Non-GAAP earnings reporting following going-concern opinions

We examine non-GAAP earnings reporting following a going-concern audit opinion (GCO). Using a propensity score-matched sample, matching first-time going-concern issuing companies with firms in financial distress that did not receive a going-concern report, we find that the likelihood and frequency of non-GAAP earnings reporting are lower following GCOs. In additional analyses, we find the negative association between the announcement of GCOs and the likelihood and frequency of non-GAAP earnings reporting stronger when GCOs are issued by industry-specialist auditors and when GCOs are unexpected, but do not find litigation risk or managers' ability to affect the association. These results are consistent with a decrease in investor demand for non-GAAP earnings disclosures following GCOs.     

Analyst independence and earnings management

We examine whether analyst independence contributes to analysts’ monitoring role in deterring accruals earnings management. We first report a negative association between earnings management and the ratio of independent analysts to brokerage analysts covering a firm. Next, through the lens of the promotion of independent sell-side research institutions by the 2003 Global Research Analyst Settlement, we document a significant decrease in earnings management on firms affected by the Global Settlement's mandate for time-limited support to back independent research institutions. Additionally, we find that, as the aforementioned support ended, the extent of monitoring effectiveness reverted to a level indistinguishable from that before the Global Settlement. Finally, using closures and mergers of independent research institutions as a quasi-natural experiment, we provide corroborating evidence consistent with analyst independence leading to more effective monitoring.     

Family control, board independence and earnings management: Evidence based on Hong Kong firms

In this study, we document that independent corporate boards of Hong Kong firms provide effective monitoring of earnings management, which suggests that despite differences in institutional environments, corporate board independence is important to ensure high-quality financial reporting. The findings also show that the monitoring effectiveness of corporate boards is moderated in family-controlled firms, either through ownership concentration or the presence of family members on corporate boards. The results based on firms reporting small earnings increases provide additional support for our finding that the monitoring effectiveness of independent corporate boards is moderated in family-controlled firms.     

Audit pricing, quality of earnings and board independence: The case of the Athens stock exchange

Prior research has pointed to the importance of the determinants of audit pricing. This paper examines empirically the effect of both audit independence and earnings management on the audit pricing by companies listed on the Athens Stock Exchange. This test is performed in an institutional setting with excessive earnings management and poor corporate governance mechanisms. The results based on a sample of 97 Greek companies for a five-year period (2000-2004), show that there is a positive association between audit independence and auditing pricing. Our results also indicate a positive association between audit pricing and earnings management for the small size companies. Taken together our results suggest that strong governance is related to increased needs for quality assurance services and that the relation between earnings management and audit pricing might indicate potential red flags. Finally, limitations, suggestions for further research and policy implications for regulatory agencies are offered.     

Non-GAAP earnings disclosures around regulation G – The case of “implicit non-GAAP reporting”

We identify a phenomenon related to non-GAAP earnings disclosure and examine its prevalence around Regulation G (RegG). Specifically, we analyze to what extent firms only disclose adjustments to GAAP earnings instead of entire adjusted earnings figures thereby not providing the ideal non-GAAP to GAAP reconciliation promoted by RegG. We refer to this reporting behavior as “implicit non-GAAP reporting” and ask three different questions: How is “implicit non-GAAP reporting” related with the adoption of RegG? What type of firm reports implicit non-GAAP measures? What are the motives for “implicit non-GAAP reporting” post-RegG? Our analyses yield three key findings. First, the frequency of “implicit non-GAAP reporting” spikes after the regulatory intervention but to a lesser degree also existed before. Second, during the post-RegG time period, the prevalence of “implicit non-GAAP reporting” is much higher among firms who only started to report non-GAAP earnings after RegG was enacted (starters) than among those, which continued to disclose non-GAAP earnings across the regulatory intervention (continuers). Third, we show that only for starters, “implicit non-GAAP reporting” is associated with motives of beating analyst earnings forecasts as well as experiencing GAAP losses. Our study provides important insights for regulators, firms and academics into "implicit non-GAAP reporting" by examining properties and determinants of implicit vs. explicit non-GAAP earnings for different types of firms around RegG.     

CEO power,board oversight,and earnings announcement tone

Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting - This study constructs a model of the determinants of earnings announcement tone in order to examine the impact of CEO power on earnings announcement...     

Non-GAAP Earnings and the Earnings Quality Trade-off

Using a large sample of earnings press releases by Australian firms, we compare multiple attributes of non-GAAP earnings measures with their closest GAAP equivalent. We find that, on average, non-GAAP earnings are more persistent, smoother, more value relevant, and have higher predictive power than their closest GAAP equivalent. However, the same set of non-GAAP earnings disclosures are also less conservative and less timely than their closest GAAP equivalent. The results are consistent with non-GAAP earnings measures reflecting a reversal of the trade-off between the valuation and stewardship roles of accounting inherent in accounting standards and the way they are applied. We also find that differences in several of these attributes between GAAP and non-GAAP earnings are more evident in larger firms, firms with lower market-to-book ratios, firms with a higher proportion of independent directors, and firms that report profits rather than losses. Our evidence is consistent with the argument that accounting standards impose significant amounts of conditional conservatism at some cost to the valuation role of accounting information. Non-GAAP earnings measures can therefore be seen as a response to the challenges faced by a single GAAP performance measure in satisfying the competing demands of value relevance and stewardship.     

Audit committee,board of director characteristics,and earnings management

This study examines whether audit committee and board characteristics are related to earnings management by the firm. A negative relation is found between audit committee independence and abnormal accruals. A negative relation is also found between board independence and abnormal accruals. Reductions in board or audit committee independence are accompanied by large increases in abnormal accruals. The most pronounced effects occur when either the board or the audit committee is comprised of a minority of outside directors. These results suggest that boards structured to be more independent of the CEO are more effective in monitoring the corporate financial accounting process.     

Cross-acceleration and the relationship between board independence and bond yield spreads

This paper investigates the mediating effect of cross-acceleration provisions in bond debt on board independence and bond yield spreads. Cross-acceleration provisions cause bond debt to accelerate if other debt (mainly bank debt) is accelerated and allows bondholders to benefit from the monitoring of fellow creditors. Board independence, while generally seen as a positive governance feature, has been viewed as detrimental to bondholder interests when bondholder-shareholder conflicts are high. Cross-acceleration works to protect bondholder interests through increased likelihood of bankruptcy court supervision (or early repayment of debt). Consistent with this view, we find that when bondholder-shareholder conflict are high bonds issued without cross-acceleration provisions have yields that increase in board independence whereas bonds issued with cross-acceleration have yields that decrease in board independence. The results suggest that cross-acceleration plays a role in mitigating the tendency of more independent boards to favor shareholders when bondholder-shareholder conflicts arise.     

Non-GAAP reporting following debt covenant violations

Review of Accounting Studies - We investigate whether firms change their non-GAAP reporting practices after debt covenant violations. We find that the likelihood that a firm will disclose non-GAAP...     

Board gender composition,board independence and sustainable supply chain responsibility

The consideration of social and environmental factors in companies’ supply chain is a prevalent research topic because stakeholders are now inquisitive about the social and environmental impacts of companies’ suppliers. Using a sample of S&P 500 firms, we find that board gender composition and board independence are positively associated with sustainable supply chain responsibility (SSCR). We also identify three channels (CEO duality, sustainability committee and sensitive industries) through which board gender composition and board independence affect SSCR, where board gender composition consistently explains SSCR, but the effect of board independence is less pronounced in firms with CEO duality and firms with a sustainability committee. Finally, we explore the reason for the less-pronounced findings for board independence in our subsample analyses and find that, compared with independent female directors who continue to display significant associations with SSCR, independent male directors do not engender SSCR across the three subsample tests.     

Investigating the effect of board independence on performance across different strategies

This study investigates the effect of board independence on performance across different strategies. Using moderated regression analyses, the results confirm our hypothesis that board independence has a significantly more positive effect on performance for firms pursuing a strategy of cost efficiency than for those pursuing a strategy of innovation. The results of this study indicate that consideration of firms' competitive strategy can provide a better understanding of the relationship between board independence and firm performance.     

Board independence,board diligence and liquidity in Malaysia: A research note

This study examines the relationship between board independence, board diligence and liquidity in Malaysia, an emerging market. Liquidity is proxied by three measures; relative volume, relative quoted depth and proportion of zero-returns. The results using a sample of 481 public-listed firms in Malaysia show that more independent and diligent boards are associated with higher liquidity.     

Ethnic board diversity,earnings quality and institutional investors: evidence from Malaysian corporate boards

Motivated by calls to examine the issue of board diversity in emerging economies, this study explores the association between ethnic board diversity and earnings quality; and the moderating effect of institutional investors’ ownership. In a sample of Malaysian firms, we find that boards with higher ethnic diversity are associated with higher earnings quality. Consequently, our findings suggest that institutional investors prefer boards to be ethnically diverse. Consistent with geographical proximity theory, this effect is primarily driven by domestic institutional investors. Finally, we find that political connection attenuates the association between ethnic board diversity and higher earnings quality.     

Effective board monitoring over earnings reports and forecasts: Evidence from CFO outside director appointments

Prior evidence that firms adjust their board structure following accounting restatements suggests that firms expect the board to effectively monitor the firm’s financial accounting system. However, little is known about signals firms use to identify monitoring weaknesses or the types of individuals firms appoint to improve the quality of monitoring. We expand on Ghannam, Bujega, Matolcsy, and Spiropolous (2019)’s evidence that firms appoint directors with accounting experience after financial fraud by investigating whether firms that file restatements or issue highly inaccurate earnings forecasts appoint individuals with CFO experience (i.e., a subset of accounting experts) to their audit committee. We find that firms are more likely to appoint an outside director with CFO experience to the audit committee when they have recently restated earnings and when they have higher prior management forecast error. We also find that the appointment of a CFO outside director to the audit committee is followed by a lower likelihood of restatement and more accurate management forecast. Together, our results suggest that firms respond to accounting failures by appointing outside directors with CFO experience. Thus, we provide insight into the signals firms use to identify weaknesses in the monitoring of the accounting function and the types of expertise firms value in addressing those weaknesses.     

Ownership,two-tier board structure,and the informativeness of earnings – Evidence from China

This study extends previous research by empirically examining how ownership, two-tier board structure, and auditor affect the informativeness of earnings for companies listed in China. We measure the informativeness of earnings by the earnings–returns relation, discretionary accruals, and audit opinion. The results show that ownership concentration, the presence of foreign shareholders, the percentage of tradable shares, the type of dominant shareholder, the supervisory board, and independent directors affect the earnings response coefficients and discretionary accruals. We also find that the type of dominant shareholder, the size of the supervisory board, and the percentage of independent directors have an impact on the frequency of modified audit opinions. Our research has implications for China’s regulators who are striving to improve accounting information, transparency, and corporate governance.     

Large shareholders, board independence, and minority shareholder rights: Evidence from Europe

We examine the relation between minority shareholder protection laws, ownership concentration, and board independence. Minority shareholder rights is a country-level governance variable. Ownership structure and board composition represent firm-level governance variables. Prior research hypothesizes and documents a negative relation between countries' minority shareholder rights quality and firms' ownership concentration. We introduce the hypothesis that shareholder protection rights and firms' board independence are positively related. When a country's minority shareholder rights are strong, then minority shareholders should have the legal power to affect board composition. Using a sample of large firms from 14 European countries, we test both hypotheses and find that countries with stronger shareholder protection rights have firms with lower ownership concentrations and with more independent directors, consistent with both hypotheses. We also find evidence that ownership concentration and board independence are negatively related.     

Short-term earnings guidance and accrual-based earnings management

Motivated by recent practitioners’ concerns that short-term earnings guidance leads to managerial myopia, we investigate the impact of short-term earnings guidance on earnings management. Using a propensity-score matched control sample, we find strong and consistent evidence that the issuance of short-term quarterly earnings guidance is associated with less, rather than more, earnings management. We also find that regular guiders exhibit less earnings management than do less regular guiders. Our findings hold using both abnormal accruals and discretionary revenues to measure earnings management and after controlling for potential reverse causality concerns. Furthermore, in a setting where managers have particularly strong capital market incentives to manage earnings, we corroborate these findings by documenting that earnings guidance either has no impact on or mitigates earnings management. Overall, our evidence does not support the criticism from practitioners that short-term earnings guidance leads to more earnings management.     

Corporate board and board committee independence,firm performance,and family ownership concentration: An analysis based on Hong Kong firms

This study examines whether the relationship between corporate board and board committee independence and firm performance is moderated by the concentration of family ownership. Based on a sample of Hong Kong firms, we find no significant association between the independence of corporate boards or board committees and firm performance in family firms, whereas board independence is positively associated with firm performance in non-family firms. Additionally, our findings show that the proportion of independent directors on the corporate boards of family firms is lower than that of non-family firms, but we find no significant difference in the representation of independent directors on the key committees of corporate boards between family and non-family firms. Overall, these results suggest that the “one size fits all” approach required by the regulatory authorities for appointing independent directors on corporate boards may not necessarily enhance firm performance, especially for family firms. Thus, the requirement to appoint independent directors to the corporate boards of family firms needs to be reconsidered.