scholarly journals Independent Audits of Conflict Minerals Reports

2013 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. A24-A32 ◽  
Author(s):  
David N. Herda ◽  
Herbert W. Snyder
Keyword(s):  
Central Africa ◽  
Securities And Exchange Commission ◽  
Publicly Traded ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Publicly Traded Companies ◽  
Conflict Minerals ◽  
Audit Firms ◽  
Final Rule ◽  
Audit Reports ◽  
Corporate Social

SUMMARY There has been an increasing international focus on “conflict minerals,” which are sourced from mines in Central Africa and believed to benefit armed groups that engage in serious human rights abuses. In August 2012, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC 2012) issued a final rule (Release No. 34-67716) related to implementing new disclosures required by the Dodd-Frank Act that are aimed at dissuading publicly-traded companies from engaging in trade that supports conflict minerals. Beginning in 2014, many publicly traded companies will be required to issue Conflict Minerals Reports, and have the reports independently assured. For the first time, there is an SEC audit requirement for corporate social responsibility information. Significant uncertainty surrounds the nature of the requisite audit procedures and the form and content of the audit reports themselves. For example, issuers have the option of engaging auditors for either an attestation engagement or a performance audit. We summarize the SEC's final rule, with particular focus on the audit requirement, and discuss some challenges that audit firms face.

Does Benefit Corporation Status Matter to Investors? An Exploratory Study of Investor Perceptions and Decisions

2020 ◽  
pp. 000765031989846 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauren A. Cooper ◽  
Jill Weber
Keyword(s):  
Investment Decisions ◽  
Publicly Traded ◽  
Social Good ◽  
Publicly Traded Companies ◽  
Mba Students ◽  
Benefit Corporation ◽  
Financial Gain ◽  
New Type ◽  
Csr Disclosure ◽  
Corporate Social

We investigate whether the disclosure of a firm’s decision to organize as a benefit corporation (BC) rather than a traditional C corporation (CC) influences investors. We survey 136 investors and 57 MBA students and find that they expect BCs to attain higher future corporate social responsibility (CSR) than CCs even when both have equal CSR ratings. Approximately one third of our sample prefers to invest in BCs when CCs have greater financial returns, indicating a willingness by some investors to sacrifice personal financial gain for social good. Our results suggest that investors weight the information contained in BC disclosures as reliable and value-relevant in their investment decisions. We extend the CSR disclosure literature by indicating how investors weight this new type of CSR information, which may affect how BCs fare as publicly traded companies.

scholarly journals Conflict Minerals Disclosures: Reporting Requirements and Implications for Auditing

2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. A1-A23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jomo Sankara ◽  
Deborah L. Lindberg ◽  
Khalid A. Razaki
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Publicly Traded ◽  
Wall Street ◽  
Publicly Traded Companies ◽  
Conflict Minerals ◽  
Consumer Protection Act ◽  
Reporting Requirements ◽  
Disclosure Requirements ◽  
Reporting Requirement ◽  
Republic Of The Congo

SUMMARY Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 (Dodd-Frank Act) created a reporting requirement for publicly traded companies that manufacture products using “conflict minerals” from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) or adjoining countries. Under certain circumstances, companies must file a Conflict Minerals Report (CMR) in addition to a Specialized Disclosure Report (Form SD). Companies that claim their products are free of conflict minerals from the DRC must have an audit of their CMR. We investigate the extent to which companies have complied with the new disclosure requirements as well as the current and future auditing implications.

Bankruptcies, Audit Reports, and the Reform Act

2001 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 187-195 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marshall A. Geiger ◽  
K. Raghunandan
Keyword(s):  
Publicly Traded ◽  
Public Accounting ◽  
Securities Litigation ◽  
Publicly Traded Companies ◽  
The Public ◽  
Going Concern ◽  
Reporting Requirements ◽  
Potential Impact ◽  
Auditor Reporting ◽  
Audit Reports

The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act (Reform Act) was enacted as law in 1995 and represents a major victory for the public accounting profession. Since audit reporting for publicly traded companies that enter bankruptcy continues to be of interest to legislators and the public, the Reform Act also includes audit reporting requirements regarding the auditor's assessments of a company's ability to continue as a going concern. This study examines the potential impact of the Reform Act on auditor reporting by examining audit reports for 383 bankrupt companies during the 1991–1998 period. The results indicate that, after controlling for financial stress, company size, default status, audit reporting lag and bankruptcy filing lag, auditors were less likely to have issued prior going-concern modified audit reports for bankrupt companies after the Reform Act.

Global Competition, Corporate Structure, and PMSCs’ Accountability in Civil Wars

2020 ◽  
pp. 103-134
Author(s):  
Seden Akcinaroglu ◽  
Elizabeth Radziszewski
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Criminal Behavior ◽  
Global Competition ◽  
Corporate Structure ◽  
Publicly Traded ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Publicly Traded Companies ◽  
Competitive Edge ◽  
The Government

The rise of global competition marked by the expansion of the private military and security industry has pushed companies to gain a competitive edge. To secure capital and, occasionally, to signal commitment to accountability in response to competition, some companies have changed their corporate structure and become publicly traded corporations. Publicly traded companies have more stakeholders than private companies; this makes them accountable not only to the clients but also to the public and the media. As publicly traded PMSCs face greater reputational costs for engaging in criminal behavior, they are less likely to commit fraud and human rights abuses and be more military effective than private PMSCs. Data on fraud and human rights abuses in Iraq (2003–2019) show that publicly traded PMSCs exhibit higher levels of corporate professionalism. Greater professionalism by publicly traded PMSCs should help tilt the balance of power in favor of the government and contribute to shorter conflicts.

Corporate Social Responsibility for Irresponsibility

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Kotchen ◽  
Jon J. Moon
Keyword(s):  
Corporate Governance ◽  
Corporate Social Responsibility ◽  
Social Responsibility ◽  
Community Relations ◽  
Publicly Traded ◽  
Publicly Traded Companies ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Corporate Social ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Empirical Analysis

Abstract This paper provides an empirical investigation of the hypothesis that companies engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR) in order to offset corporate social irresponsibility (CSI). We find general support for the relationship that when companies do more “harm,” they also do more “good.” The empirical analysis is based on an extensive 15-year panel dataset that covers nearly 3,000 publicly traded companies. In addition to the overall finding that more CSI results in more CSR, we find evidence of heterogeneity among industries, where the effect is stronger in industries where CSI tends to be the subject of greater public scrutiny. We also investigate the degree of substitutability between different categories of CSR and CSI. Within the categories of community relations, environment, and human rights—arguably among those dimensions of social responsibility that are most salient—there is a strong within-category relationship. In contrast, the within-category relationship for corporate governance is weak, but CSI related to corporate governance appears to increase CSR in most other categories. Thus, when CSI concerns arise about corporate governance, companies seemingly choose to offset with CSR in other dimensions, rather than reform governance itself.

XBRL Tagging of Financial Statement Data Using XMLSpy:The Small Company Case

2012 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 761-781 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rick Elam ◽  
Mitchell R. Wenger ◽  
Kelly L. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Securities And Exchange Commission ◽  
Financial Statement ◽  
International Accounting Standards ◽  
Small Company ◽  
Business Professionals ◽  
Publicly Traded ◽  
Publicly Traded Companies ◽  
Software Products ◽  
And Training ◽  
Taxonomy Development

ABSTRACT Publicly traded companies in the U.S. are required by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to file their financial statement data using XBRL tags. Other countries using international accounting standards have adopted similar XBRL filing requirements. This case provides a brief introduction to XBRL for business or accounting majors, and uses freely available software products (Altova XMLSpy) and training tools that help learners quickly progress through a basic introduction to XML (the foundation for XBRL), the XBRL taxonomy schema, and actual tagging of financial statement numbers. The basic skills learned in this case give accountants and other business professionals a working knowledge of how XBRL and other XML-based business documents are and can be used in practice. The case also raises awareness of the XBRL taxonomy development bodies, filing repositories, and development tools available in this domain for those interested in pursuing this technology in more detail.

scholarly journals Assessing audit fees: Turnover, inflation & minimum stipend rate

2021 ◽  
Vol 124 ◽  
pp. 03004
Author(s):  
Syed Emad Azhar Ali ◽  
Fong-Woon Lai ◽  
Sadriwala ◽  
Kaneez Fatima ◽  
S Arockiasamy
Keyword(s):  
Audit Fees ◽  
Fixed Effect Model ◽  
Regulatory Body ◽  
Publicly Traded ◽  
Current Ratio ◽  
Publicly Traded Companies ◽  
Cost Constraints ◽  
Audit Firms ◽  
Effect Model ◽  
Audit Fee

Auditing firms rely on audit fees to generate revenue. The audit fee is generally agreed upon by auditee and auditor. For the calculation of audit fees, no standard formula exists. Pakistan's regulatory body for audit firms ‘ICAP' has imposed certain cost constraints on audit firms. As per the literature, stipend rates have been used rarely to determine audit fees. As a result, this paper examines audit fee determination using variables such as the company's assets, turnover, current ratio, inflation, and minimum stipend rate. These variables are especially influential in a developing country such as Pakistan. To determine audit fees, a panel regression model is being de-veloped. We used data from 40 publicly traded companies from 2014 to 2017 to regress on our model. After extensive testing with the Hausman and F-tests, the fixed effect model is finally applied. Empirically, it was discov-ered that the current ratio, the entity's turnover, and the stipend amount all have a significant positive effect on the calculation of audit fees. T The study's findings have significant implications not only for audit firms, but also for auditees in determining audit fees.

scholarly journals Privately-Held Companies: Legislation, Regulation, and Limited Dissemination of Financial Information

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 28
Author(s):  
Zoeanna Mayhook
Keyword(s):  
Financial Statements ◽  
Securities And Exchange Commission ◽  
Financial Information ◽  
Publicly Traded ◽  
Private Companies ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Publicly Traded Companies ◽  
The Public ◽  
Disclosure Requirements ◽  
Privately Held

Publicly-traded companies have reporting and disclosure requirements set by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which includes the public disclosure of financial statements and an annual 10-K report. In contrast, privately-held companies most often do not meet the SEC filing requirements, and therefore, are not required to disclose financial information. For investors and business researchers, this can provide clear challenges for researching privately-held companies. This paper first highlights a sample of the significant legislation and rules affecting disclosure requirements of public and private companies. Then, it offers other government sources for company and industry financial information. Finally, it suggests further resources to educate business owners, investors, and business researchers.

scholarly journals Does capital structure influence the performance of corporate social responsibility? An analysis in companies of the world's largest economies

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. e174007
Author(s):  
Paula Pontes de Campos-Rasera ◽  
Gabriela de Abreu Passos ◽  
Romualdo Douglas Colauto
Keyword(s):  
Corporate Social Responsibility ◽  
Social Responsibility ◽  
Capital Structure ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Debt Financing ◽  
Publicly Traded ◽  
Publicly Traded Companies ◽  
Corporate Social ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Capital Structure

Companies are under external and internal pressure to adopt Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices. Positive and significant results of the relationship between CSR and financial performance are not always confirmed in empirical studies, demonstrating, thus, no consensus has been achieved in CSR literature yet. Thereby, we seek to understand the influence of capital structure on the performance of CSR practices, since there is a theoretical omission about intangible attributes. We formulated three hypotheses about the relationship between CSR and: the capital structure (H1); the debt financing (H1a); and the shareholder’s equity (H1b). We used a sample of 1,642 publicly traded companies on the 10 highest GDP countries. Using GMM 2SLS estimator, the results reveal positive and significant relationship between shareholders’ equity and CSR, while for the relationship between debt financing and CSR shown a negative and significative correlation. Our findings suggest that companies with higher scores of CSR tend to finance itself through equity. We found differences between countries related to the Capital Structure volume required to achieve a CSR positive index. Our findings provoke further debate concerning the reasons that conduct organizations to adopt such practices and foster new discussions about the aspects that involve social practices responsible adoption in companies.

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