The Value Relevance of Environmental Audits: Evidence from Japan

Environmental audits are implemented internally in order to monitor compliance with environmental laws, regulations and related accounting rules, and to develop recommendations for ways in which to improve environmental accounting processes and performance. In addition, external third‐party assurance on environmental information is used to verify whether firms’ disclosures on environmental information are in compliance with environmental accounting rules and regulations. We examine whether firms’ environmental audits positively affect their market values and whether third‐party assurance strengthens positive effects, using value relevance theory as a theoretical foundation. Our main tests are based on 266 Japanese manufacturing firms’ published environmental reports for the period 2010–2013. We find that the average market value of firms that implement environmental audits is 9 percent greater than those that do not. Further, we find that environmental audits positively affect firm value, largely through interaction with third‐party assurance. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

CEO tenure and audit pricing

Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting - We examine the relationship between CEO tenure and audit fees. After controlling for client and auditor attributes in the analyses, we find that...     

Organized labor and corporate philanthropy: Evidence from Korea

This study examines the impact of organized labor on corporate philanthropy, focusing on Korean firms. We find a positive association between the labor unionization ratio and the corporate philanthropy of firms, especially for non‐Chaebol‐affiliated firms and firms that have positive operating cash flow. The results from the robustness tests, which employ alternative union strength proxies and two‐stage least squares regression analyses, support our major findings. The findings indicate that unionized firms can utilize corporate philanthropy to boost their bargaining power regarding wages and collective bargaining power with unions by reporting lower earnings. This study contributes to the corporate philanthropy and labor union literature by providing evidence that the labor union is a crucial stakeholder that may affect firms' philanthropic behavior. Our findings explain corporate philanthropic decisions in the Korean context.