Business Commons^™

Obstacles And Enablers For Employing Internal Control Practices Faced By Nonprofit Leaders, Tammy L. Holloway

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Fraud has had disturbing effects which can hurt many nonprofits. Having weak practices can increase risk and invite perpetrators. Small nonprofit organizations are especially at risk. The research problem is that many small nonprofits do not employ strong practices within their organization, which leaves them open to fraud. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore the obstacles and enablers that leaders of small nonprofit organizations in the eastern United States face when employing proper internal control practices to protect the organization from fraud. Agency theory framed this study when examining agency problems that leaders face when employing …

A More Efficient And Effective Objective Measure Of Financial Disclosure Quality: Omissions Of Seven Key Financial Statement Variables, Ying Zhang

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation research includes three Chapters. Chapter One proposes a new and simple measure of financial reporting quality. Chapter Two and Chapter Three apply this new measure to examine the association between financial reporting quality and firms' internal governance issues, such as internal control quality and a possible outcome of internal control weakness (ICW), financial restatements.In Chapter One of the thesis, I propose a parsimonious, theory-based and empirically-supported measure of missing variables, REPORT. Chen et al. (2015) proposes a measure of disclosure quality, DQ, based on missing financial statement variables. DQ includes hundreds of items and is complex to program. …

The Value Of Assurance Over Internal Controls: Evidence From Mergers And Acquisitions, Ryan Courtlin Cating

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this study, I examine the value of assurance over internal controls in the mergers and acquisitions setting. Specifically, I examine the how the existence of an internal control audit mandated under Section 404(b) of SOX affects information asymmetry as proxied for by the likelihood of a company becoming the target of an acquisition. I find that companies with internal control audits are significantly more likely to receive bids than their counterparts that do not have an internal control audit. Upon further investigation, I find that the mechanism by which companies are more likely to become the target of an …

Internal Business Control Systems In Small Puerto Rican Retail Businesses, Belma A. Borras

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Small businesses' vulnerability to financial losses brought about by employee theft is higher than for larger organizations. Small business owners are concerned about occupational fraud, as the annual average loss from fraud for small business owners in the United States was $150,000 per incident. Grounded in the fraud triangle theory and COSO Internal Control Integrated Framework, the purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to examine the relationship between the degree of segregation of duties, attitude toward internal controls, and the internal control system in small gas and convenience stores in Puerto Rico. Data were collected from 129 small business …

Lenders' Influence On Borrower Firms' Internal Controls, Md Mahmudul Hasan

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

I identify a covenant in commercial loan contracts that requires borrowers to provide lenders internal control-related private information. Lenders use accounting information to monitor loan contracts and reliable accounting information is dependent on effective internal controls of the firm. I argue and provide evidence that lenders are more likely to demand internal control-related private information when borrowers have weak internal controls, when lenders use more accounting information in debt contracts, and when debt contracts have terms that expose lenders to greater risk. I further show that lenders' demand for internal control-related private information is positively associated with improvement in borrower …

The Effect Of Horizontal Inequity, Capacity For Budget Slack, And Severity Of Peer Overstatement On Managerial Reporting Behavior, Yiwen Li

Doctoral Dissertations

An ongoing stream of accounting research indicates that non-pecuniary factors significantly affect employees’ reporting behavior. This study investigates the behavioral effects of three non-pecuniary factors - horizontal pay inequity, capacity for budget slack, and severity of peer overstatement. The behaviors of interest are the employees’ level of honesty and whether or not they report a peer that is overstating.

In the experiment, participants acted as division managers who request funding from the owner of a fictitious company to produce certain parts. In each period, participants were paired with a different fictitious peer and were required to make two decisions under …

Audit Committee Oversight Of Internal Control Over Financial Reporting, Andrea B. Weickgenannt

Doctor of Business Administration Dissertations

This study investigates the processes audit committees employ to fulfill their obligation to oversee internal control over financial reporting (ICFR). Specifically, I explore audit committee processes within five fundamental internal control components: control environment, risk assessment, control activities, information and communication, and monitoring (COSO, 2013). I consider agency theory and institutional theory, investigating the degree of substantive versus ceremonial processes used by audit committees. Additionally, this study considers comfort theory as it reveals details about how audit committees get “comfortable” with ICFR.

The research questions in this study are examined through a cross-sectional survey of 167 public company audit committee …

Effective Internal Controls For Recognizing Contracting Revenues, Antonio Ghaleb

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Business leaders of contracting companies in Qatar struggle to develop appropriate internal controls over revenue estimates to mitigate the risk of financial statement manipulation. Grounded in the internal control framework of the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission, the purpose of this multiple case study was to explore strategies that business leaders responsible for financial reporting use to develop and implement effective internal controls for recognizing contracting revenues. Nine participants from 3 private contracting companies in Qatar who had implemented strategies to develop and implement effective internal controls for recognizing contracting revenues participated in face-to-face semistructured interviews. Through …

Applying The Theory Of Planned Behavior To Influence Auditors' Knowledge-Sharing Behavior, Xu Cheng

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study adopts the theory of planned behavior to understand and influence auditors’ knowledge-sharing behavior. Ajzen (1991) indicates that persuasive communications, such as belief-targeted messages, can be used as behavioral interventions to alter intentions and behaviors. Thus, this study develops and evaluates the effectiveness of behavioral interventions (belief-targeted messages) in encouraging auditors’ knowledge-sharing behavior. This study uses a 2×2 between-participants design. Arguments targeting behavioral beliefs and arguments targeting normative beliefs are manipulated. Consistent with expectations, the results of this study were that (1) auditors exposed to an intervention share more knowledge, compared to auditors not exposed to any interventions; (2) …

Identifying Business Risk Factors Of Identity Theft, Robert K. Minniti

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Businesses are under pressure to identify and control risks affecting profitability, including the risk of fraud. Identity theft, a type of fraud, costs businesses, governments, and individuals in excess of $56 billion a year. In order to develop good internal controls to help prevent and detect fraud, it is necessary to identify the risks to the business, but business owners are not always aware of what risk factors relate to identity theft. A nonexperimental research design formed the basis of this research study. The population for this study was data from all 50 U.S. states, represented via government databases maintained …

An Investigation Of Internal Control Related Frauds And Auditor Litigation: Pre- And Post- Sarbanes-Oxley, Section 404, Ifeoma Udeh

Theses and Dissertations

Using 629 observations of U.S. publicly listed firms with internal control related frauds from 2000 to 2006; this study investigates the change in auditor litigations in the Post- Sarbanes Oxley, Section 404 period. To the extent the conditions of the internal control in place are inadequate or non-existent, the possibility of the occurrence of internal control related fraud heightens. Thus, the inability of auditors to detect a financial statement misstatement due to internal control fraud in a timely manner exposes auditors to litigation (Barra, 2010; Heninger, 2001; Caplan, 1999). This situation was prevalent in the recent notable corporate failures that …

Defining Value Based Information Security Governance Objectives, Sushma Mishra

Theses and Dissertations

This research argues that the information security governance objectives should be grounded in the values of organizational members. Research literature in decision sciences suggest that individual values play an important role in developing decision objectives. Information security governance objectives, based on values of the stakeholders, are essential for a comprehensive security control program. The study uses Value Theory as a theoretical basis and value focused thinking as a methodology to develop 23 objectives for information security governance. A case study was conducted to reexamine and interpret the significance of the proposed objectives in an organizational context. The results suggest three …