Business Commons^™

Does Auditor Busyness Influence Audit Outcome? Further Evidence, Sze Man Lau

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations

Previous studies examining whether and how auditor busyness influences audit outcome use auditors' clientele size as a proxy for auditor busyness. The result of these studies may be biased due to the endogeneity arising from the selection of clients by auditors as well as the selection of auditors by clients. By leveraging on the natural disasters as exogenous events to clients, I study whether the auditor busyness, induced by the additional assurance work performed for disaster-affected clients, influences the audit outcome of the non-disaster-affected clients (i.e.: the remaining clients). Consistent with the Limited Attention Theory (Cherry, 1953; Kahneman, 1973), I …

Corruption Norms And Corporate Tax Avoidance In A Weak Institutional And Environment : Evidence From Alcohol Consumption In China, Can Flora Guo

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations

Both anecdotal and empirical evidence suggests a relation between cultural norms and illegitimate corporate behaviour. The mechanisms through which cultural norms exert effect on corporate behaviour include socialization, learning and networking, and employee selection. Being among the most significant elements of traditional Chinese culture, alcoholic drinking is the prime lubricant for social interactions and often serves to facilitate business dealings and exchange of favours. It is widely believed that drinking is a hotbed of power abuse and corruption. In order to improve our understanding of the determinants of corporate behaviour, this study is aimed at examining whether corruption norms inferred …

Two Essays On Supply Chain Variations : Evidence From Cost Behaviors And Audit Outcomes, Ho Yin Wong

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations

Recent researches shed light on the information role of major customers of the supplier firms on a variety of users, including shareholders (Dhaliwal et al., 2016), debtholders (Campello and Gao, 2017) and analysts (Guan et al, 2015). However, scarce researches are developed to address the influences of major customers information on corporate managers’ and auditors’ decision-making.

My thesis is composed of two essays. The first essay examines if characteristics in terms of length (the layers of intermediaries in the supply chain) and width (customer concentration) influence the extent of responsiveness in adjusting corporate capacity. Using a sample of non-financial U.S. …

Do Auditors Communicate Financial Misstatement Risk In Audit Report? Evidence From Subsequent Accounting Restatements In China, Hau Yi Yeung

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations

Regulators worldwide are considering expanding current audit reporting model to include key audit matters (KAM). Proponents argue that current audit reports are standardized and uninformative to financial statement users. Auditors in current reporting regime can choose to add explanatory notes in audit reports, however, few current studies have investigated the information content of these explanatory notes. This thesis conducts a textual analysis of explanatory notes in auditor reports and examines the predictability of auditors’ explanatory notes consisting of both unqualified and qualified opinions in determining the incidence of subsequent restatements. I hand collect material accounting restatements disclosed by the public …

Auditor Changes And Debt Financing : Evidence From China, Suet Ying Chan

Theses & Dissertations

The role of independent auditors is to ensure the accuracy and the credibility of the financial statements. Independent auditors help in reducing agency costs and serve as a monitoring function for creditors. A change in an auditor–client relationship may provide useful information to creditors. Creditors may consider the signal of auditor changes, which affects information risks, as a factor in determining the terms of debts. After several major audit scandals, awareness of the importance of audit quality has increased. Audit partner changes and audit firm changes have been implemented in some jurisdictions to enhance the audit quality. Since China requires …

Client Importance And Audit Quality In Highly Connected Jurisdictions, Kelly Grani Yuen

Theses & Dissertations

The study focuses on the audit quality issue in three culturally and commercially highly connected jurisdictions with very different legal systems which affect auditors. Hong Kong practices common law, Taiwan practices civil law, and the People’s Republic of China (Mainland China) practices a socialist legal system. Taiwan adopts a civil law system with heavy influence by common law countries. It is therefore motivating to assess how auditors in each of the three connected jurisdictions with distinctive legal environments handle the audit quality for important clients. Accounting scandals and auditing frauds are perceived to be driven by aggressive companies and misrepresentation …

Two Essays On The Mitigating Factors Of Corporate Tax Noncompliance, Kim Wan, Rebecca Luo

Theses & Dissertations

Corporate tax noncompliance is a serious problem in many developed and developing countries. My PhD thesis is composed of two essays to investigate various factors that mitigate corporate tax noncompliance by listed Chinese firms.

The first essay examines whether a firm’s corporate tax noncompliance can be constrained by auditor quality. Past studies have shown that high-quality auditors are effective in reducing earnings management, which mainly involves overstatements of earnings. In this essay, I find that high-quality auditors are associated with better overall tax compliance by their client firms. In particular, high-quality auditors are effective in constraining book-tax-conforming noncompliance, which mainly …

An Assessment Of Dual Audit Effect And Contagious Effect On The Audit Quality Of Non-Big N Cpa Firms For Chinese Companies In Different Markets, Meixin Wang

Theses & Dissertations

External auditor is an independent agent to provide assurance about the validity of financial statements prepared by management to enhance the reliability of information in financial reports. As such, audit quality has long been a concern for all stakeholders and is a topic of on-going research interest. In China, the dual audit requirement for AB share companies and AH share companies started in 2001 was abolished in 2007 and 2010 respectively. This study attempts to examine whether there are dual audit effect and contagious effect on the audit quality of non-Big N audit firms for A share companies in different …

Do Firms’ Earnings Reported Under Ifrs 3r Reveal More About Future Earnings And Cash Flows? Evidence From The European Union, Lin Yuan Wang

Theses & Dissertations

Motivated by recent studies documenting inconsistent results regarding the benefits of adopting International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), the objective of this thesis is to examine the information value of firms’ earning reported focusing on IFRS 3 (Business Combination). IFRS 3 aims at providing systematic guidelines for acquirers of a business combination transaction to properly report identifiable assets and liabilities, to fairly measure goodwill and to disclose relevant information for investors’ evaluation. IFRS 3 was revised and became effective in July 2009. Opponents of the revised IFRS 3 (IFRS 3R) criticized the guidelines to have broadened the disconnection between current earnings …

Tax-Induced Earnings Management, Auditor Conservatism, And Tax Enforcement, Yongbo Li

Theses & Dissertations

Prompted by the recent statutory corporate income tax-rate reduction in China, in this study I investigate whether the constraining effect that quality auditors have on tax-related discretionary current accruals (DCA) differs for two sub-groups of listed firms with tax incentives to manage earnings upward versus downward. I also explore whether the effectiveness of tax authority scrutiny (i.e. tax enforcement) on DCA differs for the same two groups.

I find that the firms’ two external monitors are sensitive to the direction of managerial incentives for earnings management. Specifically, higher-quality auditors are associated with smaller amounts of reported DCA and this association …

The Impact Of Quantitative Materiality, Perceived Responsibility And Machiavellianism On Tax Professionals’ Decision Making Regarding Fraud Detection And Reporting In The Prc, Qian Yu

Theses & Dissertations

Research on fraud detection in accounting has long focused primarily on financial statement fraud and responsibilities of auditors and company management relating to such frauds. While tax fraud is also clearly significant, and tax professionals have responsibilities relating to fraud detection, little prior research has addressed this issue. The current research examines the impact of quantitative materiality, perceived responsibility (based on the triangle model of responsibility) and Machiavellianism on several aspects of tax professionals’ decision making regarding fraud detection and reporting.

I surveyed all tax professionals in the People’s Republic of China working for one of the Big 4 public …

Ethical Climate, The Perceived Importance Of Ethics And Social Responsibility, And Earnings Management, Mo Lam

Theses & Dissertations

The practice of earnings management not only adversely affects the long-term economic prospects of a particular business enterprise by eroding public confidence in the company, but also may severely undermine the reputation of Hong Kong as an international financial and trading centre. Given the devastating effects of such practices resulting from corporate scandals such as Enron and WorldCom, earnings management has received unprecedented attention in the past decade. The incommensurability between the far-reaching effects of ethical issues relating to earnings management and the paucity of prior research on the subject in Hong Kong triggers my interest to study this topic. …

Determinants And Implications Of Audit Reporting Lags In China, Wei Luo

Theses & Dissertations

Timeliness is an essential attribute of corporate financial reporting as it affects the usefulness of information made available to external investors. The recognition that the length of audit is the single most important determinant influencing the timeliness of earnings announcements has motivated investigations on audit reporting lags in different countries. Nevertheless, there is a lack of research on this issue in China where the institutional environment for accounting and auditing practices is different from that of other countries. The growing interest in the Chinese stock market from domestic and international investors further increases the importance of this research. In this …

Ownership Structure, Board Characteristics, And Tax Aggressiveness, Ying Zhou

Theses & Dissertations

Tax aggressiveness, as commonly proxied by the effective tax rate (ETR), measures a firm’s effort spent on minimizing its tax payments. It is suggested that more tax aggressive firms have greater incentives to allocate resources to minimize taxes and thus have lower ETRs. Corporate governance has been continuously receiving attention in literature across different fields and can affect a firm’s tax strategy through its control mechanism. This thesis investigates how corporate governance influences a firm’s tax aggressiveness. The main hypothesis of this thesis is whether firms with good corporate governance will have less incentives and opportunities to manage tax aggressively. …

Effects Of A Taxation Ethics Intervention On Hong Kong Undergraduates' Attitude Towards Tax Avoidance And Evasion, Richard S. Simmons

Hong Kong Institute of Business Studies Working Paper Series

Increasing public concern over the ethical behaviour of accounting professionals, including those involved in providing tax services, has focused attention on the effectiveness of educational responses to the problem. Accordingly, this study investigates whether a tax ethics intervention imbedded in an undergraduate taxation course influences the attitudes towards tax avoidance and evasion of accounting major business students at a university in Hong Kong. The research also considers whether the intervention changes students' attitudes towards the importance of corporate ethics and social responsibility (CESR).

The study adopts a survey approach incorporating a pre-test/post-test data collection methodology. The surveys include case studies …

The Influence Of Banks On Auditor Choice And Auditor Reporting In Japan, Jin Jiang

Theses & Dissertations

Debt as opposed to equity as the major source of financing and the influence of banks on the corporate governance of listed companies are unique features of the Japanese business environment. This thesis investigates how these features affect the choice of auditor by Japanese listed companies and auditor reporting by Japanese CPA firms on those companies. Pong and Kita (2006) provided some univariate analyses and indicated that Japanese companies tended to select the same external auditors as their main banks to reduce the agency costs. In this thesis, I further examine the influence of main banks on auditor selection by …

Auditor Type, Firm Ownership And Auditor Reporting Under A Joint Audit Requirement : Exploratory Evidence From India, Ting Zou

Theses & Dissertations

India is one of the largest developing countries in the world. Although many issues and phenomena arising from its transitional economy are worthy of research from an accounting perspective, the Indian accounting market is a field that remains relatively unexplored in the extant literature. One of the institutional features of India is that while it is mandatory for public sector companies and banks to have joint auditors, their appointment is voluntary for other companies. In a thesis motivated by this and other institutional features and the absence of related accounting and auditing studies conducted in an Indian setting, I examine …

Enhancing Green Tax Measures In Hong Kong : A Means Of Addressing The City's Environmental Problems, Yuzhu Lu

Theses & Dissertations

Nowadays, pressures on the environment are increasing around the world. In particular, Hong Kong, a compact city with a population of nearly seven million, one which has undergone remarkable economic growth over the past few decades, has developed severe environmental problems. It also has deficiencies in its taxation system: a small tax base, for example. In today’s world, “green” taxes have been accepted and applied by more and more countries, especially those in the OECD. However, Hong Kong still has not adequately used the tax tool as an integral part of the government’s anti-pollution strategy. Accordingly, the major objective of …

Firm Ownership, Institutional Environment, And Audit Collusion : Empirical Evidence From A Transitional Economy, Rui Wang

Theses & Dissertations

Motivated by the renewed interest in, but insufficient empirical evidence of, collusion between auditors and corporate management, I examine this issue in the unique environment of China, which is characterized by a high level of government control over listed companies and auditors, strong competition for audit clients, and uneven economic and legal development across the country. In contrast to prior studies, I employ a two-stage regression approach to study the determinants of audit collusion in China. In the first stage, I develop an audit opinion prediction model of Big 4 auditors (viewed as “typical” auditors) that corrects for self-selection bias. …

Effects Of Ethical Context On Earnings Management, Organizational-Professional Conflict And Organizational Commitment In Chinese Enterprises, Zhihong Wang

Theses & Dissertations

This study investigates the effects of the organizational ethical context (ethical climate and ethical culture) in Chinese enterprises on accounting professionals’ perceptions of earnings management, organizational-professional conflict (OPC) and affective organizational commitment (OC). We also test the effects of Machiavellianism on these factors, and the interactive effects of Machiavellianism and ethical context on OPC and OC. The findings, based on responses from 89 accounting professionals employed by Chinese enterprises at staff, supervisor and manager levels, indicate that in general the perceived ethical context did not affect judgments of the acceptability of earnings management. However, as anticipated, perceptions of a stronger …

How Do Institutions Affect Auditor Reporting Behavior? Empirical Evidence From China, Yang An

Theses & Dissertations

It is well documented in cross-country research that institutions, both economic and political, affect the reporting behavior of auditors and audit services. These findings are based on the assumption that institutions vary across countries but are more homogeneous within a country. However, cross-country research suffers from the problems of country-specific cultures, accounting rules, and regulations, and can be criticized for the use of small sample sizes, potential endogeneity, and the correlation of omitted variables. This study overcomes these problems by engaging in within-country research. Specifically, this study examines how variations in the institutional environment within China affect auditor reporting behavior. …

An Empirical Analysis Of Book-Tax Reporting Difference And Tax Noncompliance Behavior In China, Feng Tang

Theses & Dissertations

The traditional accounting system in China was directly linked to the tax assessment. The close linkage between the two sets of reporting rules has substantially weakened, as China promulgated a series of accounting standards and regulations in the late 1990s. As a result, accounting for financial reporting purposes does not have to conform to accounting for tax reporting purposes. This divergence between the two measures of income will inevitably cause accounting book income to differ from taxable income. This is because the more the excess of book income over taxable income, the more the magnitude of tax audit adjustments. Mills …

An Empirical Study Of The Impact Of Changes In Ownership Structure On Audit Quality In An Emerging Stock Market, Fang Zhang

Theses & Dissertations

This study uses agency theory to test whether the demand for quality audits by listed Chinese companies is associated with changes in ownership structure, which is characterized by the dominance of the state, institutional and individual shareholders. The empirical test results obtained in a concentrated ownership setting are supportive of agency theory. Specifically, I find that the decrease of state shares and the corresponding increase of institutional shares result in a demand for higher-quality audits in China’s stock market. The results provide empirical support for the government’s recent initiative in reducing state ownership in listed companies to improve firm performance …