How do Auditors View Managers' Voluntary Disclosure Strategy? The Effect of Earnings Guidance on Audit Fees

How do Auditors View Managers' Voluntary Disclosure Strategy? The Effect of Earnings Guidance on Audit Fees PDF Author: Gopal V. Krishnan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
The objective of this study is to examine the relation between attributes of earnings forecasts issued by managers and audit fees. Although there is an extensive literature on managers' disclosure of earnings forecasts, there is a paucity of research on how auditors incorporate information from these voluntary disclosures. We find that the issuance of an annual or quarterly management earnings forecast in the prior period is positively associated with the current period audit fees. Our results indicate that on average, audit fees are higher by about 7% for firm-years associated with an annual forecast. Among the firms that issue earnings forecasts, we find no association between audit fees and likelihood of updating a previously issued earnings forecast, indicating that auditors do not view such behavior negatively. Further, we find audit fees to be positively associated with the error and the bias (or optimism) in the forecasts for annual forecasts but not for quarterly forecasts. Overall, these results suggest that management's forecast behavior captures higher business risk for the auditor via greater risk of earnings management or litigation risk.

How do Auditors View Managers' Voluntary Disclosure Strategy? The Effect of Earnings Guidance on Audit Fees

How do Auditors View Managers' Voluntary Disclosure Strategy? The Effect of Earnings Guidance on Audit Fees PDF Author: Gopal V. Krishnan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
The objective of this study is to examine the relation between attributes of earnings forecasts issued by managers and audit fees. Although there is an extensive literature on managers' disclosure of earnings forecasts, there is a paucity of research on how auditors incorporate information from these voluntary disclosures. We find that the issuance of an annual or quarterly management earnings forecast in the prior period is positively associated with the current period audit fees. Our results indicate that on average, audit fees are higher by about 7% for firm-years associated with an annual forecast. Among the firms that issue earnings forecasts, we find no association between audit fees and likelihood of updating a previously issued earnings forecast, indicating that auditors do not view such behavior negatively. Further, we find audit fees to be positively associated with the error and the bias (or optimism) in the forecasts for annual forecasts but not for quarterly forecasts. Overall, these results suggest that management's forecast behavior captures higher business risk for the auditor via greater risk of earnings management or litigation risk.

Issues in Accounting, Administration, and Corporate Governance: 2013 Edition

Issues in Accounting, Administration, and Corporate Governance: 2013 Edition PDF Author:
Publisher: ScholarlyEditions
ISBN: 1490105735
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
Issues in Accounting, Administration, and Corporate Governance: 2013 Edition is a ScholarlyEditions™ book that delivers timely, authoritative, and comprehensive information about Logistics. The editors have built Issues in Accounting, Administration, and Corporate Governance: 2013 Edition on the vast information databases of ScholarlyNews.™ You can expect the information about Logistics in this book to be deeper than what you can access anywhere else, as well as consistently reliable, authoritative, informed, and relevant. The content of Issues in Accounting, Administration, and Corporate Governance: 2013 Edition has been produced by the world’s leading scientists, engineers, analysts, research institutions, and companies. All of the content is from peer-reviewed sources, and all of it is written, assembled, and edited by the editors at ScholarlyEditions™ and available exclusively from us. You now have a source you can cite with authority, confidence, and credibility. More information is available at http://www.ScholarlyEditions.com/.

Do Auditors Perceive Management Strategic Disclosure Behaviors? Evidence from Audit Risk and Voluntary Disclosure Tone

Do Auditors Perceive Management Strategic Disclosure Behaviors? Evidence from Audit Risk and Voluntary Disclosure Tone PDF Author: Kyungee Yoon
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
This study investigates whether auditors strategically perceive the tone of management qualitative earnings press releases and incorporate that information when determining audit fees. Using publicly issued management qualitative earnings press releases, we quantify abnormal tones that cannot be explained by concurrent, relevant financial indicators, and examine associations between abnormal tone and audit fees. Unexpectedly, we find that the abnormal tone of press releases is negatively associated with audit fees. We further find that the negative abnormal tone of earnings press releases is negatively associated with audit fees, whereas a positive abnormal tone is not associated with audit fees except in extreme cases. This shows that auditors selectively consider the tone of press releases to measure a client's business risk, but they use it to measure management opportunistic disclosure behaviors only if the tone is extremely positive. In addition, auditors assign a lower weight to an abnormal tone in less credible earnings press releases, such as those from a client who issued earnings press releases with a highly abnormal positive tone in the previous year, even if current abnormal tone is not positive. These findings generally support the idea that auditors strategically perceive and use the tone of management forecasts when they evaluate audit risks.

The Relation Between Auditors' Fees for Non-Audit Services and Earnings Quality (Classic Reprint)

The Relation Between Auditors' Fees for Non-Audit Services and Earnings Quality (Classic Reprint) PDF Author: Richard M. Frankel
Publisher: Forgotten Books
ISBN: 9780666794659
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 94

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Book Description
Excerpt from The Relation Between Auditors' Fees for Non-Audit Services and Earnings Quality This paper provides empirical evidence on the relation between non-audit services and earnings quality. We test hypotheses concerning: (1) the association between a firm's purchase of non-audit services from its auditor and earnings management, and (2) the stock price reaction to the disclosure of non-audit fees. In the past decade there has been a dramatic increase in the proportion of fee revenue auditors derive from non-audit services, yet we know little about how non-audit services are related to earnings quality.1 Concern about the effect of non-audit services on the financial reporting process was a primary motivation for the Securities and Exchange Commission (sec) to issue revised auditor independence rules on November 15, 2000. The rules require firms to disclose the amount of all audit and non-audit fees paid to its auditor. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Integrated Reporting and Audit Quality

Integrated Reporting and Audit Quality PDF Author: Chiara Demartini
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319488260
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 136

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Book Description
This book analyzes the relationship between integrated reporting and audit quality within the European context, presenting empirical evidence and drawing on a broad review of the available literature in order to evaluate the ability of integrated reporting to enhance audit risk assessment. Dedicated sections first elucidate the concepts of integrated reporting and audit quality. The main integrated reporting frameworks are compared, the role of integrated reporting within a firm’s disclosure is examined, and all aspects of audit risk are discussed. The key question of the impacts of integrated reporting on the components of audit risk is then addressed in detail, with reference to empirical findings, their practical implications, and their limitations. The concluding section explores the future of corporate reporting and the development of the next integrated reporting framework and summarizes the insights that the analysis in the book offers into the relationship between integrated reporting and audit quality in the European setting.

The Effects of Earnings Management on Enforcement Releases and Their Recognition in Audit Fees

The Effects of Earnings Management on Enforcement Releases and Their Recognition in Audit Fees PDF Author: Balthasar Hoehn
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 33

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Book Description
In 2004 German legislation established the Financial Reporting Enforcement Panel. In 147 cases since then, the panel has ordered the announcement of errors in previously disclosed and audited financial statements of German firms. We use this unique dataset to evaluate the consequences of increasing earnings management over time on enforcement releases and their recognition in audit fees. Ettredge et al. (2010) provide evidence on a phenomenon called 'balance sheet bloat' that is due to income increasing earnings management and later influences the disclosure of misstated financial statements. Thus, the evidence of earnings management recognition in audit fees (Abbott et al. 2006) and the hypothesis of future information content in fees by Stanley (2011) leads us to hypothesize that auditors recognize increasing audit risk in audit fees before the enforcement process starts. We extend related earnings management and audit fee literature by modeling the development of earnings management within the misstatement firms and systematically link it to auditor reactions. We find significant predictive power of different commonly used accrual measures for enforcement releases in the period prior and up to the misstatement period. In this period of time, we also observe an audit fee increase, e.g. the recognition of increased audit risk. We investigate an audit fee effect after the misstatement period but find no significant relation.

Three Essays on the Voluntary Disclosure and Managerial Incentive

Three Essays on the Voluntary Disclosure and Managerial Incentive PDF Author: Ling Tuo
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
The importance of an effective corporate communication with all stakeholders including shareholders has been extensively debated in the business literature in the aftermath of 2007-2009 global financial crisis. The key indicator of business value have shifted from accounting profits and stock market performance, formerly, to firm reputation and sustainability performance, currently. Therefore, the transparency and value-relevance of conventional financial reporting has been questioned in terms of its capability to satisfy increasing information needs of all stakeholders. Many doubt whether those traditional financial metrics derived from financial statements can appropriately capture firm & rsquo;s long-term value creation ability. In recent years, users of corporate reports are demanding more relevant financial and non-financial on key performance indicators and forward looking information above and beyond conventional financial statements. To satisfy the demands of information users and decision makers, companies are expected to not only increase their reporting transparency in conventional financial statements but also disclose more inside information to outside public through different types of voluntary disclosure. The first dissertation investigates the role of sustainability report through examining the associations among voluntary disclosure, earnings quality and audit fee. Recently more and more firms begin to release sustainability reports, one important channel of voluntary disclosure, to satisfy the needs of information users and increase the transparency of financial reporting. In this paper, I especially examine the effect of voluntary disclosure quality on those associations. Through Difference-in-Difference test, I find that the release of sustainability report is positively correlated with innate earnings quality and negatively correlated with discretionary earnings quality. Moreover, the positive (negative) correlation between sustainability report and innate (discretionary) earnings quality is more (less) pronounced when the voluntary disclosure quality is high. I also find that the release of sustainability report is associated with higher audit fees and thus it suggests that the sustainability report cannot substitute the traditional financial statement. My conclusions are robust through additional tests of OLS regressions. This paper has important political, academic and industry application. The second dissertation investigates how the firm & rsquo;s cost stickiness strategy is associated with the firm & rsquo;s management earnings forecast (MEF). I conjecture that the managerial incentive regarding the cost strategy and voluntary disclosure strategy are interdependent. When managers choose their cost management, they will also choose the corresponding management earnings forecast strategy to align their interests. Through the empirical tests with a sample between year 2005 and 2011, I find that the firm & rsquo;s level of sticky cost is positively associated with the firm & rsquo;s propensity to issue MEF and the frequency of MEF. Moreover, I find that the firm & rsquo;s level of sticky cost is associated with more good earnings news forecasted by managers. Finally, I find that the relation between cost stickiness and MEF behaviors is more pronounced when the MEF is long-horizon oriented and when the firm efficiency is high. My research builds a link between financial accounting information and managerial accounting information, and also provides new evidence to understand the managerial incentives behind each strategy chosen by managers. This third dissertation investigates how industry peer firms tend to influence the specific firm & rsquo;s voluntary disclosure strategy. Through examining the empirical example of management earnings forecast between 2005 and 2011 and implementing the 2SLS regressions, I find that the specific firm & rsquo;s disclosure frequency, disclosure horizon and the disclosure of bad news are significantly influenced by its peers firms & rsquo; disclosure behaviors. Specifically, the increase in the peers & rsquo; disclosure frequency, disclosure horizon and disclosure of bad news tend to encourage the specific firm to increase its disclosure frequency, disclosure horizon and disclosure of bad news. Moreover, certain firms (such as firms with S & P credit rating, higher profit, larger size or higher market-to-book ratio) tend to be more sensitive to their peer firms & rsquo; voluntary disclosure strategy. Finally, I find that the specific leader-follower relation doesn & rsquo;t exist in the peer effects of disclosure strategy and thus the signaling theory, litigation risk and CEO reputation are more major reasons than herding theory and free rider theory in explaining this phenomenon.

Essays in Audit Market, Enforcement Actions, and Voluntary Disclosures

Essays in Audit Market, Enforcement Actions, and Voluntary Disclosures PDF Author: Seong Jin Ahn (Accounting professor)
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Electronic dissertations
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
This dissertation is comprised of three empirical essays relating to audit market, SEC enforcement actions, and voluntary disclosure. The first essay investigates the effects of auditor office location on client and auditor surplus. Using a two-sided matching market model, I find that, while both clients and auditors bear the costs of geographic distance, auditors disproportionately bear costs. Although distance exerts costs on clients, clients incur distance costs to gain auditor expertise. Next, I examine how the stickiness of audit office locations affects equilibrium audit market matches. The immobility of audit office locations results in a market-wide surplus loss of 1.6%, and leaves 8% of clients worse off. In addition, by aggregating individual client-auditor surplus at the MSA and state level, I find that in underserved regions, clients are more likely to choose their second-best auditors, and auditors are more likely to extract rents from clients. Finally, relocating audit offices in overserved regions, such as Detroit and Cincinnati, to underserved regions, such as Austin and Houston, improves market-wide surplus, and therefore, leaves clients and auditors in both regions better off. Overall, this paper contributes to the literature by highlighting how an audit market friction (stickiness in audit office location) affects surplus and auditor matches. The second essay examines whether SEC insider trading charges deter illegal insider trading activity among non-targeted insider employed by firms in the same industry. The second essay is co-authored with Jared Jennings. Using a hand-collected sample of SEC insider trading charges, we find that non-targeted insiders at peer firms execute less profitable non-routine purchases following the disclosure of the SEC insider trading charges. We find that the insider non-routine purchase results are concentrated among non-targeted insiders at peer firms that are geographically closer to the targeted firm. We find no consistent evidence that non-targeted insiders at peer firms execute less profitable non-routine sales after SEC insider trading charges are filed. These results provide evidence on the effectiveness of SEC enforcement actions on deterring questionable insider trading activities. Lastly, the third essay examines the implications of unbundled management forecast news for future earnings and returns. This third essay is co-authored with Zachary Kaplan and Salman Arif. We find that positive (negative) management forecast news predicts higher (lower) unexpected earnings over the upcoming year, but this positive predictive relation flips to negative over the following year. Further, while stock returns initially drift in the same direction as the news in the management forecast, returns begin to reverse beginning six months after the forecast and this reversal continues over the following two years. We conduct several analyses which suggest that return reversals occur because investors over-extrapolate the news from management forecasts. First, we find that positive (negative) management forecast news leads to analyst earnings forecasts that are excessively optimistic (pessimistic). Second, we find that management forecasts which are less persistent (e.g. forecasts by firms with higher earnings volatility and forecasts that convey negative news) are associated with larger return reversals. Third, we find that increasing the frequency or providing forecasts for a number of horizons mitigates the return reversals. Overall, our findings contribute to our understanding of the information conveyed by management forecasts and suggest that market participants overreact to unbundled management forecasts.

The Relation Between Auditors' Fees for Non-audit Services and Earnings Quality

The Relation Between Auditors' Fees for Non-audit Services and Earnings Quality PDF Author: Richard M. Frankel
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Auditing
Languages : en
Pages : 44

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Book Description
We examine the association between the provision of non-audit services and earnings quality. Because of concerns regarding the effect of non-audit services on financial reporting credibility, the Securities and Exchange Commission recently issued revised auditor independence rules requiring firms to disclose in their annual proxy statement the amount of fees paid to auditors for audit and non-audit services. Using data collected from proxy statements filed between February 5, 2001 and June 15, 2001, we present evidence that firms purchasing more non-audit services from their auditor are more likely to just meet or beat analysts' forecasts and to report larger absolute discretionary accruals. However, the purchase of non-audit services is not associated with meeting other earnings benchmarks. We also find that the unexpected component of the non-audit to total fee ratio is negatively associated with stock returns on the filing date. These results are consistent with arguments that the provision of non-audit services strengthens an auditor's economic bond with the client and that investors price this effect. Keywords: Auditor independence; Auditor fees; Earnings management; Discretionary accruals. JEL Classification: G12, M41, M43, M49, L84.

Voluntary Disclosure in Corporate Control Contests--evidence of Management Earnings Forecast Characteristics and Consequences

Voluntary Disclosure in Corporate Control Contests--evidence of Management Earnings Forecast Characteristics and Consequences PDF Author: Jinqiu Yan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
This dissertation examines how managerial incentives in contested takeovers affect voluntary disclosure strategies. I study characteristics of voluntary disclosure around contested takeovers, based on the conjecture that good news in earnings forecasts serves as a defensive strategy to resist a takeover and/or to negotiate a higher offer price. To gauge the relation of voluntary disclosure on takeover consequences, I examine the association between voluntary disclosure and target premiums as well as the length of time to resolve the acquisition. Using a difference-in-differences research design, I find that relative to friendly targets, target management in contested target firms alters the timing of normal information flows by forecasting more good news during the takeover. Managers also manipulate the content of information by releasing optimistically biased forecasts during the takeover to favorably influence the market. Further investigations indicate that target firms adopt voluntary disclosure and alter strategies at the time of contested takeover as a means to convey favorable inside information. The stock market responds positively to optimistic forecasts issued during the contested takeover. Moreover, voluntary disclosure influences contested takeovers by helping target firms negotiate better offers and postpone the M&A process. As a whole, this study demonstrates that target firms adopt voluntary disclosure and alter their strategies under the threat of contested takeover to reveal their true worth and enhance their bargaining power. Unlike prior literature that documents value-destroying managerial entrenchment resistance, voluntary disclosure by targets with favorable information induces information leakage and is one of the resistance tactics that potentially benefits target shareholders.