Executive integrity,audit opinion,and fraud in Chinese listed firms

We examine the influence of auditors on mitigating corporate fraud in China, which is known to have weak legal enforcement, weak investor protection along with tight control of the media and labour unions. We find that firms with executives that have lower integrity, indicated by a greater degree of earnings manipulation, are associated with higher propensity of regulatory enforcement actions against corporate fraud in the subsequent year. We show that this effect is moderated by the issuance of a modified audit opinion report by the auditors. This finding implies that auditors can serve as external governance mechanism to discourage executives with lower integrity in committing fraud. Our results have policy implications for further strengthening auditor independence in emerging countries like China.     

公司治理质量与外部独立审计效率

本文主要考察了公司治理质量对外部独立审计效率的影响。运用主成分分析技术构建公司治理指数,并以此作为公司治理质量的衡量指标,考察了公司治理质量对审计师的选择、审计收费和审计意见的影响。我们发现,公司治理质量越高的公司,越倾向于选择高质量的审计师;同时,也愿意支付更高的审计费用;但在其他条件一定的情况下,相对于公司治理质量高的公司,公司治理质量差的公司更容易获得标准无保留的审计意见,从而影响审计独立性和审计质量的提高。     

Joint audits and mutual ties of audit firm networks

There has been a lively debate following the 2007 financial crisis regarding the role of joint audits. Prior research argues that joint audits may improve audit quality because of shared audit efforts. However, empirical evidence has been inconclusive. To gain insight into how Big 4 audit firm imprimaturs have become a source of legitimacy in the audit industry, this article investigates how audit networks drive the audit industry in Saudi Arabia. Based on the application of quantitative and qualitative research methods, we conclude that the Big 4 audit firms have strong mutual ties, but ties with other local and international audit firms are weak. We also find the oligopolistic nature of the Big 4 audit firms and international audit firms. Specifically, Ernst & Young, KPMG, PwC, and PKF are controlling over 68% of the audit market. Interviews with accounting professionals suggest that several benefits of joint audits exist, but certain additional costs are also implicated. Our findings are particularly relevant for regulators and local and international policymakers in rethinking and evaluating the appropriateness of either the mandatory or voluntary nature of joint audits in developing countries.     

Corporate Governance System and Regional Heterogeneity: Evidence from East and West Russia

Abstract

Using a unique firm-level dataset obtained from a large-scale questionnaire survey conducted in late 2015, we examined the generality and heterogeneity of corporate governance systems between the eastern and western regions of Russia. The survey results strongly suggest that the governance system in the surveyed firms is generally characterized by: the dominance of closed corporate forms, the polarization trend in boards of directors and audit committees in terms of their independence from senior management, the reluctance to employ independent directors or expert auditors, and the strong preference for local auditors and indigenous audit firms as external auditors. At the same time, however, we also found that the probability of establishment of the governance bodies, appointment of independent directors and expert auditors, and execution of external audit in the eastern companies is significantly lower than that in the western counterparts. This finding is robust, even after a series of firm-level attributes are simultaneously controlled for.     

New audit partner identification rules may offer opportunities and benefits

From the WorldCom and Enron accounting debacles that triggered the demise of Arthur Andersen to Ernst & Young’s 2013 and 2015 settlements of claims that its audits facilitated massive accounting fraud by financial services firm Lehman Brothers, large-scale financial scandals have led to increasing scrutiny of public auditors. Investors are justifiably eager to ascertain the quality of audits of public companies when making investment decisions. In the U.K., the reputation of the audit partner is recognized as a signal of audit quality, and as such, the names of the lead partners have been disclosed to the public since 2009. The U.S. standard of providing the auditing firm name without identifying the lead partner recently changed to match the U.K. and EU standard after much debate. As of May 2016, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has adopted—and the Securities and Exchange Commission has approved—new regulations that will require the public disclosure of the individual audit partner responsible for each public company audit, as well as the identification of any additional accounting firms that contribute to the audit. This article examines the new rules in light of disclosure requirements imposed on other professionals, as well as international auditor disclosure requirements. The accounting profession has generally opposed the new disclosures, but this article suggests opportunities and benefits for the profession as a result of the changes, including the opportunity for audit partners to develop individual reputations for quality and specialization. In addition, this article makes recommendations for business managers, owners, and investors for making the best use of the information the new disclosures will provide.     

Financial Statement Frauds and Auditor Sanctions: An Analysis of Enforcement Actions in China

The rising tide of corporate scandals and audit failures has shocked the public, and the integrity of auditors is being increasingly questioned. It is crucial for auditors and regulators to understand the main causes of audit failure and devise preventive measures accordingly. This study analyzes enforcement actions issued by the China Securities Regulatory Commission against auditors in respect of fraudulent financial reporting committed by listed companies in China. We find that auditors are more likely to be sanctioned by the regulators for failing to detect and report material misstatement frauds rather than disclosure frauds. Further analysis of the material misstatements indicates that auditors are more likely to be sanctioned for failing to detect and report revenue-related frauds rather than assets-related frauds. In sum, our results suggest that regulators believe auditors have the responsibility to detect and report frauds that are egregious, transaction-based, and related to accounting earnings. The results contribute to our knowledge of auditors’ responsibilities for detecting frauds as perceived by regulators.     

媒体治理对注册会计师收费的影响机理研究

受众并非被动地接纳媒体信息,而是依据情况分析和利用媒体信息,重构自我认知。显然,作为媒体信息使用者的审计师,其认知重构必然会受到媒体的影响。本文基于2005－2010年A股上市公司数据,从事务所声誉、公司治理和产权性质三个视角,研究了审计师利用媒体的约束机制。研究发现：十大事务所对媒体报道反应更加强烈,从而提出更高的收费溢价;媒体关注会弱化股权制衡的审计收费溢价效应;审计师对国有企业的媒体关注提出更高风险溢价。研究结果表明,媒体通过外部审计机制发挥了治理效应,且该效应受到事务所声誉、股权制衡和企业产权性质的影响。     

Multinational Corporate Power,Influence and Responsibility in Global Supply Chains

This study examines the influence of underwriter–auditor relationship (UAR) on pre-initial public offering (IPO) earnings management. Using a sample of Chinese to-be-listed firms, we find that a close UAR, as reflected in repeated collaborations between an underwriter and an audit firm in IPOs, is positively associated with pre-IPO earnings management. This association is more pronounced for firms with politically connected auditors/underwriters, firms with less reputable auditors/underwriters, firms located in provinces with weak legal environment, firms to-be-listed on boards with lax listing requirements, and firms whose auditors are with low industry specialization, and legal liability exposures. We provide further evidence that UAR is associated with greater likelihood of irregular activities in post-IPO period and poorer post-IPO financial performance. To the extent that we control for alternative explanations and potential endogeneity, our results suggest that the collusion incentive is likely to drive repeated collaborations between underwriters and auditors in the Chinese IPO market. Our findings provide interesting implications for auditors, investors, and regulators seeking to understand the Chinese IPO market.     

Beware of the Watchdog: Rethinking the Normative Justification of Gatekeeper Liability

One of the prevailing explanations of the corporate scandals of the Enron era and the recent financial crisis is the failure of professional gatekeepers—such as auditors, corporate lawyers, and securities analysts—to detect and disrupt corporate misconduct. The alleged solution to this failure—typically proposed and justified on consequentialist grounds—is to impose legal liability on professionals. The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the normative foundations of gatekeeper liability. In the course of this paper, I shall defend the claim that gatekeeper liability may be morally objectionable not only on grounds of fairness but also on consequentialist grounds. The expected contribution of this paper is threefold. First, it systematizes the framing and moral justification of gatekeeping duties. Second, it calls into question the normative underpinnings for targeting intermediaries instead of primary wrongdoers. Third, it anticipates some negative (and often overlooked) results of gatekeeping strategies in the accounting profession, specifically in the realm of clientele selection, the expectation gap, and auditor compensation.     

The global value chain under imperfect capital markets

This paper develops a model to study how suppliers' financial constraint interact with suppliers' position in a global value chain. I embed financial frictions into the property-rights model of the global value chain, as in Antràs and Chor (Econometrica, 2013, 81 , 2127), to derive the optimal allocation of ownership rights along the global value chain. The model predicts that multinational firms are more likely to integrate downstream intermediate input suppliers in countries with weak financial institutions when the production process is sequential complements. Using US intrafirm trade data for the years 2000–10, together with a triple-interaction term between "downstreamness" of an industry, demand elasticity of an industry and financial development of a country, I provide empirical evidence that supports the key prediction of the model.     

Company Delistings from the UN Global Compact: Limited Business Demand or Domestic Governance Failure?

While a substantial amount of the literature describes corporate benefits of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, the literature is silent concerning why some companies announce CSR initiatives, yet fail to implement them. The article examines company delistings from the UN Global Compact. Delistings are surprising because the CSR agenda is seen as having won the battle of ideas. The analysis proceeds in two parts. I first analyze firm-level characteristics focusing on geography while controlling for sector and size; I find that geography is a significant factor while small firms are more likely to be delisted than large firms and some sector characteristics determine delistings. Next, I proceed to uncover country-level characteristics including the degree of international economic interdependence as well as the quality of governance institutions. Multivariate regression analysis shows that companies are less likely to be delisted from countries where domestic governance institutions are well-functioning. To a lesser extent, I find that firms from countries with international economies are more willing to comply with the UN Global Compact requirements. Countries with a high share of outward FDI/capita have a lower share of delisted firms as do countries that are internationally competitive.     

Political institutions and corporate risk-taking: International evidence

Tapping into firm-level accounting data across 90 countries over a 26-year period, we find that sound political institutions are positively associated with corporate risk-taking. This result is economically significant, robust to alternative proxies for corporate risk-taking and political institutions, and continues to hold after mitigating endogeneity concerns of political institutions. We also collect evidence that sound political institutions may compensate for weak legal institutions in inducing corporate risk-taking. We argue that sound political institutions improve the investment environment for firms and can induce higher levels of corporate risk-taking, which is ultimately associated with economic growth.     

Ownership Structure and Insider Trading: Evidence from China

In this paper, we examine the information content of insider transactions in China and analyze how ownership structures shape market reaction to these transactions. We find that the cumulative abnormal return (CAR) to insider purchases is a convex function of the percentage of shares owned by the largest shareholder. Further, the CAR to insider purchases is lower when the largest shareholder is government-related, or when the control rights of the largest shareholder exceed its cash flow rights. We also find that the market reaction to insider purchases is more positive for firms audited by Big4 auditors. However, we do not find a significant relationship between an ownership structure and the market reaction to insider sales. Our results are remarkably robust to alternative model specifications, corporate insider identities, and recent corporate news releases on price-sensitive events. Finally, we show that market reaction to insider purchases is larger for firms with less severe expropriations, as captured by the use of other receivables.     

Family Ownership and Corporate Misconduct in U.S. Small Firms

This study adds to the theory of family business management by exploring the effects of family ownership on the corporate misconduct of small firms in the United States. The empirical findings indicate that small family-owned firms are less likely to commit misconduct than small non-family-owned firms. We interpret this finding as family firms aiming to achieve the trans-generational succession of moral capital. Further investigation shows a nonlinear family-ownership–misconduct relationship. A negative relationship between them only appears in mature firms. We further show that for relatively mature firms, only family firms with older owners are less likely to commit corporate misconduct.     

诉讼风险、审计师选择与盈余质量

本文分析诉讼风险对企业审计师选择决策的影响及其经济后果.检验发现,面临更高诉讼风险的企业,选择高质量审计师的概率越低.同时,高诉讼风险企业披露的盈余信息质量显著更差.但是,如果高诉讼风险企业选择了高质量审计师,那么诉讼风险对盈余质量不再具有显著影响.这表明,高质量审计师能有效缓解诉讼风险对盈余质量的消极效应,提升高诉讼企业的信息披露质量.上述结论为诉讼风险的经济后果提供了新的解释,也进一步丰富和拓展了有关审计师选择决策影响因素的研究.     

Managerial legal liability and Big 4 auditor choice

This study investigates the effect of directors' and officers' (hereafter D&O) liability insurance coverage on auditor choice. Based on a sample of 671 Taiwanese listed firms with D&O legal liability insurance data, our evidence shows that companies with excess D&O liability insurance coverage are less likely to appoint Big 4 auditors. Furthermore, we find that Big 4 auditors are more likely to issue unclean opinions and to constrain the abnormal accruals and ‘beating or meeting’ earnings benchmarks for their clients with excess D&O liability insurance coverage. The findings document that a higher level of D&O liability insurance coverage increases Big 4 auditors' concerns about the credibility of financial statements. Given this, Big 4 auditors have incentive to require more conservative accounting choices for these clients in order to minimize possible litigation risk and reputation damage.     

Busy Auditors,Ethical Behavior,and Discretionary Accruals Quality in Malaysia

The required professional and ethical pronouncements of accountants mean that auditors need to be competent and exercise due care and skill in the performance of their audits. In this study, we examine what happens when auditors take on more clients than they should, thus raising doubts about their ability to maintain competence and audit quality. Using 2803 observations of Malaysian companies from 2010 to 2013, we find that auditors with multiple clients are associated with lower earnings quality, proxied by total accruals and discretionary accruals. Our results demonstrate that associating client firms’ reported discretionary accruals with individual auditors, rather than their firms or offices, is important in determining audit quality. Moreover, we demonstrate that the disclosure of auditors’ signatures on their reports is useful for assessing auditor quality at the individual level, thus contributing to the debate on the usefulness of having auditor identities on reports.     

International business research and risky investments,an analysis of FDI in conflict zones

The purpose of this paper is to examine the determinants of a firm's strategy to invest in a conflict location. To the best of our knowledge, this has not been done before. We examine this using a standard model of international business, overlaid with the fundamental approach to corporate social responsibility. We start with the population of multinationals who have chosen to invest in low income countries with weak institutions. We then split this sample in order to distinguish between firms that have invested in conflict regions compared to those that have not. Our analysis then proceeds to explain the decision of those firms to invest in conflict locations using a simple Probit model. We find that countries with weaker institutions and less concern about corporate social responsibility (CSR) are more likely to invest in conflict regions. Finally, firms with more concentrated ownership are more likely to invest in such locations.     

Auditor Experiences,Accounting Firm Size,and Client Ownership

This study investigates whether accounting firms match the experience level of individual auditors with the risk level of clients in order to control audit risk. We find that accounting firms tend to assign more experienced auditors to non-state-owned clients that typically have higher tendency to engage in earnings management. Such an assignment pattern is more pronounced for non-Big 4 accounting firms. Further analysis suggests that auditors＇ experience helps reduce clients＇ earnings management level, proxied by abnormal accruals, and thus improves the audit quality. This study enriches the literature on the allocation of human resources and the risk control mechanism in the audit services industry, which has been seldom explored in prior studies.     

Exploring the Impact of Internal Corporate Governance on the Relation Between Disclosure Quality and Earnings Management in the UK Listed Companies

This study investigates the impact of internal corporate governance on the relation between disclosure quality and earnings management in the UK listed companies, in particular whether governance mechanisms have deterrent effect on earnings management similar to firms’ disclosure quality. Unlike prior literature, we measure a number of board and audit committee-related governance instruments, three disclosure quality proxies (i.e. Investor Relation Magazine Award, Forward-Looking Disclosure and Analyst Forecast Accuracy) and the Modified Jones Model to test the hypotheses of the study on a matched-pair sample data of Investor Relation Magazine Award winning and non-winning firms. Our findings in the OLS and sensitivity analyses using Heckman Procedure and 2SLS regressions consistently report a significant negative association between earnings management and disclosure quality for all proxies in restraining earnings management. In contrast, corporate governance variables are mostly insignificantly related to earnings management. This provides an emerging trend of the outperformance of disclosure quality over internal governance mechanisms in lessening earnings management. These findings warrant due attention of the policy makers, investors, corporate firms and other stakeholders in shaping a high-quality disclosure and governance regime in corporate settings to mitigate managerial manipulations of earnings across the countries in the world.