Attention to Evidence of Aggressive Financial Reporting and Intentional Misstatement Judgments: Effects of Experience and Trust

2007 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 215-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob M. Rose

This study extends prior research by examining the effects of dispositional trust, induced skepticism, and fraud-specific audit experience on attention to aggressive financial reporting practices and judgments of potential misstatement. In an experimental analysis using 125 practicing auditors, this study finds that auditors who are less trusting of others attend more to evidence of aggressive reporting than do more trusting auditors, and higher levels of induced skepticism increase attention to aggressive reporting. Further, auditors who pay more attention to evidence of aggressive reporting are more likely to believe that intentional misstatement occurred. General audit experience was not a predictor of auditors' attention to aggressive reporting or auditors' judgments about intentional misstatements. Auditors with more fraud-specific experience, however, were more likely than auditors with less fraud-specific experience to believe that intentional misstatement had occurred when evidence of aggressive reporting exists.

2009 ◽  
Vol 84 (3) ◽  
pp. 969-999 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan J. Wilson

ABSTRACT: Recent evidence suggests that corporate tax shelters have become important corporate instruments for reducing tax burden. Based on a sample of identified tax shelter participants, I develop a profile of the type of firm that likely engages in tax sheltering. The model detects tax shelter participants through the use of variables predicted to be either affected by or associated with tax sheltering. I find that firms actively engaged in tax sheltering exhibit larger ex post book-tax differences and more aggressive financial reporting practices. Using this model of tax shelter firm characteristics, I identify a broad sample of predicted tax shelter firms from the population of firms. I then examine whether tax sheltering is associated with wealth creation for shareholders or with managerial opportunism. I find that active tax shelter firms with strong corporate governance exhibit positive abnormal returns. This finding is consistent with tax sheltering being a tool for wealth creation in well-governed firms.


2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 39-59
Author(s):  
Marcus R. Brooks ◽  
Stephanie A. Hairston ◽  
Phillip Kamau Njoroge ◽  
Ji Woo Ryou

SYNOPSIS This study examines whether the presence of a general counsel (GC) in top management affects audit effort and audit outcomes. Hopkins, Maydew, and Venkatachalam (2015) find that firms with GCs in top management have lower financial reporting quality and tolerate more aggressive financial reporting practices, which likely influences audit risk. Given the GCs' influence on the financial reporting process, we posit that auditors of firms with GCs in top management increase the amount of effort they expend to provide reasonable assurance that financial statements are stated fairly. We find that the presence of GCs in firms' top management is positively associated with audit effort but does not directly affect the likelihood that these firms will receive unqualified audit opinions that contain explanatory language. Our findings suggest that GCs influence the external audit market by participating in the financial reporting process. JEL Classifications: M42. Data Availability: Data are available from the public sources cited in the text.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 5467
Author(s):  
Barbara Grabinska ◽  
Dorota Kedzior ◽  
Marcin Kedzior ◽  
Konrad Grabinski

So far, CSR’s role in the high-tech industry is not fully explained by academic research, especially concerning the most burdensome obstacle to firms’ growth: acquiring debt financing. The paper aims to solve this puzzle and investigate whether young high-tech companies can attract more debt by engaging in CSR activity. To address the high-tech industry specificity, we divided CSR-reporting practice into three broad categories: employee, social, and environmental and analyzed their impact on the capital structure. Our sample consists of 92 firm-year observations covering the period 2014–2018. Using a regression method, we found out that only employee CSR plays a statistically significant role in shaping capital structure. We did not find evidence for the influence of the other types of CSR-reporting practices. The results suggest that employees are the key resource of high-tech companies, and, for this reason, they are at the management’s focus. This fact is visible at the financial reporting level and, as we interpret results, is also considered by credit providers. In a more general way, our results suggest that firms tend to choose CSR based on the importance of crucial resources.


1976 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Edgar Barrett ◽  
Jean-Louis Roy

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 143-164
Author(s):  
Peter C. Kipp ◽  
Mary B. Curtis ◽  
Ziyin Li

SYNOPSIS Advances in IT suggest that computerized intelligent agents (IAs) may soon occupy many roles that presently employ human agents. A significant concern is the ethical conduct of those who use IAs, including their possible utilization by managers to engage in earnings management. We investigate how financial reporting decisions are affected when they are supported by the work of an IA versus a human agent, with varying autonomy. In an experiment with experienced managers, we vary agent type (human versus IA) and autonomy (more versus less), finding that managers engage in less aggressive financial reporting decisions with IAs than with human agents, and engage in less aggressive reporting decisions with less autonomous agents than with more autonomous agents. Managers' perception of control over their agent and ability to diffuse their own responsibility for financial reporting decisions explain the effect of agent type and autonomy on managers' financial reporting decisions.


2015 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 83
Author(s):  
Shahida Bt Shaharuddin ◽  
Maliah Bt Sulaiman

This paper aims to examine the financial reporting and budgeting practices of qaryah mosques in Kuala Terengganu, a state in the east of Peninsular Malaysia. Data was collected using a mixed method (quantitative and qualitative) approach. The questionnaire was disseminated to qaryah mosques in Kuala Terengganu and 39 responded. To address the limitations of a questionnaire survey, semi-structured interviews were then conducted with a few of the respondents. The results revealed that qaryah mosques in Kuala Terengganu do have a satisfactory system in place in terms of their financial reporting practices. However, budgetary control practices appear to be lacking. This indicates accounting, as is practiced by qaryah mosques in Kuala Terengganu appears to be limited to financial accounting. Hence, the financial management in qaryah mosques needs to be improved so that the risk of embezzlement can be reduced.


2019 ◽  
Vol 54 (02) ◽  
pp. 1950008
Author(s):  
Jayasinghe Hewa Dulige ◽  
Nadana Abayadeera ◽  
Muhammad Jahangir Ali ◽  
Paul Mather

In this paper, we examine the factors that influence the development of accounting and reporting practices in Sri Lanka in the backdrop of its political and economic environment. We find that the early days of accounting in Sri Lanka were heavily influenced by the British colonial system. Subsequently, its greatest influence was derived from the regulatory and institutional framework backed by local and British professional accounting bodies. We also interview key stakeholders to draw insights on how the institutional factors contribute to the development of financial reporting in Sri Lanka. We discover that the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka (ICASL) is a key player in developing and implementing accounting standards and the best financial reporting practices. We observe that although the Sri Lankan Government has undertaken many initiatives to improve the quality of financial reporting, monitoring and enforcing regulations remain weak partly due to political interference. Therefore, we suggest that strengthening the existing regulatory mechanisms will help to improve the reporting quality and build investor confidence.


2015 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 152-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Holt ◽  
Timothy Eccles

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess whether financial reporting practices for commercial service charges in the UK retail sector match the best practice requirements of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) Code of practice for commercial service charges. This assessment was performed by benchmarking commercial service charge documents provided to retail occupiers at UK shopping centres against the RICS Code’s financial reporting requirements. Design/methodology/approach – Data were generated from direct analysis of actual service charge documents supplied to commercial retail occupiers. This ensures authenticity by removing reliance upon third party reporting of said data. The paper uses a sample size that is representative of the financial reporting practices for commercial service charges at UK shopping centres. Findings – Levels of compliance with the financial reporting requirements of the RICS Code of Practice for commercial service charges are found to be poor, especially in terms of the disclosure of the accounting policies used during the preparation of the service charge accounts. These results contrast with claims by the professional body. Research limitations/implications – The work analyses service charge documents prepared during 2010-2012 by 44 managing agents and 87 landlords at 126 UK retail shopping centres located in Great Britain. Content analysis was utilised to interpret the data and required some subjective judgement by the researchers. Originality/value – Data are original and the paper provides a unique benchmarking test for assessing Code compliance. This contrasts markedly with the anecdotal evidence offered by the profession in defending current standards of practice and whilst the paper has limitations, it is the largest and most in-depth study of commercial service charge practices at UK retail shopping centres.


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