploys two different strategies in the analysis. At a univariate level, shareholder value creation and market reaction to merger announcements are examined over short (−5 or +5 days) and long (+230 days) windows of the event. Followed by regressing, the resultant CARs and BHARs over financial performance variables at the multivariate level.


2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (6) ◽  
pp. 833-845 ◽  
Author(s):  
Youngsu Lee ◽  
Joonhwan In ◽  
Seung Jun Lee

Purpose As social media platforms become increasingly popular among service firms, many US hospitals have been using social media as a means to improve their patients’ experiences. However, little research has explored the implications of social media use within a hospital context. The purpose of this paper is to investigate a hospital’s customer engagement through social media and its association with customers’ experiential quality. Also, this study examines the role of a hospital’s service characteristics, which could shape the nature of the interactions between patients and the hospital. Design/methodology/approach Data from 669 hospitals with complete experiential quality and demographic data were collected from multiple sources of secondary data, including the rankings of social media friendly hospitals, the Hospital Compare database, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) cost report, the CMS impact file, the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society Analytics database and the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care. Specifically, the authors designed the instrumental variable estimate to address the endogeneity issue. Findings The empirical results suggest a positive association between a hospital’s social media engagement and experiential quality. For hospitals with a high level of service sophistication, the association between online engagement and experiential quality becomes more salient. For hospitals offering various services, offline engagement is a critical predictor of experiential quality. Research limitations/implications A hospital with more complex services should make efforts to engage customers through social media for better patient experiences. The sample is selected from databases in the US, and the databases are cross-sectional in nature. Practical implications Not all hospitals may be better off improving the patient experience by engaging customers through social media. Therefore, practitioners should exercise caution in applying the study’s results to other contexts and in making causal inferences. Originality/value The current study delineates customer engagement through social media into online and offline customer engagement. This study is based on the theory of customer engagement and reflects the development of mobile technology. Moreover, this research may be considered as pioneering in that it considers the key characteristics of a hospital’s service operations (i.e., service complexity) when discovering the link between customers’ engagement through a hospital’s social media and experiential quality.


2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 222-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammed Amidu ◽  
Haruna Issahaku

Purpose This paper aims to analyse the implications of globalisation and the adoption of international standards (International Financial Reporting Standards [IFRS]) for accounting information quality. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses a sample of 329 banks across 29 countries leading up to and beyond the implementation of IFRS to test for related hypotheses. Findings First, banks’ financial statements are prepared on the basis of international standards as national economies are integrated when social norms are diffused. Building on these results, the second test suggests that the relatively high-quality earnings among banks in Africa during the period is attributable to the adoption of and interaction of IFRS with globalisation and the strategy of banks to diversify within and across interest and non-interest income. Originality/value The authors investigate how globalisation and the adoption of IFRS affect accounting information quality.


2020 ◽  
pp. 088626052098390
Author(s):  
Jiahui Qu ◽  
Li Lei ◽  
Xingchao Wang ◽  
Xiaochun Xie ◽  
Pengcheng Wang

Previous studies have found some risk factors of cyberbullying. However, little is known about how mother phubbing may influence adolescent cyberbullying, and the mediating and moderating mechanisms underlying this relationship. “Phubbing,” which is a portmanteau of “phone” and “subbing,” refers to snubbing other people and focus on smartphones in social interactions. This study examined whether mother phubbing, which refers to being phubbed by one’s mother, would be positively related to adolescent cyberbullying, whether perceived mother acceptance would mediate the relationship between mother phubbing and adolescent cyberbullying, and whether emotional stability would moderate the pathways between mother phubbing and adolescent cyberbullying. The sample consisted of 4,213 Chinese senior high school students (mean age 16.41 years, SD = 0.77, 53% were female). Participants completed measurements regarding mother phubbing, cyberbullying, perceived mother acceptance, and emotional stability. The results indicated that mother phubbing was positively related to cyberbullying, which was mediated by perceived mother acceptance. Further, moderated mediation analyses showed that emotional stability moderated the direct path between mother phubbing and cyberbullying and the indirect path between mother phubbing and perceived mother acceptance. This study highlighted the harmful impact of mother phubbing on adolescents by showing a positive association between mother phubbing and adolescent cyberbullying, as well as the underlying mechanisms between mother phubbing and adolescent cyberbullying.


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