CFO role and CFO compensation: An empirical analysis of their implications

Given concerns over CFO pay, especially incentives, and considering the tension between a CFO’s fiduciary responsibility and being a key member of the firm’s executive team, we examine the determinants and effects of CFO compensation amount, incentive intensity, and proximity to CEO compensation in a sample of European companies (FTE 500, 2005–2009). First, we focus on the CFO role as a determinant of CFO compensation. Like prior work, we proxy for CFO roles by using hand-collected public data on education and past professional experience, but we supplement these proxies with proprietary data to more directly capture the firm-specific nature of the CFO job in term of its similarity with that of the CEO. We thus argue how CFOs can have varied roles characterized by different levels of financial expertise and CEO-likeness, and document that it is this latter aspect that is associated with CFO compensation. Second, we study the effects of CFO compensation design on outcomes in the CFO’s realm related to financial reporting. We find that CFO financial expertise is positively associated with financial reporting quality, while a CFO’s pay long-term incentive intensity and a CFO’s incentive compensation proximity with the CEO are negatively associated with financial reporting quality. Overall, then, our results suggest that CFOs get rewarded for their CEO-likeness, and particularly for their being similar to the CEO in terms of tasks and decision making authority. But it is their financial expertise that is positively related to financial reporting quality. At the same time, using compensation that is more incentive intensive and more similar to that of the CEO appears to be potentially detrimental to the quality of financial reporting. These results are relevant for boards involved in selecting highly expert CFOs, and their compensation committees charged with defining subsequently effective incentive compensation plans for those CFOs.     

CFO gender and earnings management: evidence from China

We study the effect of chief financial officer (CFO) gender on earnings management (EM) in China’s listed firms from 1999 to 2011. In the cross-sectional analysis, we find that female CFO firm-years exhibit significantly lower discretionary accruals, lower total accruals, lower abnormal production costs, and higher abnormal discretionary expenditures, than the male CFO firm-years. We further examine the relation between CFO gender and EM surrounding CFO transitions. We find that the departing male CFOs are more aggressive than the departing female CFOs in managing up earnings during their last year with the firm and the newly appointed male CFOs are more aggressive than the new female CFOs in managing down earnings during their first year on the job. The evidence surrounding CFO transitions suggests that male CFOs are more aggressive than female CFOs in manipulating earnings, either in the last attempt to save their jobs or to take bigger credit for any future performance gains. Overall, our empirical evidence suggests that female CFOs engage in less EM and are more conservative in financial reporting than their male counterparts.     

Top executive gender diversity and financial reporting quality

We examine whether gender diversity of chief executive and chief financial officers (CEOs and CFOs) is associated with financial reporting quality. The CEOs and CFOs of publicly traded companies are both required to certify the appropriateness of their financial statements and annual disclosures. We argue that gender diverse dyads (groups) of executives can bring different perspectives and professional skepticism to financial reporting. Using a sample of different CEO/CFO gender dyads during 2006–2019, we postulate and find evidence of higher accruals quality among firms led by gender-diverse dyads compared to accruals quality reported by firms led by all-male CEO/CFO pairs. Additional analyses reveal that the auditors of firms with gender-diverse executive dyads issue audit reports later, charge higher audit fees, and are more likely to be one of the Big 4 firms. These findings support the view that top executive gender diversity enhances financial reporting quality, which has important implications for corporate governance mechanisms.     

Can CFOs resist undue pressure from CEOs to manage earnings?

Building upon the premise that, under certain conditions, the ability of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to pressure the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) is limited, we develop a measure of CFO resistance that captures the ability of the CFO to resist undue pressure from the CEO to manage earnings. In doing so, we consider various sources of power for both the CEO and CFO, and a market setting where CFO resistance is perceived to be high. We find that firms with resistant CFOs are less likely to engage in earnings management than firms with non-resistant CFOs, ceteris paribus. Additionally, while confirming prior evidence that CEOs with strong incentives are more likely to manage earnings, we show that this effect is significantly less pronounced in the presence of resistant CFOs. Overall, our findings suggest that firms can improve the quality of financial reporting by creating conditions that enable CFO resistance.     

The effectiveness of chief financial officer board membership in improving corporate investment efficiency

The key roles of the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) in firm operating performance, corporate strategic choices, and corporate governance have been increasingly emphasized in recent decades. In this study, we empirically investigate the relation between CFO board membership and corporate investment efficiency to determine whether CFO presence on the board reduces firms’ propensity to over- or underinvest. We find that CFO board membership is significantly associated with a decreased level of corporate over- and underinvestment. Further, the positive effects of CFO board membership on corporate investment efficiency are greater for firms with greater information asymmetries. Last but not least, we find that the improved investment efficiency experienced by firms with CFOs on their boards has a positive effect on the firms’ future performance. Overall, we find that CFO board membership is associated with improved investment efficiency and firms’ future profitability. By documenting the real business impact of CFO board membership on investment efficiency and firms’ future performance, we add bricks to the literature on board composition and how it influences firms’ strategic choices and performance. Our findings suggest that having CFOs on boards could benefit firms’ investment practices, which directly relate to corporate strategic performance.

     

Initial Public Offerings: CFO Perceptions

We examine four issues pertaining to initial public offerings (IPOs) using a survey of 438 chief financial officers (CFOs). First, why do firms go public? Second, is CFO sentiment stationary across bear and bull markets? Third, what concerns CFOs about going public? Fourth, do CFO perceptions correlate with returns? Results support funding for growth and liquidity as the primary reasons for IPOs. CFO sentiment is generally stationary in pre‐ and post‐bubble years. Managers are concerned with the direct costs of going public, such as underwriting fees, as well as indirect costs. We find a negative relation between a focus on immediate growth and long‐term abnormal returns.     

The real effects of disclosure regulation: Evidence from mandatory CFO compensation disclosure

The 2006 SEC rule, by changing the definition of Named Executive Officers, mandates CFO compensation disclosure. Using this setting and a difference-in-differences research design, we study the real effects of CFO compensation disclosure regulation on CFO job performance. We hypothesize that the disclosure of CFO compensation information, by facilitating shareholder monitoring of the board in providing appropriate incentives to CFOs, leads to better CFO job performance in providing high-quality financial reports. The analyses support our prediction: the treatment firms, which start disclosing CFO compensation information under the 2006 rule, compared to the control firms, which already disclose CFO compensation before 2006, experience an improvement in CFO performance, as exhibited in decreases in accounting misstatements and unexplained audit fees. The results are more pronounced for firms with concentrated ownership, smaller compensation committees, and CFOs subject to weaker monitoring by audit committees. Overall, we provide evidence of a real effect resulting from mandatory CFO compensation disclosure.     

Do CFOs matter? Evidence from the M&A process

This study examines the effect of Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) on mergers and acquisitions using a newly constructed CFO Influence Index. Because the perceived influence of CFOs is high in U.K. firms, we use that market for our analysis. We find that influential CFOs as measured by experience, stature, and pay are associated with more deal completions and the pursuit of smaller, domestic targets. High influence CFOs require less time to complete a deal and are able to identify higher quality targets for which they pay less. We also discover that firms with high influence CFOs enjoy greater long-term operating and financial performance post-merger. We conclude that influential CFOs are effective in creating shareholder value during M&A.     

CFO narcissism and audit fees: Evidence from listed companies in China

This paper examines the effects of CFO narcissism on audit fees in China. Using the size of CFO signatures in annual audit reports to measure individual narcissism, we find that CFO narcissism is associated with higher audit fees. We find empirical evidence that CFO narcissism significantly increases the audit fees of listed companies, and this effect is stronger in state-owned enterprises. This paper also explores the mediating effects of financial information and the engagement of prestigious Big-4 and Big-10 firms. The results show that companies with narcissistic CFOs have lower quality financial information and prefer more prestigious firms, which leads to higher audit fees. This research highlights the importance of CFO narcissism in corporate performance and provides new evidence that will be useful for listed companies that plan to hire senior executives.     

Chief financial officer co-option and tax avoidance in European listed firms

This paper investigates the impact of chief financial officer (CFO) co-option on corporate tax avoidance. Using hand-collected data from a sample of nonfinancial listed firms included in the S&P350-Europe from 2013 to 2019, we find that firms with co-opted CFOs exhibit higher levels of tax avoidance. We also find that the board membership of co-opted CFOs moderates their propensity to engage in tax avoidance. These results introduce novel evidence about the role of CFOs in influencing firms’ levels of tax avoidance. They also shed light on the monitoring activity of the board of directors in the presence of board members who are also key decision-makers in tax strategies.     

Why regulate private firm disclosure and auditing?

Private firms face differing financial disclosure and auditing regulations around the world. In the US and Canada, for example, private firms are generally neither required to disclose their financial results nor have their financial statements audited. By contrast, many firms with limited liability in most other countries are required to file at least some financial information publicly and are also required to have their financial statements audited. This paper discusses and analyzes the reasons for differential financial reporting regulation of private firms. We first discuss various definitions of a private firm. Next, we examine theoretical arguments for regulating the financial reporting of these firms, particularly related to public disclosure and auditing. We then provide new survey-based evidence of firms’ and standard setters’ views of regulation. We conclude by identifying future research opportunities.     

CFO gender and financial reporting transparency in banks

We investigate the effect of CFO gender on the timeliness of loan loss provision (LLP) reporting using a large sample of US banks from 2007 to 2016. Our findings show that women CFOs are associated with timelier forward-looking provisioning than men counterparts, suggesting that they follow a more transparent approach to financial reporting policies. Our results hold under different model specifications, including the use of bank and CEO fixed effects. We further address endogeneity concerns by showing that the timeliness of LLP reporting improves significantly for banks experiencing a man-followed-by-woman CFO transition. Overall, our study supports the notion that women CFOs are associated with higher financial reporting transparency and provides further insights into how CFO gender affects risk-aversion and ethics in banks, with wider implications about the importance of women’s representation in the finance-based industry.     

Chief financial officer demographic characteristics and fraudulent financial reporting in China

We investigate whether management's cognitions, values and perceptions are associated with fraud for 18 863 firm‐years for Chinese listed firms from 2000 to 2014. Demographic characteristics of the chief financial officer (CFO) are used as proxies for management's cognitions, values and perceptions. We find that fraudulent financial reporting is higher when CFOs are younger, male, and have lower education backgrounds. An analysis of inflated earnings, fictitious assets, material omissions and other material misstatements provide similar results, with the exception that CFOs with higher education levels are associated with more inflated earnings.     

IFRS adoption,reporting incentives and financial reporting quality in private firms

This study examines financial reporting quality (FRQ) effects around voluntary International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) adoptions by German private firms across two important dimensions, earnings quality and disclosure practices. To capture differences in the motivations for IFRS adoptions, we identify four different types of IFRS adopting firms based on a comprehensive set of firm characteristics. We observe earnings quality improvements around IFRS adoptions primarily for one type of firm, which is young, fast growing and seeking access to public equity markets. Using a matched sample of private German GAAP and IFRS reporting firms, we find some evidence suggesting that IFRS also contribute to higher earnings quality. Recognizing that our earnings quality metrics are only incomplete measures of FRQ, we also compare the disclosure practices of IFRS and German GAAP firms. We find that all IFRS firm types disclose significantly more information in their financial reports and show a higher propensity to publish their financial reports voluntarily on the corporate website. Our findings indicate that failure to identify earnings quality changes around IFRS adoption cannot be automatically interpreted as IFRS adoption having no effect on the FRQ of (private) firms. Collectively, our results suggest that both incentives and accounting standards shape private firms’ FRQ.     

Ethical norms of CFO insider trading

Insider trading encompasses the buying or selling of stocks based on non-public information about the securities in question. Engaging in insider trading is particularly unethical for a Chief Financial Officer (CFO) who holds a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders and also typically is ethically obligated by his or her professional responsibilities. Although the Securities and Exchange Commission (1934) has expressly forbidden insider trading, the business press suggests insider trading continues. An application of Cooter’s [Cooter, R., 1997. Normative failure theory of law. Cornell Law Review 82 (5), 947–979; Cooter, R., 2000. Three effects of social norms on law: Expression, deterrence and internalization. Oregon Law Review 79 (1), 1–22] theory of the law and norms suggests that one explanation for the continuation of insider trading is that although illegal, norms may fail to consider insider trader to be unethical. Nevertheless, our knowledge of the norms regarding insider trading is limited. To address this gap, we examine the ethical norms regarding CFOs’ insider trading, and consider the extent to which contextual variables are associated with ethical perceptions of CFO insider trading. We find that insider trading by CFOs is generally perceived to be unethical but not by all participants, nor all ethical measures. Moral equity is particularly informative for understanding the ethicality of CFO insider trading. When relying on the multidimensional ethics scale (MES) measure of moral equity, our results reveal that contextual factors, including trading method used (stock options or share equity) and the direction of earnings surprise (favorable or unfavorable) are significant. We also found that participants that possessed more work experience or financial expertise had a greater tendency to consider CFO insider trading to be unethical than those with less work experience or financial expertise, which suggests the importance of training and education of the general public. In addition, our findings suggest that tougher sanctions will encourage compliance with existing insider trading laws. Implications of our findings for public policy are discussed.     

The Silent Majority: Private U.S. Firms and Financial Reporting Choices

This study uses a comprehensive panel of tax returns to examine the financial reporting choices of medium-to-large private U.S. firms, a setting that controls over $9 trillion in capital, vastly outnumbers public U.S. firms across all industries, yet has no financial reporting mandates. We find that nearly two-thirds of these firms do not produce audited GAAP financial statements. Guided by an agency theory framework, we find that size, ownership dispersion, external debt, and trade credit are positively associated with the choice to produce audited GAAP financial statements, while asset tangibility, age, and internal debt are generally negatively related to this choice. Our findings reveal that (1) equity capital and trade credit exhibit significant explanatory power, suggesting that the primary focus in the literature on debt is too narrow; (2) firm youth, growth, and R&D are positively associated with audited GAAP reporting, reflecting important monitoring roles of financial reporting; and (3) many firms violate standard explanations for financial reporting choices and substantial unexplained heterogeneity in financial reporting remains. We conclude by identifying opportunities for future research.     

The Role and Current Status of IFRS in the Completion of National Accounting Rules – Evidence from Belgium

Abstract

We study the incorporation of EU Directive 2013/34/EU on financial reporting into Belgian legislation. By analyzing the forces that shape the transposition of this Directive, we examine opportunities and obstacles in the Belgian institutional environment that hinder or stimulate the possibilities for the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) to influence financial reporting by private firms in Belgium. As a result of several national forces, the Belgian legislature did not use all opportunities available to modernize financial reporting for private entities when transposing this Directive. We further discuss existing differences between Belgian National Accounting Rules for private enterprises and the IFRS and observe that the influence of the latter on financial reporting regulation for private enterprises in Belgium remains rather limited.     

Chief Human Resource Officers and accounting disclosures: Illuminating the firm’s most important asset or window dressing?

Social activism, including movements towards equal pay, gender rights, and racial equality, has heightened public scrutiny, exerting pressure on firms to reassess and reform their human resource practices to ensure they align with current social and ethical norms. Chief Human Resource Officers (CHROs) have a potentially important role in defining and promoting appropriate human resource practices through human resource disclosures in corporate annual reports. We empirically examine the effect of CHROs on expanded human capital resource (HCR) disclosures, recently mandated by the SEC. We find that CHROs have a greater effect on the quality of HCR disclosures when they belong to the top management team, and less so when they belong to groups that are more poorly represented in top management, such as women, racial or ethnic minorities, or non-US nationals, and CHROs holding a liberal arts degree. Jointly considering the characteristics of CHROs, CEOs, and CFOs, we additionally find that pro-democratic political ideology is related to higher quality HCR disclosures. This study contributes to the literature by introducing a generalizable measure of HCR disclosure quality, uncovering significant heterogeneity in HCR disclosure quality across large US firms, and highlighting the role of CHROs in this process. In doing so, this study documents evidence that individual top executives in addition to the CEO and CFO can have a measurable effect on voluntary financial disclosures.     

产权性质、CFO背景特征与内部控制质量

基于高层梯队理论和社会网络理论,以2008-2015年我国A股上市公司为样本,实证考察CFO背景特征对公司内部控制质量的影响。研究发现：CFO的年龄越大、任期越长,内部控制质量越低;CFO的学历越高,内部控制质量越高;女性CFO较男性CFO在内部控制建设方面存在相对劣势;CFO外部兼职有助于提升内部控制质量。进一步研究发现：在国有企业和非国有企业中,CFO背景特征对内部控制质量的影响存在显著的差异。     

An Empirical Investigation of the Effect of CFO Power on Disclosure Quality

We examine the association between chief financial officer (CFO) power and disclosure quality, measured using financial statement disaggregation disclosure and analyst forecast disclosure. Empirically, we validate that CFO power, measured by multiple dimensions, is positively associated with firms’ disclosure quality. We also find that this positive association between CFO power and disclosure quality is stronger when firms exhibit higher governance monitoring and accounting quality. Further analysis shows that our main results hold across multiple disclosure quality tests. Our findings are robust to addressing endogeneity issues using two-stage least squares, Heckman selection bias, and propensity score matching analyses. The results highlight the importance of CFO power for the accounting reporting process and decision-making.