scholarly journals Audit Committee Accounting Expertise, Analyst Following, and Market Liquidity

2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 174-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
David B. Farber ◽  
Shawn X. Huang ◽  
Elaine Mauldin

We study the relation between audit committee accounting expertise, analyst following, and market liquidity. Our main results indicate that analyst following increases subsequent to the appointment of an accounting expert to the audit committee. We also provide evidence that accrual quality, as opposed to audit quality or management earnings forecasts, is the channel through which accounting expertise increases analyst following and improves analyst forecast properties. We also show that audit committee accounting expertise is related to higher trading volume and lower liquidity risk, supporting incentives for greater analyst following. Our study extends prior literature by providing evidence that audit committee accounting expertise enhances firms’ information environment beyond the effects it has on financial reporting quality or analysts’ forecast properties. Our study also complements the literature on determinants of analyst following and market liquidity, both of which are related to cost of capital. Results from our study should be useful to firms seeking to enhance analyst following and market liquidity.

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 25-35
Author(s):  
Citrawati Jatiningrum ◽  
Fauzi ◽  
Rita Irviani ◽  
Mujiyati ◽  
Shahanif Hasan

Purpose of study: This study sought to investigate the effect of the audit committee on Financial Reporting Quality (FRQ), explicitly focuses on the period pre- and post-mandatory IFRS adoption in Malaysia. The Financial Reporting Quality in this study proxied by earnings management. Malaysian. Methodology: The sample study has covered 81 listed companies on Bursa Malaysia, with 567 observations, which examined the time of 2009 to 2015. The relationship was analyzed by statistical multiple regression linear methods and also examined the significance of differences between pre and post IFRS adoption by paired sample t-test. Result: The main finding reveals that the relationship between the audit committee and financial reporting quality after IFRS adoption in Malaysia has more significant. However, empirical evidence showed that the post period of mandatory IFRS evidently no significant difference level of earnings management practice. This result indicates that the IFRS adoption cannot reduce managerial discretion yet and the possibility for EM manipulation for Malaysian companies. Implication/Application: This finding has critical implications for regulators and policymakers, that the consequences of IFRS adoption do not increase the quality of financial reporting when EM practices still continue in the different forms. Novelty/Originality of this study: This study gives empirical evidence that there are differences in relationship level between audit quality and earnings management in the period before and after IFRS mandatory adoption in Malaysia companies.


2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 325-342 ◽  
Author(s):  
Khawla Hlel ◽  
Ines Kahloul ◽  
Houssam Bouzgarrou

Purpose This paper aims to examine whether International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) adoption and corporate governance attributes increase the management earnings forecasts’ accuracy disclosed in prospectuses for French Initial Public Offerings (IPOs). Design/methodology/approach The analysis is based on cross-sectional regression explaining the absolute forecast errors by using 45 French firms that made IPOs between 2005 and 2016 in two French financial markets: Euronext and Alternext. Findings In agreement with the agency theory and the signaling theory, the authors find that the IFRS adoption and the effective corporate governance, proxied by the board characteristics, increase the accuracy of management forecasts. As a result, this latter gives a credible signal in constructing and sustaining shareholders’ trust on the transparency and the reliability of such financial information. Research limitations/implications It is plausible that the limited size of the sample represents a limitation of this study. Another limitation is that no other corporate governance attributes such as board meeting frequency, audit committee measures and ownership structure are used. Practical implications Shareholders can take benefit from management forecasts accuracy to structure their investment portfolios efficiently to allocate their funds more effectively and mitigate the costs of adverse selection that they have to face. Furthermore, the authors expect the findings to be interesting to IPO firms, as this study highlights the efficiency of larger and independent boards in decreasing managerial discretion, increasing disclosure quality and supervising management. The results could encourage GAAP-adopters countries to move toward IFRS, as this research reinforces the role of IFRS in enhancing the quality of financial disclosure by offering the required information for shareholders. Originality/value This study is important because the potential investors should assess management earnings forecasts accuracy before they consider it when evaluating IPO firms. Also, this paper has some implications for the financial market. It is recommended that future investors pay more attention, when assessing the accuracy of management earnings forecasts, to the accounting regulations of the financial reporting along with the corporate governance mechanisms. Moreover, this study could incite French regulators to revise the AFEP-MEDEF code. Under this code, it could insist that larger and independent boards are more effective in performing their governing roles than smaller boards.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sana Mardessi

Purpose The purpose of this study is to address the impact of audit quality on financial reporting quality proxied by real earnings management. To further clarify the mentioned links, this study empirically assesses the moderating effect of audit quality. Design/methodology/approach The study is based on a sample consisting of 90 non-financial companies that are listed in the Amsterdam stock exchange in AEX all share index over the 2010–2017 period. This study applies a quantitative approach and secondary data as the main source of information for analysis. This paper performs an ordinary least squares regression to examine the moderating effect of audit quality on the relationship between financial reporting quality. Findings Empirical findings demonstrate that corporate governance mechanism, mainly independence members, financial expert and audit committee size has a statistically significant relationship with real earnings management. However, the effect of audit committee meetings on real earnings management is not significant. There is also evidence that audit quality moderates the audit committee – real earnings management links. Originality/value This study extends the existing literature by examining the moderating effect of audit quality on the relationship between financial reporting quality proxied by real earnings management in the Dutch context.


2008 ◽  
Vol 83 (2) ◽  
pp. 327-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce K. Behn ◽  
Jong-Hag Choi ◽  
Tony Kang

Under the assumption that audit quality relates positively to unobservable financial reporting quality, we investigate whether audit quality is associated with the predictability of accounting earnings by focusing on analyst earnings forecast properties. The evidence shows that analysts' earnings forecast accuracy is higher and the forecast dispersion is smaller for firms audited by a Big 5 auditor. We further find that auditor industry specialization is associated with higher forecast accuracy and less forecast dispersion in the non-Big 5 auditor sample but not in the Big 5 auditor sample. Overall, our results suggest that high-quality audit provided by Big 5 auditors and industry specialist non-Big 5 auditors is associated with better forecasting performance by analysts.


Author(s):  
Onuorah Anastasia Chi-Chi (PhD) ◽  
Imene Oghenefegha Friday

This paper evaluated the level of performance of some selected companies ranging from commodities, brewery, banking, oil and gas and beverages in terms of corporate governance measure indictors on the firm quality of financial reporting in Nigeria. The data were collected from 2006 to 2015. Econometric analysis were conducted and the result suggests that the correlation among corporate governance indicators of board structure (size-BRDSZ and independence-BRDID), audit quality (audit committee size (ADCMZ), the quality of external audit (EADTQ) as measured by the presence of an auditor among the big-4), board experience (i.e. experience-BRDEX) and financial reporting quality is 93.47%. The independent variables can explain the variation in the FRQDA by 54.29%. There is overall significance among the parameters measuring financial reporting quality as discretionary accruals of firm (FRQDA). Board structure (size-BRDSZ), board experience (experience-BRDEX) and the quality of external audit (EADTQ) have positive impact on the financial reporting quality measured by the discretionary accruals of firm (FRQDA) by 16.01, 0.05 and 2.75. However, independent directors on the board of firm (independence-BRDID) and audit quality (audit committee size (ADCMZ) negatively affect financial reporting quality measured by the discretionary accruals of firm (FRQDA) as much as 0.99 and 20.01. Guarantee Trust Bank Plc. among the five selected companies of study in Nigeria has better performance of financial reporting based on board structure (size-BRDSZ) and audit committee size (ADCMZ). This revealed that there is short run relationship among Audit quality (audit committee size (ADCMZ), and the quality of external audit (EADTQ) as measured by the presence of an auditor among the big-4) and board experience (i.e. experience-BRDEX) have not granger cause FRQDA. It further recommended that greater focus on corporate governance indicators so as to bring about global standard financial reporting in the Nigerian emerging market for investment opportunity.


2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 19-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sana Mardessi Masmoudi

The purposes of this study are to shed light, on the one hand, on the effect of audit committee characteristics, namely independent members in audit committee, a financial expert in audit committee, frequency of meetings and audit committee size on financial reporting quality proxied by real earnings management. On the other hand, it aims to investigate the moderating role of audit quality in the relationship between audit committee characteristics and financial reporting quality. The objective is to contribute to the new evidence on the role of audit committee characteristics towards the financial reporting quality with audit quality as a moderator, particularly the appointment of Big 4 company. This study uses the ordinary least squares (OLS) regression to achieve the research purpose by evaluating the data collected from 90 public listed companies from 2010 to 2019 in the Dutch context. The results state that audit committee characteristics have a statistically significant relationship with real earnings management. However, the effect of audit committee meetings on abnormal operating cash flow and discretionary expenses is not significant. There is also evidence that audit quality positively moderates the audit committee and real earnings management links. Lastly, the findings of this study will help professional accountancy bodies and governments to highlight the relevance of earnings management in safeguarding trustworthy financial information, owners’ wealth and to enhance audit committee characteristics in improving audit quality, especially after the enforcement of the Dutch Corporate Governance Code in 2016.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 63
Author(s):  
Saeed Rabea Baatwah ◽  
Norsiah Ahmad ◽  
Zalailah Salleh

This study examines whether audit committee chair with financial expertise enhances the audit committee role in financial reporting quality in emerging market. We investigate this influence by employing the direct effect and moderating effect of audit committee chair with financial expertise on financial reporting timeliness. By using Omani data and the panel data method for two proxies for financial reporting timeliness, we find that audit committee chair with financial expertise enhances the timeliness of financial reporting through making the disclosure of annual reports timely. Further, we report evidence showing that both accounting and nonaccounting financial expertise on the audit committee have a positive and significant influence on the timeliness of financial reporting. We also document that the association between financial expertise and the timeliness of financial reporting is more pronounced when the chair of the audit committee has accounting expertise. This study is among the comprehensive evidence prove that audit committee chair with accounting expertise contributes to the quality of financial reporting in emerging market.


2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 138-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Inaam ZGARNI ◽  
Khmoussi HLIOUI ◽  
Fatma ZEHRI

Purpose – A steady stream of literature has examined relationships between audit committee effectiveness, audit quality and financial reporting quality. The purpose of this paper is to connect these various streams of research to provide an empirical evidence from an Arabic emergent country namely Tunisia. This study examines the role of audit committee effectiveness and audit quality on financial reporting quality particularly to mitigate the earnings management in the Tunisian companies before and after financial security law adoption. Design/methodology/approach – The study uses ordinary least squares regression model to investigate the effect of audit committee characteristics, audit quality attributes and the interaction between these two overseeing mechanisms on earnings management for a sample of 29 non-financial listed Tunisian firms during the period 2001-2009. Findings – The results document a substitute effect between the presence of Big Four auditor and effective audit committee in order to reduce the discretionary accruals before the enforcement of law no. 2005-96 dealing with the financial securities. The authors find a complementarity link between the score of audit committee’s effectiveness and auditor industry specialization’s to constrain earnings management. Finally, the findings show a complementary relation between audit committee’s effectiveness and audit tenure, after the passage of the law. Research limitations/implications – This study shows the value of considering the institutional setting in governance research. This paper is restricted to firms in the Tunisia from 2001 to 2009. Future research should investigate this issue in other settings and periods. Practical implications – This study is important to practitioner and academic literature, policy makers and professional accounting bodies as it shows that legislative reforms can enhance companies to adopt good governance practices in emerging countries. The results also give useful information to investors in examination the effect of audit committee characteristics and audit quality on earnings quality. Another interesting practical focus of this study is to assess how successful was the implementation of financial security law in improving audit transparency and support shareholder involvement in the audit process. Originality/value – The results suggested that governance regulation is a substitute for strong governance mechanisms in both the pre- and post-law periods.


Author(s):  
Hussaini Bala ◽  
Noor Afza Amran ◽  
Hasnah Shaari

This paper examines the effect of audit committee attributes on auditor brand name proxy by the Big 4. The study utilizes 88 listed firms in Nigeria through 440 firm-year observations ranging between the years 2012 to 2016. The data for the study were extracted from the firms’ annual reports and Thompson Reuters DataStream. A panel logistic regression was employed to estimate the model of the study. Consistent with complementary hypothesis the findings demonstrate that audit committee attributes (audit committee independence, audit committee financial accounting experts, audit committee legal expert, female audit committee member and audit committee stock ownership) are positively related to auditor brand name. The findings also support the substitution hypothesis perspectives by revealing an inverse relationship between audit committee meetings, audit committee tenure, audit committee chair and auditor brand name. Our findings offer an initial insight on the effect of audit committee legal expert, and audit committee stock ownership on auditor brand name. Thus, the findings can benefit existing and prospective shareholders who are the direct users of financial reports. This study can also help policy-makers and regulators by allowing them to better recognize the importance of these distinctive audit committee attributes in enhancing the quality of audits, which is one of the most vital elements of improving financial reporting quality. Keywords:Audit committee, Audit quality, Audit size, Gender diversity, Ownership


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