Founding Family Ownership and the Selection of Industry Specialist Auditors

2014 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-276 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fei Kang

SYNOPSIS This study examines how family firms' unique ownership structure and agency problems affect their selection of industry-specialist auditors. Using data from Standard & Poor's (S&P) 1500 firms, the results show that family firms are more likely to appoint industry-specialist auditors than non-family firms, which suggests that family firms have strong incentives to signal the quality of financial reporting. Additional analysis indicates that due to the potential entrenchment problems, family firms with family member CEOs or with dual-class shares have even a higher tendency to hire industry-specialist auditors to signal their disclosure quality.

2014 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Indranil Bardhan ◽  
Shu Lin ◽  
Shu-Ling Wu

SYNOPSIS Family firms represent a majority of businesses worldwide, and play a crucial role in the socio-economic development of both developed countries and emerging economies. We study the relationship between family firm characteristics and the quality of internal control over financial reporting, relative to non-family firms. Using a relatively large sample of S&P 500 firms, we report that family firms exhibit more material weaknesses in their internal control over financial reporting than non-family firms. Further investigation suggests that the greater likelihood of material weaknesses is driven by family firms with dual-class shares. Our results are consistent with the entrenchment argument that family owners are motivated to maintain weaker internal controls in order to extract private benefits. Our study contributes to the extant literature on family firms by providing further insight into the mechanisms through which family firms can exert undue influence on internal control over financial reporting.


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-356 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mahmoud Mousavi Shiri ◽  
Mahdi Salehi ◽  
Fatemeh Abbasi ◽  
Shayan Farhangdoust

PurposeIn the process of reporting accounting information, the auditor’s objective is to detect possible misstatements and errors in accounting information. Audit evidence aids auditors in providing reasonable assurance about the quality of financial reporting. Studying the quality of family firms’ financial reporting is of higher importance relative to non-family firms due to lower risk of accounting manipulation. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between family ownership structure and financial reporting quality from an auditing perspective.Design/methodology/approachTo analyze the research hypotheses, the authors use a sample data consisted of 221 companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange (including 52 family and 169 non-family firms) over a five-year span from 2011 to 2015.FindingsUsing multivariate regression analysis of panel data, our results indicate that audit risk in family firms is lower than their counterparts. Likewise, the findings are indicative of lower audit fees paid by family firms as compared to non-family ones. The authors also find that auditors put more effort in family firms and thus audit effort is more significant for these kinds of firms.Originality/valueThe study focuses on family ownership and financial reporting quality in a developing country like Iran and the results of the study may be beneficial to other developing nations, as Iran stock market possesses some unique features which are not normally prevailing in other equity markets, even in the Middle East.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (20) ◽  
pp. 5563
Author(s):  
Hsin-Yi Chi ◽  
Tzu-Ching Weng ◽  
Guang-Zheng Chen ◽  
Shu-Ping Chen

This paper investigates the effect of political connections on the association between family firms and conservative financial reporting. While family firms have incentives to reduce agency and litigation-related costs by means of conservative reporting, firms with political connections tend to have opaque financial reporting, which enable them to engage in rent-seeking activities. Using data for Taiwanese listed firms between 1996 and 2012, the final sample observations were 13,877 firm-year observations from a population of 21,393 firm-year observations. We found that political connections weaken the positive relationship between family ownership and conservative financial reporting. This suggests that politically connected family firms make fewer demands for conservative financial reporting. This study contributes to the literature on how political connections affect the family owners’ reporting incentives. Policy makers may consider political connections as an essential factor with respect to establishing governance practice in family firms.


2021 ◽  
pp. 69-94
Author(s):  
Li-Jen He

Abstract In 2015, International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) released new International Standards on Auditing 701 and required auditors to disclose key audit matters (KAM) in the audit report. Similar standards were also released in the United States in 2017 and the United Kingdom and Ireland Financial Reporting Council (FRC) in 2014. As KAM are expected to inform on matters of the greatest significance during an audit, before exploring the question regarding whether investors will obtain useful information from additional matter disclosures, the anterior consideration may be in regard to how audit quality affects the disclosure quality of KAM. This study use hand-collected data of the KAM disclosed in the audit reports of Taiwanese listed companies in 2016 to explore the association between auditor industry specialization and audit quality by the disclosure of KAM in new audit reports. The empirical results show that the association between the industrial specialist audit partner and the measurement of KAM quality is significantly positively related. The findings support our hypothesis that specialist auditors’ KAM are more informative than those issued by non-specialist auditors, and provide new evidence supporting prior studies about the superior auditing ability and disclosure quality of auditor industry specialist. Keywords: Key Audit Matters, KAM, International Standards on Auditing 701, International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 254-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mahmoud Lari Dashtbayaz ◽  
Mahdi Salehi ◽  
Toktam Safdel

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between internal controls weakness and financial reporting quality and the effect of family ownership on the mentioned relationship in Iranian listed firms.Design/methodology/approachIn this way, the authors included the number of 139 firms from 2013 to 2017, of which 28 were family firms. The hypotheses are analyzed based on panel data and means comparison.FindingsThe results illustrated that weakness in internal controls has a significant negative relationship with financial reporting quality. In other words, internal controls weakness decreases the quality of financial reporting quality. Moreover, the results showed that being familial does not affect the aforementioned relationship.Originality/valueConsequently, there is no suitable criteria to distinguish family firms and there is a need to take them into serious consideration because very few studies have been conducted focusing on this issue in Iran, as it is considered an argumentative subject to be discussed in the Iranian market.


2004 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 167-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Holmén ◽  
John D. Knopf

AbstractSweden has a high degree of separation of ownership from control through pyramids, dual-class shares, and cross-holdings. This increases the potential for private benefits of control. However, Sweden's extralegal institutions—tax compliance and newspaper circulation—are consistent with greater shareholder protection. Using data on Swedish mergers we find limited evidence of shareholder expropriation. Apparently, Sweden's extralegal institutions offset the drawback of weak corporate governance.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 157
Author(s):  
Nella Yantiana ◽  
Ricky Ricky ◽  
Elok Heniwati

In 2011, the Indonesian Institute of Accountants (IAI) issued PSAK 64, which adopted IFRS 6 concerning exploration for and evaluation of mineral resources. It is assumed that this adoption will improve the quality of financial reporting. This current study examines the impact of PSAK 64 implementation and other related factors on financial statement conservatism. The data were collected by using data from extractive industries listed on the IDX over the period 2009-2010 and 2013-2014 to represent before and after IFRS-based PSAK mandatory implementation respectively. This study develops two regression models to analyze first, factors influence on conservatism before implementing PSAK 64 and second, the influential factors after implementing PSAK 64 by interacting among conservatism factors. The study found that exploration aggressiveness has influenced conservatism and there are no influential factors on conservatism when they interact. Generally speaking, there is a no different level of conservatism before and after implementing PSAK 64. This finding adds a body of literature on the accounting of extractive industry in Indonesia and is prospective for countries having yet adopted IFRS.


2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 112-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kriengkrai Boonlert-U-Thai ◽  
Pradyot K. Sen

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide evidence that the quality of earnings of family run firms is superior to that of the other firms and that firms run by founding family members exhibit this trait even more prominently. Using insights from the fundamental accounting valuation model, this study also hypothesizes that financial markets place a higher weightage on earnings than book value for founding family-run firms in Thailand as these firms report a more reliable earnings number.Design/methodology/approachThis is an empirical archival research.FindingsThe authors report evidence that financial markets place a higher weightage on earnings than book value for founding family-run firms. The evidence is consistent with the insight that current earnings of the founding family-run firms offer more information about future earnings and cash flow compared to book value than those for family (FAM) and non-family (NonCS) firms. The authors also provide evidence that earnings persistence and the accrual quality of the founding family firms are higher compared to the other firms. This evidence is contrary to the notion that family firms have more opaque disclosures, lower earnings quality and higher implied cost of equity capital.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors find support for the alignment hypothesis of the long-term family ownership of Thai firms. The authors consider these evidences consistent with the shareholder interest alignment hypothesis of the controlling shareholders as opposed to the entrenchment hypothesis.Practical implicationsThe study implies that earnings of the Thai firms run by founding family members are more reliable and can be relied on more for firm valuation. Additionally, the authors also offer a different methodology by appealing to the valuation properties of the reported accounting numbers besides looking at the quality of accruals and earnings persistence tests offered in the existing literature.Social implicationsThe society is better off if there are more opportunities to invest in Thai firms run by founding family members. The finding of the quality difference in governance by firms with founding family members is new. Therefore, the study points to the need of finer partition of the family firms while looking at their corporate governance practices. The fact that the FF firms offer a higher quality of earnings implies that they are less engaged in opportunistic manipulation of earnings and cash flow and, thus, are self-motivated to protect the longer term interest of the firms.Originality/valueThis if the first time the accounting fundamental valuation theory has been used to provide evidence of higher earnings quality.


2018 ◽  
pp. 69-77
Author(s):  
O. A. Zdoryk ◽  
V. А. Georgiyants ◽  
O. I. Gryzodub

Questions of standardization of compounding preparations are quite relevant both in Ukraine and abroad. Today the general monograph «5.N.1. Extemporaneous preparations» of the State Pharmacopoeia of Ukraine is revised by the staff of the Ukrainian scientific pharmacopoeial center for quality of medicines and the National University of Pharmacy, also the additional articles for compounding preparations are developed. The aim of this work is substantiation of the structure and format of the compounding preparation monographs for introduction to the national part of the State Pharmacopoeia of Ukraine. The researches were performed using data of the world pharmacopoeias and national formularies, as well as the experience of standardization of compounding preparations in Ukraine and the USSR. In the study, general statements for the development of compounding preparations monographs were formed and its structure was discussed. The requirements and examples are described for each item of the monograph. For monographs of the State Pharmacopoeia of Ukraine such structure were offered: name, composition, lists the acceptable range of labeled amount of main ingredient, technology of preparation, reference for the general monographs, properties, identification, tests, assay, expiration date, labeling, storage, references to the regulatory documents, and indications. For systematization of the monographs’ development procedure the work order was composed. The procedure of monographs development includes selection of the object, study of literature data, and study of the basic stages of the compounding process, evaluation of quality control methods, experimental researches, and conclusion about conformity with the requirements, quality control method validation protocols, stability studies, and development of the monograph’s draft. As the result of research the structure, format, stages and order of the development of compounding preparations’ monographs for introduction to the State Pharmacopoeia of Ukraine were proposed.


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