机器人流程自动化在商业银行内部审计中的应用研究

机器人流程自动化(RPA)可以替代人工执行清晰逻辑的重复性和确定性的审计业务环节,实现人力成本的节约和审计资源的聚焦。本文分析了RPA在商业银行内审工作中的实施方法、应用场景和流程设计,以增值税发票查验及管理为例总结出业务流程、操作步骤和取得的成效,并针对目前的不足提出了对策建议。     

Expanding your accounting classroom with digital video technology

In the past, many activities of accounting professors were restricted or confined by their classroom walls. Bringing in guest speakers, taking students on field trips and teaching students off-campus (either locally or globally) were extraordinary efforts that required significant organization. Today, numerous technological advancements in communication infrastructure, equipment and online tools greatly facilitate such initiatives. Outside experts can now visit the classroom, students can explore or collaborate in distant places and professors can extend the geographical reach of their lessons simply via the means of digital video technology. Based on our 2010 Conference on Teaching and Learning in Accounting (CTLA) Master Class, we share our experiences in exploring the use of digital video in teaching accounting and explain how numerous accounting professors are taking advantage of the capabilities afforded by digital video technologies. Online video clips, student video projects, and online video lecture recordings hold great promise for accounting education. We have created a website that complements and demonstrates the teaching ideas presented in this article and that facilitates video integration into accounting courses. We discuss the pedagogical benefits of using video, including those from general education and accounting literature. The article concludes with suggestions for how accounting faculty can keep current with video technology, areas for future accounting research and a call to action for accounting educators. Our work with digital video technology has led to the 2011 American Accounting Association (AAA) Innovation in Accounting Education Award as well as the 2010 Canadian Academic Accounting Association (CAAA) Howard Teall Innovation in Accounting Education Award.     

Efficiency in accounting education: evidence from Turkish Universities

It is important to see efficiency of accounting education in order to fully understand the operational environment of companies. In this study, the 45 public universities in Turkey was investigated by using Data Envelopment Analysis [DEA]. In order, some definitions for the outputs and inputs are required for the model. The criteria developed by American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) is used as definitions for inputs, is used and the result of the Selection Exam for Public Personnel [SEPP] is used to measure efficiency in accounting education. According to our results, Turkish universities are successful in producing the most appropriate output. They are usually using their input components in a favorable way. According to our model accounting education delivered in the undergraduate programs of the higher education system in Turkey is generally effective. But universities are using resources excessively to get the output. On the departmental basis, Turkish universities are technically effective to a great extent. It is determined that the departments of labor economics, industrial relations and partially public finance are more effective departments. According to resource usage, while the most effective departments are departments of public finance, departments of business administration are the most ineffective ones.     

The rise of cost accounting: evidence from Italy

Accounting historians link the origins of cost accounting to the rise of manufacturing firms and, in a more detailed way, to efficiency control, pricing and decision-making problems faced in those organizations. To date, the international debate has mainly focused on practices in the USA, Great Britain and France, with little evidence available of developments in other countries, such as Italy. In this paper, the authors analyse the development of cost accounting in an Italian firm, 'La Magona d'Italia'. This iron, steel and tinplate firm, situated in Piombino, is observed over the period 1865-1940, i.e. during the central phase of the industrial revolution in Italy. We find that several factors influenced the implementation of a cost accounting system at Magona, including efficiency control, strategic decision making, and stock valuation. We also find a strong British influence on Magona's strategy, organization and information system, particularly in respect of finance, managers, technology and accounting practices. There is little evidence that Italian accounting traditions and practice played much of a role.     

Gender effects and labor supply in public accounting: An agenda of research issues

Considerations of gender effects on labor supply issues are significant because of the potential to provide information to employees, firms and society. This paper presents a research agenda regarding women as a source of labor in public accounting. The research agenda indentifies issues which have been either uninvestigated or underinvestigated. Studies suggested by the agenda have purposes varying from exploratory to confirmatory, and from social justice and equity to economic. Research design concerns and related theory are provided. The androcentric culture of public accounting, patriarchy, cultural expectations and the dynamics of change are key issues affecting the proposed research.     

Reducing accounting students' oral communication apprehension: Empirical evidence

Although communication skills are recognized as crucially important to success in the accounting profession, the issue of oral communication (OC) skills development has not been widely examined in accounting education studies. Further, some have questioned whether a program can be designed to effect significant gains in OC skills in relatively short periods, given the resource constraints often associated with accounting programs. One important facet of OC is oral communication apprehension (OCA) -anxiety related to interpersonal OC. Since OCA has been linked to OC skills as well as other communication behaviors, reducing OCA is a step towards improving OC skills. We describe an experimental, undergraduate accounting course that had reducing students' OCA as one of its main objectives. Pretest and posttest measures of OCA for treatment and control groups of accounting majors indicated a significant reduction in OCA for the treatment group but not the control group. This suggests that significant reductions in OCA can be made in a single course. The implications of such short-term gains in reducing OCA are that accounting educators should not necessarily presume that limited resources impose a prohibitive constraint on the inclusion of procedures to reduce OCA in accounting curricula, and should consider incorporating exercises such as those described in this study in their courses where appropriate. Further research is needed to help guide these efforts, however, for OCA remains an underexamined phenomenon in accounting education.     

Contagion of accounting methods: evidence from stock option expensing

I examine how a firm’s accounting methods can be influenced by the choices of other firms, which I label contagion. I model accounting method choice as a combination of intrinsic propensities to adopt a method and contagion effects. I predict contagion of accounting methods occurs for two reasons: (1) adoption decisions of other firms are informative for the adoption decision, and (2) prior adoptions change the net benefits of the decision. I test these predictions in the stock option expensing setting where firms had the choice to use the intrinsic or fair value method. Using a firm-level diffusion model, I document evidence consistent with my predictions.     

Cross-listing dynamics and labor investment efficiency: International evidence

This paper investigates the dynamics of cross-listing in the United States and labor investment efficiency. Using a sample of 11,780 firm-year observations from 44 countries over the period 2000–2019, we found that cross-listing is positively associated with labor investment efficiency. This result suggests that cross-listing is associated with lower deviations in labor investment at the level explained by economic fundamentals. We also found that cross-listing reduces both overinvestment and underinvestment problems. The positive impact of cross-listing on labor investment efficiency is more prevalent for firms from countries with weaker institutions and higher liabilities due to foreignness and for those operating in industries with low litigation risk. Further evidence shows that labor investment efficiency following cross-listing in the United States translates into high firm valuation. Our findings are robust to endogeneity concerns and have important policy implications.     

Machine learning improves accounting estimates: evidence from insurance payments

Review of Accounting Studies - Managerial estimates are ubiquitous in accounting: most balance sheet and income statement items are based on estimates; some, such as the pension and employee stock...     

Investor reaction to accounting misstatements under IFRS: Australian evidence

We examine the investor reaction to misstatement news for Australian listed firms from 2006 to 2013. We find 4.1 percent of firm-years have a misstatement and 79 percent of misstatements are disclosed initially only in the periodic filings (stealth misstatements). We find no investor reaction for the average misstatement, reactions of between −2.3 percent and −2.8 percent (−1.5 and −1.7 percent) for misstatements that reduce prior-period earnings or equity (affect revenue) and reactions of between −1.3 and −2.7 percent for non-stealth misstatements. Investor reactions are more negative for non-stealth misstatements that reduce prior-period earnings or equity than for stealth misstatements.     

Information asymmetry and accounting restatement: NYSE-AMEX and NASDAQ evidence

We examine the impact of accounting restatement announcement on firms’ value and information asymmetry for both auction market (NYSE-AMEX) and dealer market (NASDAQ) using a public sample of restatement announcements from 1997 to 2005. In both markets, we document economically and significantly negative mean cumulative abnormal returns around the announcement dates. The restatements attributed to auditors are associated with more negative returns than those attributed to management and the SEC. However, there is no significant difference between market reactions arising from the core and non-core restatements. We also find a significant increase in volume, number of transactions, average order size, volatility, and various measures of spreads after the restatement announcement indicating that restatement announcements diminish company prospects and contribute to increased uncertainty and information asymmetry. Finally, we find that the information asymmetry in the NASDAQ market around the event date is less pronounced than in the NYSE-AMEX market.     

Regulatory oversight and trade-offs in earnings management: evidence from pension accounting

Review of Accounting Studies - I develop approaches that quantify the use of discretion for the three main assumptions used for the financial reporting of defined benefit pension obligations: the...     

Sources of professional staff turnover in public accounting firms: Some further evidence

A recent article by Rhode et al. (1977) identified 39 variables associated with professional staff turnover in public accounting firms. The present study attempted to extend this prior work by examining the antecedents of the turnover act, namely those variables associated with the turnover decision. Using a valence-instrumentality-expectancy framework, measures of task outcome valence and instrumentality were evaluated with turnover expectations for a sample of 306 staff-level accountants. The findings indicated that the turnover decision was largely a function of negatively-valued task outcomes and the likelihood of obtaining these outcomes in one's current position, and the higher likelihood of obtaining certain positive outcomes in alternative positions.     

The persuasiveness of audit evidence: The case of accounting policy decisions

This study examines how auditors respond to precedents in accounting situations where authoritative guidance does not exist. Three experiments were conducted with practicing audit managers and partners from a Canadian Big Six accounting firm. The results show that auditors rely to a greater extent on precedents that are similar (versus not similar) to the problem situation. When the client's position on the accounting matter was known to the auditor and all available precedents pointed to the same treatment of the accounting issue in question, auditors did not heed the client's position. Rather, they used the available precedents to judge the appropriate accounting. In contrast, when the client's position was known and the available precedents were mixed in their implications for the appropriate accounting treatment, auditors tended to follow the client's position. These results are considered in light of issues of auditor independence and the accounting regulatory environment.     

Trade liberalization and conditional accounting conservatism: evidence from import competition

Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting - This study examines the impact of import competition, an underexplored but integral component of trade liberalization, on conditional accounting...     

The measurement of meaning in accounting: A critical analysis of the principal evidence

The process of communication between preparers and users of accounting information involves, in part, the sharing of meaning between those parties. Using the framework of Osgood et al. (The Measurement of Meaning, University of Illinois Press, 1957), Haried [The Semantic Dimensions of Financial Reports, Journal of Accounting Research (1972) pp. 367–391, and Measurement of Meaning in Financial Reports, Journal of Accounting Research (1973) pp. 117–145] provided a first attempt at the ‘measurement of meaning’ in accounting. Haried found that the structure within which meaning in accounting was held was different to the standard structure proposed by Osgood et al. (1957). Based on the results of measurements of meaning within this structure, Haried (1973) concluded that such measurements were not particularly relevant to accounting research. The present paper presents a critical re-analysis of Haried's (1973) own data. The results are inconsistent with Haried's and show that (1) the structure within which accounting meaning is held is, largely, consistent with the seminal work of Osgood et al. (1957); and, (2) the measured meaning of accounting concepts within that structure is consistent with expectations.     

Audit pricing following mergers of accounting practices: evidence from Hong Kong

This study investigates what happens to audit fees after audit firms merge. In particular, we examine whether pre-merger fee premiums of the strong brand name auditor spread to the other auditor. Using data from Hong Kong we analyse the 1997 merger between Kwan Wong Tan & Fong (KWTF) and Deloitte Touche & Tohmatsu (DTT) to become DTT, and the 1998 merger between Coopers & Lybrand (CL) and Price Waterhouse (PW) to form PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). We find that DTT audit fees are 55% higher than KWTF prior to the merger and this premium falls to 41% in 1998 and to 34% in 1999. However, we find no increase in audit fees for incumbent property company clients, a sector where KWTF is the leading supplier. Prior to its merger. PW earned audit fees 16.4% higher than those earned by CL and the premium is even larger for clients in the consolidated enterprises and property companies sectors. We find no change in audit fees after the PwC merger. This result suggests that the PwC merger is a response to increased competition and clients are unwilling to pay higher fees for within-Big 5 re-branding.     

Technology shocks and labor market dynamics: Some evidence and theory

A positive technology shock may lead to a rise or a fall in per capita hours, depending on how hours enter the empirical VAR model. We provide evidence that, independent of how hours enter the VAR, a positive technology shock leads to a weak response in nominal wage inflation, a modest decline in price inflation, and a modest rise in the real wage in the short-run and a permanent rise in the long-run. We then examine the ability of several competing theories to account for this VAR evidence. Our preferred model features sticky prices, sticky nominal wages, and habit formation. The same model also does well in accounting for the labor market evidence in the post-Volcker period.