Perceptions of auditor independence: Its perceived effect on the loan and investment decisions of German financial statement users

Recent research in the United States and the United Kingdom investigated the effect of the perceived independece of auditors on the financial decisions of financial statement users. This paper is an extension of that research, reporting the results of a mail survey of two groups of German users of financial statements audited by German auditors. The survey was undertaken to investigate the user' perceptions of auditors' independence for a number of auditor-client relationships and to determine how those perceptions would affect their financial decisions.     

Corporate Social Responsibility: The Link Between Sustainability Disclosure and Sustainability Performance

This paper explores the relation between sustainability performance and sustainability disclosure within the Australian extractive industries. The study utilizes Ullmann's (1985) stakeholder framework, which depicts sustainability disclosure and performance as two components of management strategy for dealing with stakeholder demands. Consistent with this framework, we predict a positive performance–disclosure relation. Extending prior research that has utilized problematic environmental performance indices such as CEP indices or toxic emissions levels, we develop a sustainability performance index based on the International Finance Corporation's Measuring Sustainability Framework (2001). Using data from 339 mining and energy firms listed on the Australian Securities Exchange in 2006, we find that corporate sustainability performance is strongly associated with disclosure as expected. Sustainability disclosure is also greater for firms with a proactive communication strategy as manifested through press release activity. Finally, asset age and firm size are both positively associated with sustainability, consistent with predictions from the stakeholder framework.     

Tourists' perceptions of environmentally responsible innovations at tourism businesses

This paper investigates tourists' perceptions of environmentally responsible practices by tourism businesses by analyzing the attitudes of tourists toward “green” innovations in tourist places. It was hypothesized that tourists who were more strongly motivated by nature-oriented experiences would perceive environmentally responsible practices as more valuable than tourists less motivated by nature-oriented experiences. The study is based on a survey of individuals who visited the Arizona Welcome Center in northeastern Arizona and the Chamber of Commerce offices in Holbrook and Springerville, Arizona. As expected, visitors with a stronger nature orientation had more positive views of environmentally responsible practices by tourism businesses than tourists not nature-oriented. They felt such innovations are important and valuable.     

Corporate Responses to Shareholder Activists: Considering the Dialogue Alternative

This empirical study examines corporate responses to activist shareholder groups filing social-policy shareholder resolutions. Using resource dependency theory as our conceptual framing, we identify some of the drivers of corporate responses to shareholder activists. This study departs from previous studies by including a fourth possible corporate response, engaging in dialogue. Dialogue, an alternative to shareholder resolutions filed by activists, is a process in which corporations and activist shareholder groups mutually agree to engage in ongoing negotiations to deal with social issues. Based on a unique dataset of resolutions filed by member organizations of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility from 2002 to 2005 and the outcomes of these resolutions, our analysis finds that corporate managers are more likely to engage in dialogue with shareholder activists when the firm is larger, is more responsive to stakeholders, the CEO is the board chair, and the firm has a relatively lower percentage of institutional investors.     

How do CEO incentives affect corporate tax planning and financial reporting of income taxes?

We examine how different accounting metrics used to evaluate CEO performance for annual bonuses affect the level of corporate tax planning as well as financial reporting for income taxes. We predict and find that firms using cash flow metrics report lower GAAP and cash effective tax rates (ETR) than firms using earnings metrics. We also find that firms using after-tax earnings metrics report lower GAAP ETRs but similar cash ETRs as firms using pre-tax earnings metrics. Further analyses show that firms using after-tax earnings metrics are more likely to designate foreign earnings as permanently reinvested and have lower discretionary reserves for tax uncertainty. Hence, it appears that both types of firms engage in similar levels of tax planning, but firms evaluating CEOs with after tax-earnings metrics incentivize different financial reporting choices.     

Calculating, With Income Effects, the Compensating Variation for a State Change

One can easily obtain exact closed-form solutions for the compensating variation (and equivalent variation) in the presence of income effects when the policy being evaluated can be described as a change in the state of the world and one is willing to assume the policy change does not change the individual’s epsilon draw. Alternatively, if one assumes the policy changes the epsilon draw, the expectation of the compensating variation is a complicated integral, typically without a closed-form. The assumption that the policy does not affect one’s epsilon draw is common, and often reasonable, but little discussed.     

Risk Management Case Project

Case projects are valuable tools for teaching risk management and insurance (RMI). This article describes a flexible case study approach that can be used as a comprehensive capstone project for the RMI major or in modules for graduate and undergraduate RMI courses. The project incorporates both fundamental RMI concepts and emerging trends in the field. The use of the case project provides benefits to both students and the RMI program, especially given the increasing pressure for assessment in college curricula.     

Experiments on Damage-Based Ambient Taxes for Nonpoint Source Polluters

This article presents experimental tests of a linear and a nonlinear ambient tax mechanism that involve modest information requirements for the regulator. When agents are not allowed to communicate, both tax mechanisms result in emission levels that approximate the social optimum. When agents can communicate, emissions are considerably below the optimum, but we show that the tax function can be scaled to achieve social efficiency. Finally, by disaggregating the overall efficiency measure, we show that changing the pollution threshold that triggers the tax increases the inefficiency resulting from variation in agent-level decisions, but does not affect average emissions.     

An in-depth investigation of student information gathering meetings with stakeholders and domain experts

International Journal of Technology and Design Education - Information gathering activities in engineering design projects play an important role in the identification and definition of stakeholder...     

The impact of monitor choice on insurer loss reserves

This paper examines the association between monitoring and earnings management by property-casualty insurers. Prior literature has evaluated the impact of auditors and actuaries on insurer reserving. We extend this work by considering the nonrandom nature of monitor assignment. We model the insurer decisions regarding choice of auditor and actuary jointly using a Heckman selection model. Consistent with prior literature, we account for potential loss reserving incentives that may confound these decisions. We find that the use of internal actuaries is significantly related to higher reserve errors, but this is reduced, but not fully offset, when the internal actuary is an officer of the insurer. We find lower reserve error for auditors from a Big N firm. However, the use of an auditor and actuary from the same Big N firm is significantly related to higher reserve errors.