The Improbability of Fraud in Accounting for Derivatives: A Case Study on the Boundaries of Financial Reporting Compliance

ABSTRACT

This study responds to recent calls in the literature to examine fraud using detailed case studies, extending knowledge beyond individual incentives and capital market reactions towards a more contextualized understanding of the concept. We use an institutional logics perspective to challenge existing assumptions about a universally valid meaning of compliance, fraud, and faithful representation. Presenting the case of the Swedish bank HQ, we show how the interpretation of the accounting standard for option measurement varies across different enforcement bodies because the meaning of compliance is socially negotiated across the institutional logics of markets, financial regulation, and law. The independent decision-making of the different enforcement bodies leads to a systematic variation in the interpretation of principles-based accounting standards without ultimate coordination. To define consistent boundaries of compliance across institutional logics, and thus, to distinguish between fraud and allowable managerial discretion becomes problematic. Faithful representation, in turn, cannot be understood as financial statements reflecting a correct value or as financial statements being prepared in accordance with acceptable practice, as suggested in the earlier literature. Instead, faithful representation itself becomes a contextually bound concept, which can only be defined within an institutional logic.     

The financial advice puzzle: The role of consumer heterogeneity in the advisor choice

We investigate motivational drivers of financial advisor use, accounting for investor heterogeneity, with the goal of helping institutions increase the use of financial advisor services. The results from a latent class choice model reveal two distinct segments that differ in their approach to the financial advice decision. While higher levels of risk tolerance, trust, and self-efficacy increase financial advice use for both segments, albeit at much higher propensities for Segment 1, personality only matters for Segment 1. Moreover, their regulatory focus differs with Segment 1 being promotion and Segment 2 being prevention focused. Using these results, we offer suggestions for marketing strategies.     

Between a rock and a hard place: Seizing the opportunity of demanding customers by means of frontline service behaviors

Service businesses are increasingly facing more demanding customers as a result of a shift in power from the service providers' side to the customers' side. Related literature predominantly examines the negative side of this ongoing trend, while overlooking the positive side. The major aim of this paper is to examine how frontline employees — investment account managers — deal with the ongoing increase in customer demandingness. To address this, we draw on adaptability performance theory to test the facilitating effect of frontline employees' post-transaction service behaviors (SBs) — diligence, inducements, information communication, sportsmanship, and empathy — as a means of adaptation to higher levels of customer demand. Findings indicate that frontline employees adapt most of their SBs' intensities to match customers' demands. The results show that some SBs actually increase the effectiveness and efficiency of frontline employees' service performance, leading to an increase in customer value and satisfaction. Customer value is found as a mediator in some of the relationships between SBs and customer satisfaction. Contrary to the conception of the negative outcomes of customer demandingness, service firms need to consider taking advantage of customer demandingness by stressing the role of frontline employees in adapting to customers’ demands.     

Corporate financial distress: The case of publicly listed firms in an emerging market economy

Occurrences of financial distress (FD) are not readily obvious yet can span several periods. This paper examines episodes of FD using industry‐relative (IR) firm‐/ accounting‐, market‐ and macro‐level information. Mixed logit regressions reveal that firm‐ and market‐based measures, as well as macro‐level variables explain the likelihood of FD in 263 publicly listed non‐banking firms in the Philippines during the period 1995 to 2018. Rates of identification of firms in financial distressed states of close to 69 percent are obtained at a cutoff probability of 0.30 in the model with time‐varying intercept and slope. This study shows the importance of recognizing heterogeneous firm behavior. The ability to more accurately predict the probability of FD and to determine the financial health of firms can help financial institutions in allocating funds and policy makers in predicting crises episodes.     

Do leveraged warrants prompt individuals to speculate on stock price reversals?

Using proprietary data on bank-issued knock-out warrants written on a stock index, we find that individual investors’ aggregate warrant portfolio speculates against the short-term trend of the index. We argue that contrarian trading is driven by the interaction of product design and investors’ preference for large leveraged positions. Investors tend to open larger positions whenever warrants offer higher leverage. As a result, investors open an aggregate long position when calls offer higher leverage than puts. Since knock-out leverages move systematically with the underlying, aggregate warrant positions become contrarian even if investors do not intend to speculate on reversals.     

违约与杠杆周期——一个带有救助的金融加速器模型

我国为应对2008年国际金融危机的冲击采取了一系列经济刺激政策,在发挥“稳增长”作用的同时,也在一定程度上导致我国企业部门杠杆水平快速上升,但与此同时,不良贷款率并没有随企业部门杠杆的上升而显著增加。为了解释企业部门违约与杠杆的周期特征,本文在金融加速器模型(Bernanke et al.,1999)基础上,引入政府对企业部门的违约救助机制,建立DSGE模型进行讨论。进一步地,本文还通过一个不合意的去杠杆政策试验表明,忽略资产价格稳定(或者说金融稳定)前提下的去杠杆政策,反而会使企业部门的杠杆和违约率同时上升到一个较高水平。最后,引入一个盯住预期资产价格的动态救助规则能够发挥稳定经济的作用,并提高社会福利水平。     

Contraction flexibility,operating leverage,and financial leverage

This study investigates the impacts of contraction flexibility and operating leverage on financial leverage from the perspective of the agency conflict between shareholders and debtholders. In a continuous-time real option framework, we demonstrate that shareholders’ contraction flexibility may have an adverse effect on financial leverage, and that the substitution relation between operating leverage and financial leverage is persistent or pronounced in the presence of contraction flexibility. The evidence from Chinese listed firms not only supports our theoretical predictions well, but also offers a method to examine the agency conflict hypothesis. We suggest that the high proportion of bank loans or long-term debt in total liabilities can help levered firms alleviate the agency problem arising from contraction decisions.     

Financial statement comparability and bank risk-taking

This study examines the relationship between financial statement comparability and bank risk-taking. Our analysis of a sample of publicly listed U.S. banks over the 1994–2019 period shows that banks with more comparable financial statements are related to significantly less risk-taking. We also find that the negative relationship between comparability and risk-taking is more pronounced for firms with more severe moral hazard and agency problems. Our documented findings are robust across alternative measures of comparability and risk-taking and considering change analysis, after controlling for strength of corporate governance and using propensity score matching and two-stage least squares estimation to address endogeneity concerns. Our analysis also shows that the relationship between financial statement comparability and bank risk-taking is stronger for smaller banks than for larger banks. Overall, this study provides unique insights into the role of financial statement comparability in curbing risk-taking in the banking sector.     

It makes me feel vulnerable! The impact of public self-disclosure on online complaint behavior

Genuine reviews are essential for financial performance and for customer trust. In the case of a negative experience, withholding negative reviews may lead to biased online information. This paper aims to investigate two factors that may prompt customers to withhold their complaints (i.e., identity disclosure and locus of control). The study adopts a sequential exploratory mixed-method approach. An exploratory interview phase compares public vs anonymous online environments, and explores the reasons why dissatisfied customers might decide not to complain. An experiment then shows that vulnerability is a key mechanism preventing negative reviews. This effect is exaggerated when customers perceive that they do not have control over the events happening in their lives (i.e., external locus of control). Our work uncovers an important determinant of online complaint behavior, vulnerability. It also offers practical suggestions, such as improving confidentiality, to increase a customer's willingness to complain following a negative experience.     

中国金融系统风险溢出效应研究——基于溢出指数和波动溢出网络

文章基于溢出指数和波动溢出网络方法，从静态和动态分别度量我国金融系统不同子市场间的风险联动水平及变动趋势。研究结果表明，我国金融系统风险溢出效应整体水平较高，各市场间联动性较强；市场内部滞后效应大于市场之间溢出效应，两两有向溢出效应具有强不对称性；作为我国金融系统的风险中心，货币市场始终处于风险溢出方，但在金融危机时期，其对外风险溢出效应相对减弱，而大宗商品市场、资本市场、房地产市场等其余市场的风险溢出效应相对增强。值得注意的是，当前我国金融系统整体风险溢出水平较高，市场间风险相关性较强，需要进一步加强系统性风险的监测与防范。