Financial controller turnover: An early warning sign of deteriorating financial reporting quality

This study examines the relation between financial controller turnover and public firms’ financial reporting quality. Exploiting a special institutional setting in China, where financial controllers along with CEOs and CFOs are required to attest to the accuracy and completeness of firms’ annual reports, we find that: (a) financial controller turnover is negatively associated with financial reporting quality, (b) the negative relation between financial controller turnover and financial reporting quality is more pronounced in non-state-owned enterprises, in firms with weaker corporate governance, and in areas with higher regulatory enforcement intensity, and (c) financial controller turnover is not related to real earnings management. Further analyses show that financial controller turnover is associated with the incidence of subsequent financial report restatements and enforcement actions by the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC). Financial controller turnover also precedes top executive turnover and can be viewed as an early warning sign of deteriorating financial reporting quality. Such information content is incremental to that of top executive turnover. Our analyses also show that firms with financial controller turnover have higher initial stock returns but underperform their counterparts in the long run.