Leadership,Creative Problem‐Solving Capacity,and Creative Performance: The Importance of Knowledge Sharing

This article presents two studies that examine whether leader supportive behaviors facilitate knowledge sharing and employee creative problem‐solving capacity, thereby enhancing creative performance. The findings from both studies indicate that leader supportive behaviors are directly and indirectly related, through both internal and external knowledge sharing, to employee creative problem‐solving capacity. In addition, creative problem solving was related to the two dimensions of creative performance—fluency and originality. However, a test of the mediation model indicated that creative problem solving only mediated the relationship between internal knowledge sharing creative performance and originality. These findings highlight the complex process by which leaders facilitate both internal and external knowledge sharing and employee creative problem‐solving capacity, thereby improving employee creative performance.     

Is non-audit services a suitable proxy for auditor independence in the post-SOX period?

Before implementation of the Sarbanes Oxley Act (SOX) in 2002, researchers frequently used fees from non-audit services (NAS) as a surrogate for auditor independence. NAS is still used in this way, even though SOX has restricted the types of NAS that auditors may provide to their clients. Therefore, we pose the following question: What does the literature say about the continuing adequacy of NAS as a surrogate for auditor independence in the post-SOX era? This question is relevant to research in accounting regulation because, if NAS is no longer an adequate surrogate, then research on auditor independence may provide biased results. Overall, we find that many post-SOX studies using NAS have insignificant or counterintuitive results, whereas pre-SOX studies using NAS predominantly have significant results suggesting that NAS impairs auditor independence. Is this shift in findings because NAS is no longer an adequate proxy for independence? We discuss this issue and provide our conclusions, citing relevant research where applicable.     

Are college education and job experience complements or substitutes? Evidence from hedge fund portfolio performance

Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting - We examine, for various educational characteristics of hedge fund managers, the performance profile of hedge fund portfolios along their...     

A Negotiation-Oriented Model of Auditor-Client Relationships

The increasing frequency and complexity of inter-organizational relationships suggests that inter-organizational negotiations should represent an area of increasing concern to management and academicians. Unfortunately, there is little theorizing about, nor study of, these negotiations. The few extant models are heavily influenced by models of individual negotiating styles that are then raised to the inter-organizational level with minimal change. The model developed here attempts to provide a framework for understanding the context of these inter-organizational negotiations by identifying and illuminating factors that influence the outcome of interactions in various long-term supplier relationships. Factors discussed include dynamic and stable environments, organizational cultures, role involvement, previous interactions between the individuals and organizations, and the unique characteristics of the decision-making processes that characterize the specific parties. As a framework for our presentation, we draw upon Kleinman and Palmon's (1999) theory of audit firm-client firm relationships, which is based on Kahn et al.'s (1964) Role Episode Model and Merton's (1966) Role Set Model. This paper incorporates Shakun's (1988) theory of evolutionary system design. The inclusion of the latter improves upon Kleinman and Palmon's work by first providing a better motive for the interaction between the parties, and second by shedding further light on the dynamics of the negotiation process.     

The Relationship of Cognitive Effort,Information Acquisition Preferences and Risk to Simulated Auditor–Client Negotiation Outcomes

The auditor–client relationship is a legally-mandated relationship in which one party, the auditor, is hired and paid by the auditee (client) to inform third party stakeholders as to whether the client firm’s financial statements are presented in conformity with national financial accounting standards. When these statements do not meet the criteria for acceptable financial statements, a negotiation situation may arise in which the auditor is presumed to act in the best interests of shareholders and creditors who have no independent knowledge of the auditor’s findings. The client management may then feel forced to defend its numbers. The result is a negotiation between the auditor and client (e.g., Salterio in Account Financ 52:233–286, 2012; Brown and Wright in Account Horiz 22(1):91–109, 2008). This study examines cognitive factors and risk preference factors that may impact the negotiation both in the setting of each side’s negotiation position and on the outcomes of that negotiation using simulated auditor–client negotiations. Questionnaire and simulated auditor–client negotiations were used to generate the data, with MBA and MS in Accounting students playing the role of client CEOs and auditor partners. We further explore the use of a tool, Structural Equation Modeling, to test the data, in the process highlighting its usefulness in auditor–client negotiation research. We find that the cognitive characteristic of need for cognition is significantly and positively related to achievement of the negotiator’s desired income objectives and reported willingness to argue strongly for his/her position. Actively open-minded thinking, a second cognitive variable studied, was not significantly related to success in the negotiations, nor to a reported willingness to argue strongly for his/her position. Finally, we find that perceived aggressive tactics by the other party to the negotiation had a negative impact on the counterpart negotiator’s success in the negotiation, and satisfaction with it. As expected, risk assessment-related variables were not related to outcomes of interest.     

Explaining the volatility smile: non-parametric versus parametric option models

We employ a “non-parametric” pricing approach of European options to explain the volatility smile. In contrast to “parametric” models that assume that the underlying state variable(s) follows a stochastic process that adheres to a strict functional form, “non-parametric” models directly fit the end distribution of the underlying state variable(s) with statistical distributions that are not represented by parametric functions. We derive an approximation formula which prices S&P 500 index options in closed form which corresponds to the lower bound recently proposed by Lin et al. (Rev Quant Financ Account 38(1):109–129, 2012). Our model yields option prices that are more consistent with the data than the option prices that are generated by several widely used models. Although a quantitative comparison with other non-parametric models is more difficult, there are indications that our model is also more consistent with the data than these models.     

Non-parametric method for European option bounds

There is much research whose efforts have been devoted to discovering the distributional defects in the Black–Scholes model, which are known to cause severe biases. However, with a free specification for the distribution, one can only find upper and lower bounds for option prices. In this paper, we derive a new non-parametric lower bound and provide an alternative interpretation of Ritchken’s (J Finance 40:1219–1233, 1985) upper bound to the price of the European option. In a series of numerical examples, our new lower bound is substantially tighter than previous lower bounds. This is prevalent especially for out of the money options where the previous lower bounds perform badly. Moreover, we present how our bounds can be derived from histograms which are completely non-parametric in an empirical study. We discover violations in our lower bound and show that those violations present arbitrage profits. In particular, our empirical results show that out of the money calls are substantially overpriced (violate the lower bound).     

Do Corporate Frauds Distort Suppliers’ Investment Decisions?

Journal of Business Ethics - This study examines whether customer firms’ unethical behavior distorts suppliers’ investment decisions. Using litigation and restatement to measure...     

Does news play an important role in the correction process of the accrual anomaly?

We examine whether the financial press plays an important role in the correction of the accruals anomaly. Using 83,016 Wall Street Journal news articles published during 1993–2006, we find that a significant fraction of abnormal returns associated with the accruals trading strategy is concentrated on news days. The clustering of returns on news announcements is consistent with the financial press revealing information valuable for the correction of accruals mispricing. Further, we find that earnings‐related news is more influential in the correction process than non‐earnings‐related news. Collectively, the results suggest that the financial press provides useful information to capital market participants.