会计师事务所内部治理问题探析

随着《会计师事务所内部治理指南》的颁布与实施,市场经济得以迅速发展,会计师事务所在市场体系占据越来越重要的地位。但是,会计师事务所在内部治理方面还存在很多问题,阻碍了其进一步发展。因此,通过分析会计师事务所在内部治理过程中存在的问题与障碍。进而提出相应的改善与完善措施。有助于提高内部治理能力,完善内部治理结构,有助于提升会计师事务所的核心竞争力与综合实力。     

会计师事务所内部治理问题探析

随着《会计师事务所内部治理指南》的颁布与实施,市场经济得以迅速发展,会计师事务所在市场体系占据越来越重要的地位。但是,会计师事务所在内部治理方面还存在很多问题,阻碍了其进一步发展。因此,通过分析会计师事务所在内部治理过程中存在的问题与障碍,进而提出相应的改善与完善措施,有助于提高内部治理能力,完善内部治理结构,有助于提升会计师事务所的核心竞争力与综合实力。     

会计师事务所内部治理存在的问题及对策

会计师事务所内部治理是否健全直接关系着其审计质量控制水平和风险控制水平。加强会计师事务所内部治理机制建设,对促进会计师事务所规范发展、和谐发展,提高注册会计师职业质量和社会公信力具有推动作用。本文着重针对会计师事务所内部治理方面的问题,借鉴国外事务所内部治理的成功经验,探讨如何有效降低我国会计师事务所的审计风险。     

会计师事务所内部治理机制问题探讨——以福建省为例

加强内部治理机制建设是我国会计师事务所做大做强的必由之路,也是提升会计师事务所执业质量和信誉的重要保障。本文在阐述会计师事务所加强内部治理必要性的基础上,分析福建省会计师事务所内部治理存在的一些问题,并提出完善内部治理机制的政策建议。     

小型会计师事务所内部治理问题探析

2007年中国注册会计师协会发布了《会计师事务所内部治理指南》,近年来会计师事务所内部治理水平有一定提高.但是数量众多的小型会计师事务所,在内部治理方面仍然存在诸多问题,限制了其进一步发展.通过分析小型所内部治理的特点,从内部治理存在的问题着手,从内部和外部提出相应的完善措施,有助于小型所完善内部机制,寻求突破,提升自己的竞争力.     

中注协关于印发《会计师事务所内部治理指南》的通知

各省、自治区、直辖市注册会计师协会:为加强会计师事务所内部治理机制建设,支持会计师事务所做大做强,2006年以来,我会启动了以制定会计师事务所内部治理指南为核心的事务所内部治理规范体系建设工作。日前,《会计师事务所内部治理指南》已经中注协第四届常务理事会审议通过,现予印发,自2008年1月1日起施行。     

浅议合伙制会计师事务所内部治理结构

建立有效治理结构,以确保独立审计质量。本文通过总结合伙会计师事务所治理结构的特点,结合我国实际情况,提出我国合伙制会计师事务所改进与完善我国会计师事务所内部治理,应从制度和政策上积极引入有限责任合伙制和增加特殊的普通合伙制形式、建立合伙会计师事务所共同治理结构以及建立健全各项内部管理制度。     

会计师事务所内部治理：理论基础与机制创新

声誉、客户资源以及人力资本是会计师事务所的关键资源,也是事务所治理的主要对象.进入权是审计师控制和使用自身人力资本及其关键性非人力资本的能力.关键资源的控制和保留机制是事务所内部治理的关键所在,这一机制主要包括:决策权配置机制、剩余收益分配机制、授权机制以及合伙人遴选与退出机制.模型分析进一步表明,以进入权为基础的治理机制有利于事务所内部资源的优化配置,能够对审计师专用性人力资本投资形成有效激励.     

浙江省评协召开会计师事务所和资产评估机构内部治理机制建设经验交流会

为帮助会计师事务所、资产评估机构进一步建立健全内部决策和管理机制,提高各执业机构风险管理和质量控制能力,完善以章程、协议为核心的各项内部管理制度,9月27日,浙江省评协组织召开了会计师事务所、资产评估机构内部治理机制建设经验交流会,内部治理指导小组成员和部分执业机构的代表共80余人出席了会议。     

事务所内部治理存在的问题与对策

一、会计师事务所内部治理的特点注册会计师的职业性质决定会计师事务所的管理和运行不同于普通的企业。因为事务所不是靠生产有形的产品,而主要是靠其拥有的无形资产来生存与发展的。所谓事务所的无形资产包括事务所的声誉(品牌、规模、以往业绩等)和能力(各种专业人才、各种专业资格等)。由此导致事务所的内部治理具有如下特点:     

Corporate governance,institutions, markets,and social factors

We use a comprehensive set of country-level social and institutional measures to study the relationship between country-level factors and firm-level governance. We also examine the roles of the country’s financial development status and the firm’s external financing needs in influencing the firm’s governance framework. Using a sample of 43 countries and 3301 firms, we find that country-level factors explain a large part of the variation in firm-level governance across countries. We also find evidence that the relationship between country-level factors and firm-level mechanisms is best represented as a moderating relationship. The results also indicate the presence of a complementary relationship, albeit sometimes insignificant, between firm-level governance and all the country-level variables included in our study. When accounting for the effect of a country’s financial development status and a firm’s external financing needs, we find evidence of a positive relationship between firm-level governance and firm returns and value for firms with high financing needs which operate in countries with high financial development.     

An international study of internal audit function quality

We investigate organisational and environmental factors that influence firms’ incentives to develop high-quality internal audit functions (IAFs) by using a unique international sample formed by matching proprietary data from a global internal auditor survey with public data obtained from Worldscope. Concerning organisational factors, we find that a positive relationship exists between IAF quality and firm complexity and confirm that complex firms have a higher demand for monitoring and advising and, therefore, a greater need for formal controls. In addition, IAF quality is positively related to board monitoring and audit committee diligence but negatively associated with CEO power, which suggests that IAF quality is influenced by other key players in corporate governance. Regarding environmental factors, we document that IAF quality is positively associated with industry competition, which implies that a firm’s incentive for a high-quality IAF is enhanced when confronted with greater environmental uncertainty. Furthermore, IAF quality has a significantly positive relationship with our self-constructed index of IAF requirements included in national corporate governance codes, which indicates that strong home-country corporate governance codes play a role in fostering IAF development.     

The effect of financial reporting quality on CEO compensation structure: Evidence from accounting comparability

This study examines the effect of accounting comparability on the design of CEO compensation structure. After controlling for firm-specific attributes, we find that accounting comparability is positively associated with CEO equity-based compensation intensity and pay-performance sensitivity. This suggests that the improved comparability increases the usefulness of equity-based compensation and a firm is willing to offer more equity-based compensation contracts to CEOs and increase their pay-performance sensitivity. Further, we find that the impact of comparability on the CEO’s compensation contract increases with information asymmetry, which is consistent with the notion that accounting comparability is a quality of financial reporting that facilitates the use of equity-based compensation in a poor information environment. Our analysis also reveals that the effect of accounting comparability on CEO compensation structure is greater when a firm’s corporate governance is strong, consistent with the complementary relation between comparability and the exiting corporate governance in determining CEO compensation schemes. Overall, our evidence suggests that firms utilize more equity-based compensation as a proportion of total compensation under greater accounting comparability and enhance the alignment between equity-based compensation and firm performance.     

Financial development,corporate governance and cost of equity capital

Existing research suggests that external governance is more relevant than internal governance in affecting a firm’s value. We contribute to the literature by explicitly examining the interactive role played by country-level financial development and legal institutions in influencing the impact of firm-level governance on the cost of equity capital. Using a comprehensive sample of 7380 firm years drawn from 22 developed countries, we show that firm-level corporate governance attributes affect the cost of equity capital primarily in the Common Law countries with high levels of financial development. Our study is the first to highlight the complementary effects of legal origin, financial development and firm-level governance attributes in influencing the cost of equity capital.     

Strategic Governance and Management Accounting: Evidence From a Case Study

This paper seeks to establish if top management (the board) of a firm should extend its overview of the governance process to the execution of strategy (i.e., strategic governance) and, if so, does the management accounting information system (MAIS) have a role in facilitating this strategy execution process. This study investigated the role of the board and MAIS in strategic governance by examining a company with a public record of both successful governance and integrated strategic management accounting processes in a high‐risk industry. The analysis demonstrates that boards should go beyond the minimum conformance (compliance) requirements of the governance‐regulatory legislation and assume ultimate responsibility for strategy execution and enterprise performance. However, while management accounting techniques, processes and reports were found to be used extensively in strategic governance to integrate the policy‐management interface in numerous conformance–performance domains, the traditional role of the management accountant was found to be limited in terms of their role in such governance. The study demonstrates that a more strategic governance role offers the management accountant a way back into senior management by using the routines of management accounting to socialize the board and curb any opportunism that may arise.     

Corporate governance in family firms,learning and reaction to recession: Evidence from Italy

This paper focuses on the interaction between internal and external factors explaining performance of small and medium-sized family firms. We used framework foresight to suggest how learning and internal factors such as CEO’s origin, tenure and turnover, could affect the firm’s reactions to one particular external factor, economic recession. The paper draws on empirical observations of a large sample of small and medium family firms operating in Italy between 2002 and 2011 to identify the baseline future, an expected future for these firms. This analysis may be of interest to both management scholars and practitioners. We hope to contribute to the debate on how internal and external factors interact to affect firm success, measured as sales growth. The implications for the future viability of an economic system based on family businesses are straightforward, as the turbulence and instability of the economic environment has grown significantly in the last decade, especially in more developed countries. Whether the ability of a company to adapt and survive to negative shocks depends on its governance provides a rationale for exploring alternative perspectives on the competitiveness of the economic system and the ability of different owners to cope with future negative events.     

CEO turnover in China: the role of market-based and accounting performance measures

We investigate the relationship between chief executive officer (CEO) turnover and firm performance in China's publicly traded firms. We provide evidence on the use of accounting and market-based performance measures in CEO turnover decision. We also investigate the moderating roles of noise in performance measures, firm growth opportunities, state-owned enterprises, and corporate governance reform on the weights attached to these performance measures. We observe that Chinese listed firms rely more on accounting performance than on stock market performance when determining CEO turnover. Firms with noisier performance measures and larger growth opportunities rely less on both accounting performance and stock market performance in CEO replacement decision. State-controlled firms are more likely to use accounting performance to determine CEO turnover. Finally, we observe that the weight attached to the accounting performance measure is significantly reduced and the weight attached to the stock market performance measure is significantly increased after the governance reform. We also observe that the reform has different impact on state-owned firms and private firms in terms of the sensitivity of CEO turnover to firm performance.     

Greenwashing in environmental,social and governance disclosures

The environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data provided in firms’ sustainability reports is often unaudited. If ESG information disclosed by firms is not reliable, a firm’s greenwashing behavior can be a barrier to integrating ESG factors into investment decisions. In this paper, we study mechanisms to lessen firms’ greenwashing behavior in ESG dimensions holistically. Firstly, we identify “greenwashers” as firms which seem very transparent and reveal large quantities of ESG data but perform poorly in ESG aspects. By creating peer-relative greenwashing scores for a cross-country dataset comprised by 1925 large-cap firms, we measure the extent to which large-cap firms engage in greenwashing. We find evidence that greenwashing behavior in ESG dimensions can be deterred by scrutiny from (a) independent directors, (b) institutional investors, (c) influential public interests via a less corrupted country system, and (d) being cross-listed. Our results suggest that the two firm-level governance factors are most effective at attenuating firms’ misleading disclosure relating to ESG dimensions.     

Does stronger corporate governance constrain insider trading? Asymmetric evidence from Australia

We investigate the role of internal corporate governance in limiting opportunities for ASX company ‘insiders’ to extract abnormal returns from trading ‘own shares’. We show that stronger governance translates into more restrictive insider trading policies and, while not resulting in lower insider purchase volumes, values or profits, it does reduce insider selling profitability. Firm size and increasing trading policy restrictiveness is associated with reduced insider purchase profitability while insider sale profitability is reduced by aggregate governance, trading restrictions and increasing trading policy restrictiveness. We conclude that internal firm governance constrains insider sales but not purchases, providing contrarian trading signals.