The Effect of Managerial Ownership Structure, Financial Distress and Growth Opportunities to Application of Accounting Conservatism Principles with Litigation Risk as Moderating Variables on Manufacturing Companies Listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange

This study aims to examine and analyze the effect of managerial ownership structure, financial distress, and growth opportunities on accounting conservatism with litigation risk as a moderating variable. The population in this study was 171 manufacturing companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange for the 2010-2019 period. This research was conducted using the purposive sampling technique so that 36 samples were obtained. The data analysis method used multiple linear regression analysis and interaction tests with the help of the Eviews application program. The study results indicate that growth opportunities partially have a positive effect on applying the principle of accounting conservatism. Meanwhile, managerial ownership structure and financial distress partially do not affect the application of accounting conservatism principles. Simultaneously managerial ownership structure, financial distress and growth opportunities affect the application of accounting conservatism principles. Litigation risk as a moderating variable cannot moderate the influence of managerial ownership structure, financial distress, and growth opportunities on applying accounting conservatism principles to manufacturing companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange for the 2010-2019 period. Keywords: managerial ownership structure, financial distress, growth opportunities, litigation risk and accounting conservatism.

Is there a Dark Side to Societal Trust in Auditors’ Going Concern Assessments?

Amidst heightened concern among U.S. and international regulators, is the need to examine reasons why auditors are not issuing going-concern opinions (GCOs) to financially distressed clients who seem to warrant such opinions. We examine societal trust as one such reason, finding a lower incidence of GCOs with high societal trust. Moreover, we find that high societal trust is associated with fewer GCO Type I misclassifications, but more GCO Type II misclassifications. In addition, the association between societal trust and GCOs does not disappear for severely distressed clients, suggesting that auditors do not adequately perceive clients that warrant GCOs when the clients are in high trust countries, and illuminating a dark side to societal trust. Moreover, low litigation risk and auditor-management relationship longevity exacerbate this dark side of societal trust. Our study highlights how societal trust can have beneficial effects across multiple economic contexts while posing problems in the auditing context.

Confronting Cyber Risk

Confronting Cyber Risk: An Embedded Endurance Strategy for Cybersecurity is a practical leadership handbook defining a new strategy for improving cybersecurity and mitigating cyber risk. Written by two leading experts with extensive professional experience in cybersecurity, the book provides CEOs and cyber newcomers alike with novel, concrete guidance on how to implement a cutting-edge strategy to mitigate an organization’s overall risk to malicious cyberattacks. Using short, real-world case studies, the book highlights the need to address attack prevention and the resilience of each digital asset while also accounting for an incident’s potential impact on overall operations. In a world of hackers, artificial intelligence, and persistent ransomware attacks, the Embedded Endurance strategy embraces the reality of interdependent digital assets and provides an approach that addresses cyber risk at both the micro level (people, networks, systems and data) and the macro level (the organization). Most books about cybersecurity focus entirely on technology; the Embedded Endurance strategy recognizes the need for sophisticated thinking about hardware and software while also extending beyond to address operational, reputational and litigation risk. This book both provides the reader with a solid grounding in important prevention-focused technologies—such as cloud-based security and intrusion detection—and emphasizes the important role of incident response. By implementing an Embedded Endurance strategy, you can guide your team to blunt major cyber incidents with preventative and resilience measures engaged systematically across your organization.

Can textual analysis solve the underpricing puzzle? A US REIT study

PurposeAlthough many theories aim to explain initial public offering (IPO) underpricing, initial-day returns of US Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) IPOs remain a “puzzle”. The literature on REIT IPOs has focused on indirect quantitative proxies for information asymmetries between REITs and investors to determine IPO underpricing. This study, however, proposes textual analysis to exploit the qualitative information, revealed through one of the most important documents during the IPO process – Form S-11 – as a direct measure of information asymmetries.Design/methodology/approachThis study determines the level of uncertain language in the prospectus, as well as its similarity to recently filed registration statements, to assess whether textual features can solve the underpricing puzzle. It assumes that uncertain language makes it more difficult for potential investors to price the issue and thus increases underpricing. Furthermore, it is hypothesized that a higher similarity to previous filings indicates that the prospectus provides little useful information and thus does not resolve existing information asymmetries, leading to increased underpricing.FindingsContrary to expectations, this research does not find a statistically significant association between uncertain language in Form S-11 and initial-day returns. This result is interpreted as suggesting that uncertain language in the prospectus does not reflect the issuer's expectations about the company's future prospects, but rather is necessary because of forecasting difficulties and litigation risk. Analyzing disclosure similarity instead, this study finds a statistically and economically significant impact of qualitative information on initial-day returns. Thus, REIT managers may reduce underpricing by voluntarily providing more information to potential investors in Form S-11.Practical implicationsThe results demonstrate that textual analysis can in fact help to explain underpricing of US REIT IPOs, as qualitative information in Forms S-11 decreases information asymmetries between US REIT managers and investors, thus reducing underpricing. Consequently, REIT managers are incentivized to provide as much information as possible to reduce underpricing, while investors could use textual analysis to identify offerings that promise the highest returns.Originality/valueThis is the first study which applies textual analysis to corporate disclosures of US REITs in order to explain IPO underpricing.

Do Firms Redact Information from Material Contracts to Conceal Bad News?

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) allows firms to redact information from material contracts by submitting confidential treatment requests, if redacted information is not material and would cause competitive harm upon public disclosure. This study examines whether managers use confidential treatment requests to conceal bad news. We show that confidential treatment requests are positively associated with residual short interest, a proxy for managers’ private negative information. This positive association is more pronounced for firms with lower litigation risk, higher executive equity incentives, and lower external monitoring. Confidential treatment requests filed by firms with higher residual short interests are associated with higher stock price crash risk and poorer future performance. Collectively, our results suggest that managers redact information from material contracts to conceal bad news.

The Sound of Silence: What Do We Know When Insiders Do Not Trade?

This paper examines the information content of insider silence, periods of no insider trading. We hypothesize that, to avoid litigation risk, rational insiders do not sell own-company shares when they anticipate bad news; neither would they buy, given unfavorable prospects. Thus, they keep silent. By contrast, insiders sell shares when they do not anticipate significant bad news. Future stock returns are significantly lower following insider silence than following insider net selling, especially among firms with higher litigation risk. We examine two quasinatural experiments where new laws result in changes in shareholder litigation risks for insiders. In both cases, with higher shareholder litigation risks, stocks where insiders stay silent earn significantly lower returns than other stocks. This paper was accepted by Karl Diether, finance.