Do goodwill impairments affect audit opinions? Evidence from China

There has been a steady growth of goodwill impairments in the Chinese stock market since the adoption of the impairment approach in accounting. The influence of goodwill impairments on a firm’s financial position and profitability give reason to doubt its current and future performance. We examine whether auditors, as a crucial external monitor, identify the information risks of goodwill impairments and express their concerns about financial reporting quality in their audit opinions. Using a sample of firms listed on China’s A-share market from 2007 to 2017, we test the association between goodwill impairments and the type of audit opinion received in the same financial period. Our findings are as follows. First, the probability of receiving a modified opinion increases with the amount of goodwill impairments. Second, the positive association between goodwill impairments and modified audit opinions is driven primarily by earnings management risks. Third, this positive association is more salient when auditors are industry experts and there is no auditor–client mismatch. Fourth, auditors are more sensitive to the amount of goodwill impairments than to their mere existence. Overall, we document that auditors perceive goodwill impairments as a signal of information risks and communicate their concerns to investors to avoid litigation.     

跨国并购执行阶段财务风险研究

改革开放以来,中国经济持续高速增长,国内市场逐步开放,国家对“一带一路”的推进也使越来越多的企业试图通过海外并购的方式扩大其国际市场份额,以此提高企业竞争力。但即便有国家政策的支持,想要完成海外并购依旧是困难重重,因此,系统分析所存在的财务风险并加以控制变成重中之重。论文对跨国并购现状进行概述,随后重点分析在执行阶段所存在的几点财务风险,并提出相应的防范建议。     

State-owned banks in the market for corporate control

We study the pre-deal characteristics of state-owned banks acquiring other companies, relative to their private counterparts. We build a unique international data-set of 3682 deals in the years 2003–2013. Econometric results highlight that those state-owned banks that are acting as acquirers have an ex-ante performance similar to their private benchmarks. The results are driven by the role of development banks. This new finding points to the recent evolution of some types of contemporary state-owned financial players.     

For green or not for green? The effect of cooperation goals and type on environmental performance

Although many scholars have demonstrated that companies engaged in collaborations achieve better environmental performance than other companies, existing studies have not analyzed in depth whether this effect changes considering the characteristics of cooperation. Our paper aims to explore whether collaboration with other companies always has a positive effect on environmental performance or whether it depends on cooperation goals, collaboration type, or company size. Empirical analysis based on a sample of 773 European companies demonstrated that an external source of knowledge is an important way to foster firms' environmental proactivity, especially when environmental goals are shared at the basis of collaboration. Second, we verified that companies involved in JVs with environmental goals achieve greater environmental performance than companies that use M&As to acquire external knowledge. Finally, we demonstrated that it is more important for small companies to be involved in environmental collaboration than larger ones.     

领导干部自然资源资产离任审计与企业绿色并购——来自中国重污染型上市公司的经验证据

基于2011~2017年我国A股重污染型上市公司经验数据，实证检验了领导干部自然资源资产离任审计对企业绿色并购行为的影响，研究发现：领导干部自然资源资产离任审计可显著促进辖区内企业实施绿色并购；而当地区市场竞争程度越高时，越会抑制企业在领导干部自然资源资产离任审计试点实施背景下的绿色并购扩张行为；进一步地，企业绿色并购会显著提高企业价值，且这一影响对并购后当年的企业价值影响最为显著；基于异质性分析方面，领导干部自然资源资产离任审计会约束不同产权性质企业的环境治理行为，促进其采取绿色并购，实施绿色发展；同时领导干部自然资源资产离任审计会更有利于东部地区企业实施绿色并购，而对中西部地区的企业影响不明显。     

Is corporate environmental disclosure associated with firm value? A multicountry study of Gulf Cooperation Council firms

Several studies have found a relationship between corporate social and environmental disclosure and firm value (FV) or accounting profitability. Where environmental disclosure has been the focus, though, only single-country studies have been published, and most of the previous research concerns the developed world. This study examines the association between corporate environmental disclosure (CED) and FV in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, where CED has been increasing from its previous low base. Findings from a multicountry sample of 500 firm-year observations using a 55-item unweighted environmental disclosure index suggest that CED is significantly and positively related to FV as measured by Tobin's Q (TBQ). The relationship is robust to using a weighted version of the disclosure index, individual countries and environmental disclosure subindices. Some evidence of a positive relationship between CED and return on assets is also found, but even where statistically significant, the relationship is much weaker than in the case of TBQ. For empirical and theoretical reasons, we recommend that future studies pay greater attention to market-based proxies, if possible, when investigating the value relevance of CED in both developed and developing countries. Our results suggest that both managers and policymakers in GCC countries should take a positive view of expanded CED.     

How and why auditors’ social exchange relationships influence their attitudes and behaviors: Implications for audit quality

External auditors regularly interact with various parties at work, such as their accounting firms, engagement team members, and clients. These interactions can help shape the nature of auditors’ social exchange relationships with these entities, which in turn may influence their behavior toward these targets. This installment of Accounting Matters draws from recently published research by Herda and colleagues to (1) explain how constructive auditor-target connections can develop and lead to beneficial outcomes like reduced auditor burnout and turnover intentions, as well as more citizenship behavior, and (2) discuss how these upshots might ultimately affect audit quality. This topic is important because audit quality translates into improved financial reporting, which helps stakeholders who rely on audited financial statements to make informed business decisions. Specifically, we underscore the key role auditors’ perceptions of fair treatment from a relationship partner play in fostering a strong psychological bond with the target via perceived support. We further consider how auditors’ consequent commitment to the target can result in favorable organizational outcomes, including enhanced audit and financial reporting quality. We also discuss practical implications for accounting firms.     

Client Importance and Audit Quality at the Individual Audit Partner,Office, and Firm Levels

We investigate whether audit partner level data provides a more powerful measure than office or firm level measures of client importance. We find that the likelihood of issuing a going-concern opinion (any and first-time) increases, and the absolute value of discretionary accruals decreases, in relation to the proportion of audit fees to the total audit fees received by audit partners from all their clients. We also find that the likelihood of issuing a going-concern opinion (any and first-time) increases, and the absolute value of discretionary accruals decreases, in relation to the proportion of non-audit services fees from a client to total non-audit service fees, and the proportion of total audit and non-audit service fees from a client to total fees from all their clients at the office and firm levels. Our findings provide evidence to regulators, audit clients, and stakeholders that audit partners do not succumb to pressure from economically more important clients as audit quality has a positive association with client importance.     

Professionals inside the board room: accounting expertise of directors and dividend policy

Directors’ personal attributes have significant impacts on governance effectiveness. We study whether directors’ accounting expertise affects corporate financial policy and investigate dividend in specific. We construct a dataset of audit committee directors’ accounting expertise for Standard & Poor 500 firms from 2005 to 2012. We first verify directors’ monitoring roles by showing that firms with accounting expert sitting on their audit committees demonstrate stronger accounting conservatism. In our main tests, we find that these firms maintain lower dividend payment level, which are less sensitive to earnings volatility. This suggests directors’ advisory roles in financial policy. We further show that our accounting expertise cannot be subsumed by management ability. In additional test, we further examine the baseline results conditional on analyst forecast error. Our findings highlight the importance of directors’ professional expertise in fulfilling their governance roles.     

Do Boards of Directors Influence Corporate Sustainable Development? An Attention‐Based Analysis

Following the attention‐based view of the firm (ABV), boards of directors’ link to corporate sustainable development (CSD) could be dependent upon certain attention structures: valuation of environmental stimuli, rules of the game and the players. Studying a sample of large Australian firms, the findings indicate that the proposed attention‐directing structures do appear to be linked to CSD in a manner consistent with the ABV. Specifically, creating awareness through scanning efforts links boards to CSD. Stakeholder debate, as a boardroom rule, is also significantly associated with CSD. Furthermore, as a so‐called ‘player’ on the board, women directors have a moderating effect on the relationships between environmental scanning, stakeholder debate and CSD. The findings are discussed along with limitations and directions for future research. Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment