Management accounting and corporate governance: An institutional interpretation of the agency problem

Challenging the dominant economic agency theory of corporate governance with a new discourse drawn from institutional theory, the paper analyses how management accounting is implicated in corporate governance. The proposed institutional theory of agency links the micro-institutions of the organization that are informed by the practices of management accounting with external institutional players and stakeholders. The paper identifies emerging narratives in which the management accounting profession has recognised a distinctive, post-Enron set of sensibilities. Although techniques drawn from strategic management accounting can be adapted to embed better corporate governance practices, the institutional theory of agency identifies tensions between the heroic CEO narrative and the routinization of strategy implicit in strategic management accounting.     

Board Members and Company Value

This essay surveys research about the value of individual members of boards of directors. When directors join or exit corporate boards, company stock prices respond, often in magnitudes of 1% of firm value or more. Related research shows that when a significant event impacts the stock price of one company, the effects are transmitted to other companies that share board members in common with the primary company. Share price reactions are sensitive to variables such as a director’s occupation, independence, and professional qualifications. Together, this evidence suggests that a well-functioning market for directors might already exist, making direct regulation unnecessary and possibly counter-productive.     

Corporate Governance and Expected Stock Returns: Evidence from Germany

Recent empirical work shows evidence for higher valuation of firms in countries with a better legal environment. We investigate whether differences in the quality of firm‐level corporate governance also help to explain firm performance in a cross‐section of companies within a single jurisdiction. Constructing a broad corporate governance rating (CGR) for German public firms, we document a positive relationship between governance practices and firm valuation. There is also evidence that expected stock returns are negatively correlated with firm‐level corporate governance, if dividend yields are used as proxies for the cost of capital. An investment strategy that bought high‐CGR firms and shorted low‐CGR firms earned abnormal returns of around 12% on an annual basis during the sample period.     

Industry aspects of takeovers and divestitures: Evidence from the UK

This paper examines takeover and divestiture activity at the industry level for the population of UK firms over the period 1986–2000. Consistent with US research, takeovers in the UK cluster both across industries and over time. The evidence for divestitures indicates clustering across industries only. The paper further investigates whether broad and specific industry shocks (e.g., growth, free cash flow, concentration, deregulation, foreign competition, technology, stock market performance) explain takeover and divestiture clustering at the industry level. The results suggest that broad shocks increase (decrease) the likelihood of takeovers (divestitures), although not significantly for takeovers. Specific industry shocks that increase the likelihood of takeover activity include low growth, the threat of foreign competition and high stock market performance. For divestitures, high industry concentration and deregulation increase activity. Little evidence is found for deregulation as a significant factor in explaining takeover activity.     

Accounting development in Pakistan

This paper examines the origins, growth, and the development of accounting practices and disclosures in Pakistan and the factors that influenced them. We trace the early days of accounting in the Indian subcontinent and discuss the British colonial influence. We examine the development of accounting in Pakistan through three eras: Independence through 1971, Post 1971-1984, and 1984 to present. We describe how the colonial past and later the international financial institutions such as the Asian Development Bank and the International Monetary Fund played key roles in shaping accounting and reporting practices of the country. Pakistan's adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards as national standards has not led to improvement in the quality of financial reporting. We argue that Pakistan, even though classified as a common law country in literature, exhibits most of the properties of code law countries. We conclude that lack of investor protection (e.g., minority rights protection, insider-trading protection), judicial inefficiencies, and weak enforcement mechanisms are more critical to explaining the state of financial reporting in Pakistan than are cultural factors. This insight has policy implications for developing countries that are making efforts to improve the quality of the financial reporting of their business entities.     

Bank CEO materialism: Risk controls,culture and tail risk

We investigate how the prevalence of materialistic bank CEOs has evolved over time, and how risk management policies, non-CEO executives’ behavior and tail risk vary with CEO materialism. We document that the proportion of banks run by materialistic CEOs increased significantly from 1994 to 2004, that the strength of risk management functions is significantly lower for banks with materialistic CEOs, and that non-CEO executives in banks with materialistic CEOs insider trade more aggressively around government intervention during the financial crisis. Finally, we find that banks with materialistic CEOs have significantly more downside tail risk relative to banks with non-materialistic CEOs.     

Management's Materiality Criteria of Internal Control Weaknesses and Corporate Fraud: Evidence from China

This paper investigates the determinants and consequence of Chinese listed companies' first-time decisions on materiality criteria for internal control weaknesses, which have been observable beginning from the 2011 annual report. Although pretax income is most commonly used as the benchmark for materiality, revenue is also used as a popular alternative. Revenue is more susceptible to manipulation, as it has a much larger financial amount than pretax income. We argue that unethical managers prefer not to disclose material weaknesses by manipulating the materiality criteria to justify non-disclosure of a potentially material weakness. Consistent with this opportunistic incentive, we find that when companies committed fraud in the previous year that remains undetected, their management is more likely to use revenue (rather than pretax income) as the first-time benchmark and to set a higher revenue-based materiality threshold as well. Moreover, once the materiality metrics are set, the first-time revenue-based materiality threshold is significantly and positively associated with subsequent incidence of corporate fraud, which suggests that setting deviant and loose materiality metrics leaves room for the management to engage in future misconduct.     

International compliance with new Basel Accord principles for risk governance

We assess international compliance with the Basel Committee's 2010 guidance on governance of banking organisations. Based on an extensive examination of regulatory documents in selected advanced economies, we find that reform is incomplete in jurisdictions most affected by the financial crisis, and with the largest financial centres. In contrast, other countries less affected by the financial crisis have enacted risk governance reforms as protection against potential future contagion. We provide insights for policy‐makers charged with improving governance at banks, and a richer understanding for international regulators as they revise the guidelines and aim for greater compliance at the national level.     

近墨者黑:上市公司违规行为的“同群效应”

近年来,上市公司违规行为群发,本文利用2000-2016年沪深A股上市公司违规事件样本,从“同群效应”的角度探究违规行为的群体特征和影响因素。研究发现,上市公司违规行为存在显著的地区同群效应(“近墨者黑”),同地区其他上市公司的违规行为显著增加了该地区公司发生违规行为的概率;且信息披露型违规的同群效应更加明显。机制研究表明,企业违规决策的地区同群效应主要源于交流式学习和观察式学习的两种模仿作用机制。异质性分析表明,同一地区内,相同产权性质公司间的同群效应更明显。进一步研究显示,十八大之后违规行为的发生概率显著降低,地区同群效应显著减弱。本文研究揭示了违规行为的地源性特征,也从抑制违规传染视角实证支持了近年来的系列整治活动。     

Over‐investment or risk mitigation? Corporate social responsibility in Asia‐Pacific,Europe, Japan,and the United States

We study the relationship of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the distribution of stock returns for an international sample. Firms with a high level of CSR generally exhibit superior stock price synchronicity in the markets of Europe, Japan, and the United States. In particular, we identify optimal levels of CSR to minimize idiosyncratic risk for each region. Moreover, CSR has a mitigating effect on crash risk in Europe and the United States. In contrast, firms from the Asia‐Pacific region display CSR over‐investment followed by a higher crash risk. This appears to be a consequence of globalization, which forces firms from Asia‐Pacific to overinvest in CSR to adapt western standards.