金融危机下CFO的应对与挑战

由美国次贷危机引发的金融危机正在向全球蔓延，在全球经济一体化的环境中，没有任何实体经济可以置之度外。面临金融危机的冲击和影响，身居各种不同类型企业财务负责人要职的CFO，除了与CEO同舟共济、渡过难关之外，别无选择。此时此刻，CFO团队应奋勇当先，以前瞻性思维和进取的姿态，在危机中发现机遇、利用机遇，充分展现CFO团队的智慧与才干，实现新的超越。     

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.     

浅谈财务总监制度

目前许多地方财政部和国有大中型企业试行了财务总监制度，本从财务总监制度的特征出发，从财务总监制度的双层监督职能和约束机制等方面说明实行财务总监制度的必要性。     

Insights on CFOs’ Perceptions about Impairment Testing Under IAS 36

We survey CFOs of Italian listed companies and examine their views on the complexities involved in implementing IAS 36 requirements and the perceived usefulness of national guidelines aiming at assisting preparers in this respect. We find that IAS 36 is perceived as an atypical standard among IFRS, it demands subjective interpretation, its requirements can be made adaptable to managerial needs and do not limit creative accounting. Further, respondents do not see a strong link between IAS 36 disclosure requirements and market variables, except for stock returns. Moreover, the impairment testing process became more difficult during the recent financial crisis and guidelines issued by the Italian authorities do not appear to assist in implementing the recoverable amount estimation process or compliance with mandatory disclosure. The respondents explicitly call for a revision in IAS 36 and/or issuance of separate guidance. These findings inter alia respond directly to the IASB’s current quest on financial statements preparers’ concerns about the application of the IAS 36 requirements.     

CFO人口特征、产权性质与集团内部资金配置

基于2007—2012年间企业集团内部资本市场运行的数据,考察CFO特征对内部资本市场构建的影响。研究发现,CFO绩效薪酬显著影响内部资本市场的构建及其运行规模,且民营企业更为显著。进一步地,CFO担任董事会成员、具有金融任职背景显著影响内部资本市场运行规模,并且这一效果在民营企业中更为明显。     

CFO Narcissism and Financial Reporting Quality

We investigate the effect of CFO narcissism, as measured by signature size, on financial reporting quality. Experimentally, we validate that narcissism predicts misreporting behavior, and that signature size predicts misreporting through its association with narcissism. Empirically, we examine notarized CFO signatures and find CFO narcissism is associated with more earnings management, less timely loss recognition, weaker internal control quality, and a higher probability of restatements. The results are consistent for within‐firm comparisons focusing on CFO changes and are robust to controlling for CFO overconfidence and CEO narcissism. The results highlight the importance of CFO characteristics in the domain of financial reporting decisions.     

中外首席财务官(CFO)职能定位发展综述

文章从国外CFO的定位方面对国际、特别是美国的CFO制度进行分析,为实现我国在经济转型期CFO职能的正确定位提供有益的借鉴.     

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.     

重建公众信任

会计诚信问题是当前我国会计领域乃至整个社会经济领域中的一个热门话题。然而中国经济由于转轨时期市场体系不健全,信用制度不完善等原因,导致目前社会普遍信用不足,而信用缺失成为制约企业生存发展,经济高效运行的重要因素之一。因此只有以诚信为本,加强会计职业道德建设,健全市场体系,建立有效的会计诚信约束机制,才能更大地发挥会计在经济管理中的作用,促进我国经济的发展和腾飞。     

CFO变更与企业财务报告质量

在现代风险导向审计模式下,审计师会关注CFO变更这一信号以识别和评估财务报表重大错报风险,但鲜有文献探究财务报告质量是否因此而下降。以2010—2020年沪深两市A股上市公司为对象,研究CFO变更对企业财务报告质量的影响。研究表明,CFO变更提高了企业应计盈余管理的程度,增加了企业报告小额盈余、进行财务重述以及被出具非标审计意见的可能性,进而导致财务报告质量显著下降;当CFO未兼任内部董事、发生外部继任或非正常变更、任职于非央企时,上述负向作用更加明显。进一步研究表明,CFO变更通过提高企业的代理成本与信息不对称程度从而降低财务报告质量,并最终使企业面临更大的融资约束。