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Full-Text Articles in Business Law, Public Responsibility, and Ethics

Executive Compensation And Regulation Imposed Governance: Evidence From The California Non-Profit Integrity Act (2004), Tharindra Ranasinghe, S. Khumawala, S. Mishra, S. Dhole Jul 2012

Executive Compensation And Regulation Imposed Governance: Evidence From The California Non-Profit Integrity Act (2004), Tharindra Ranasinghe, S. Khumawala, S. Mishra, S. Dhole

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

No abstract provided.


Disciplinary Effect Of Internal Control Provisions Of Sox On Corporate Governance Structures, Beng Wee Goh Jun 2012

Disciplinary Effect Of Internal Control Provisions Of Sox On Corporate Governance Structures, Beng Wee Goh

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

This study examines whether the internal control provisions under the Sarbanes–Oxley Act (SOX) have a disciplining effect on the governance structures of firms. We find that audit committee members and outside directors of firms that disclose material weaknesses (MWs) under Section 302 of SOX are more likely to leave the firms compared to their counterparts in a matched sample of control firms without such weaknesses, and they lose more outside directorships than their counterparts in the control firms. These results are consistent with the notion that the labor market imposes reputational penalties for internal control failures. Although the MW firms …


Client Conservatism And Auditor-Client Contracting, Yoonseok Zang, Chee Yeow Lim, Mark Defond Jun 2012

Client Conservatism And Auditor-Client Contracting, Yoonseok Zang, Chee Yeow Lim, Mark Defond

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Auditors risk costly litigation and loss of reputation when they are associated with clients that engage in substandard financial reporting, and prior research argues that accounting conservatism reduces managements‟ tendency to misreport. Thus, we predict that client conservatism affects auditor-client contracting by reducing auditor litigation and reputation risk. Consistent with our predictions, we find that conservative audit clients are less likely to trigger auditor litigation or issue accounting restatements; and that auditors of conservative clients charge lower audit fees, issue fewer going concern opinions, and resign less frequently. Taken together, these findings are consistent with client accounting conservatism playing an …


Geographic Proximity Between Auditor And Client: How Does It Impact Audit Quality?, Jong-Hag Choi, Jeong-Bon Kim, Aini Qiu, Yoonseok Zang May 2012

Geographic Proximity Between Auditor And Client: How Does It Impact Audit Quality?, Jong-Hag Choi, Jeong-Bon Kim, Aini Qiu, Yoonseok Zang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Using a large sample of audit client firms, this paper investigates whether and how the geographic proximity between auditor and client affects audit quality proxied by accrual-based earnings quality. We define an auditor as a local auditor (1) if the auditor’s practicing office is located in the same metropolitan statistical area (MSA) as the client's headquarters and (2) if the geographic distance between the two cities where the auditor’s practicing office and the client’s headquarters are located is within 100 kilometers or they are in the same MSA. As predicted, our empirical results are consistent with local auditors providing higher-quality …


Auditor Reporting Under Section 404: The Association Between The Internal Control And Going Concern Audit Opinions, Beng Wee Goh Apr 2012

Auditor Reporting Under Section 404: The Association Between The Internal Control And Going Concern Audit Opinions, Beng Wee Goh

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act introduced integrated audits of internal control over financial reporting and the financial statements. Since the internal control and audit reports are joint products of the audit process, we examine whether the issuance of an internal control material weakness opinion (MWO) influences, other things equal, the issuance of a going concern audit opinion (GCO). Using a sample of financially stressed companies, we find that the issuance of a MWO increases the likelihood of a GCO, suggesting that auditors respond to the uncertainty surrounding a MWO by issuing a GCO. Further, the positive association between MWO …


Do Abnormally High Audit Fees Impair Audit Quality?, Jong-Hag Choi, Jeong-Bon Kim, Yoonseok Zang Nov 2010

Do Abnormally High Audit Fees Impair Audit Quality?, Jong-Hag Choi, Jeong-Bon Kim, Yoonseok Zang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

This study examines whether and how audit quality proxied by the magnitude of absolute discretionary accruals is associated with abnormal audit fees, that is, the difference between actual audit fee and the expected, normal level of audit fee. The results of various regressions reveal that the association between the two is asymmetric, depending on the sign of the abnormal audit fee. For observations with negative abnormal audit fees, there is no significant association between audit quality and abnormal audit fee. In contrast, abnormal audit fees are negatively associated with audit quality for observations with positive abnormal audit fees. Our findings …


Auditor Reputation And Earnings Management: International Evidence From The Banking Industry, Kanagaretnam Kiridaran, Chee Yeow Lim, Gerald J. Lobo Oct 2010

Auditor Reputation And Earnings Management: International Evidence From The Banking Industry, Kanagaretnam Kiridaran, Chee Yeow Lim, Gerald J. Lobo

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We examine the relation between auditor reputation and earnings management in banks using a sample of banks from 29 countries. In particular, we examine the implications of two aspects of auditor reputation, auditor type and auditor industry specialization, for earnings management in banks. We find that both auditor type and auditor industry specialization moderate benchmark-beating (loss-avoidance and just-meeting-or-beating prior year’s earnings) behavior in banks. In addition, we find that once auditor type and auditor industry specialization are included in the same tests, only auditor industry specialization has a significant impact on constraining benchmark-beating behavior. In separate tests related to income-increasing …


Does Auditor Tenure Improve Audit Quality? Moderating Effects Of Industry Specialization And Fee Dependence, Chee Yeow Lim, Hun-Tong Tan Sep 2010

Does Auditor Tenure Improve Audit Quality? Moderating Effects Of Industry Specialization And Fee Dependence, Chee Yeow Lim, Hun-Tong Tan

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We investigate whether the relation between auditor tenure and audit quality is conditional on auditor specialization and fee dependence. Although prior studies have investigated the relation between extended auditor-client tenure and audit quality, none has examined how this relation is jointly influenced by both auditor specialization and fee dependence. Our main analyses, using accrual quality as a measure of audit quality, show that firms audited by specialists (vs. non-specialists) have relatively higher audit quality with extended auditor tenure, and that this relation is negatively moderated by auditors’ fee dependence on clients. These results are robust to sensitivity tests, and alternative …


Corporate Valuation Around The World: The Effects Of Governance, Growth, And Openness, Choong Tze Chua, Cheol S. Eun, Sandy Lai Jul 2010

Corporate Valuation Around The World: The Effects Of Governance, Growth, And Openness, Choong Tze Chua, Cheol S. Eun, Sandy Lai

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive analysis of corporate valuation around the world. Specifically, we (i) document and compare corporate valuation around the world, and (ii) identify the key factors that drive cross-country differences in valuation. In doing so, we utilize the country-level Tobin's q (CTQ), computed as the ratio of the aggregate market value to book value of all assets held by all public firms domiciled in a country, which amounts to the Tobin's q for the [`]market portfolio' of the country. The key findings of the paper are: First, CTQ varies greatly across countries, …


Corporate Governance, Investor Protection, And Auditor Choice In Emerging Markets, Mahmud Hossain, Chee Yeow Lim, Patricia Mui Siang Tan Mar 2010

Corporate Governance, Investor Protection, And Auditor Choice In Emerging Markets, Mahmud Hossain, Chee Yeow Lim, Patricia Mui Siang Tan

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

In this study, we examine the effect of firm-level governance on the firm's choice of an external auditor. Further, we test how the relation between corporate governance and auditor choice may be affected by the strength of legal environment. The results show that firm-level governance scores are positively related to the firm's auditor choice. This association is strengthened by country-level legal protection. Specifically, the positive association between auditor choice and the firm-level governance scores is weaker (stronger) in a low (high) legal environment. These findings are robust after controlling for determinants that were found to be significant in earlier research. …


Why "Democracy" And "Drifter" Firms Can Have Abnormal Returns: The Joint Importance Of Corporate Governance And Abnormal Accruals In Separating Winners From Losers, Koon Boon Kee Jan 2010

Why "Democracy" And "Drifter" Firms Can Have Abnormal Returns: The Joint Importance Of Corporate Governance And Abnormal Accruals In Separating Winners From Losers, Koon Boon Kee

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Do managers exercise accounting discretion in an opportunistic or efficient manner? Good governance structures, which mitigate agency costs, are necessary to ensure that the accounting information supplied by management is not opportunistically manipulated. The output of quality accounting information, in turn, serves as an input to better governance structures. Thus, governance and earnings quality (EQ) are inexorably linked through a complementarity relationship. This suggests two previously unexamined relationships. Firstly, the governance effects on performance in the influential paper by Gompers, Ishii and Metrick (2003) is overrated without good EQ, measured by the magnitude of abnormal accruals (AA), as an input. …


Why Does Corporate Governance Matter? Evidence From Seasoned Bond Offerings, Fang Wang Jan 2010

Why Does Corporate Governance Matter? Evidence From Seasoned Bond Offerings, Fang Wang

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

To examine the importance of corporate governance, I look at how management and investors behave in the event of seasoned bond offerings, controlling for the corporate governance structure of issuing firms. I find that companies with the weakest governance structure aggressively manipulate their earnings upwards during the two years prior to the debt issuances. And when the bond offerings are announced to the market, these same firms experienced positive abnormal returns over a three day event period, indicating that investors of poorly governed firms value a debt financing for the alleged decrease in agency cost.


Does Corporate Governance Matter, Evidence From Earnings Management Practices In Singapore, Lingxu Hu Jan 2010

Does Corporate Governance Matter, Evidence From Earnings Management Practices In Singapore, Lingxu Hu

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

This paper addresses two questions. First, do good corporate governance practices add values to company or does it lead to higher stock returns in Singapore? Second, does poorly governed listed company in SGX tend to manage their earnings by using discretionary accruals? Following the approach of Gompers et al. (2003), we formed two portfolios consisting of well-governed and poorly governed companies. Well governed companies are able to maintain a higher return relative to poorly governed companies. I also look at the firm valuation from the adoption of corporate governance practices. Our result shows a positive relationship between firm valuation and …


Corporate Governance And Earnings Management Before Share Repurchase Announcements In Singapore, Jian Ming Chua Jan 2010

Corporate Governance And Earnings Management Before Share Repurchase Announcements In Singapore, Jian Ming Chua

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Share repurchase in Singapore was legalized in 1998. It is well known that investors view share repurchase as good news. This study is based on share repurchase announcements from 2006 to 2009. The mean Cumulative Market-Adjusted Returns (CAR) for the period [0, +1] and [-1, +1] are significant at 1.25% and 1.33% respectively. In Singapore, there are positive abnormal returns following share repurchase announcements in support of the ―free cash flow‖ hypothesis. By using the Singapore Corporate Governance Index as a proxy, the weakly governed companies exhibit the strongest, positive and significant CAR of 2.62% for the period [0, +1]. …


Audit Committees, Boards Of Directors, And Remediation Of Material Weaknesses In Internal Control, Beng Wee Goh Jun 2009

Audit Committees, Boards Of Directors, And Remediation Of Material Weaknesses In Internal Control, Beng Wee Goh

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) was passed in 2002 in response to a series ofaccounting improprieties at well-known companies such as Enron and WorldCom.One important aspect of SOX is the internal control requirements. SOX section302 requires that management evaluate the effectiveness of disclosure and controlprocedures, report results of the evaluation, and indicate any “significant changes”in internal controls since the last 10-K or 10-Q report (Securities and ExchangeCommission [SEC] 2002). In addition, SOX section 404 requires that manage-ment’s assessment of the effectiveness of internal control over financial reportingand auditors’ attestation on management’s assessment be included in firms’ 10-Kreports (SEC 2003a). The heightened …


The Association Between Institutional Ownership And Audit Properties, Soongsoo Han, Tony Kang, Lynn Reesc Mar 2009

The Association Between Institutional Ownership And Audit Properties, Soongsoo Han, Tony Kang, Lynn Reesc

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

In this study, we examine how institutional ownership affects the quality and riskiness of the financial statement audit. We hypothesize that institutional investors can influence corporate policy to employ governance mechanisms that reduce their monitoring costs. Our evidence shows that firms are more likely to hire a Big 4 auditor (our proxy for audit quality) when long-term institutional ownership is high, suggesting that long-term institutional investors view high quality audits as a viable means of improving corporate governance while reducing their direct monitoring costs. We find no association between auditor choice and short-term institutional ownership. Next, we find that auditors …


Managerial Ownership, Corporate Monitoring And Audit Pricing, Soongsoo Han, Julia Higgs, Tony Kang Dec 2008

Managerial Ownership, Corporate Monitoring And Audit Pricing, Soongsoo Han, Julia Higgs, Tony Kang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We study whether managerial ownership and corporate monitoring (board quality and analyst coverage) relate to audit pricing. Managerial ownership has been identified as a fraud risk factor under SAS 99. However, the role of ownership is not clear. Under an alignment view, high levels of stock ownership align management with shareholders. Under an entrenchment view, high levels of ownership may motivate management to be self interested. Corporate monitoring, as measured by analyst coverage and overall board quality (Gomper’s index), are associated with information quality. Audit pricing will be affected to the extent that auditors perceive monitoring as being relevant to …


Managerial Ownership And Firms' Information Environment, Soongsoo Han, Tony Kang, Gerald Lobo Dec 2008

Managerial Ownership And Firms' Information Environment, Soongsoo Han, Tony Kang, Gerald Lobo

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We examine the relation between managerial stock ownership and the firm’s information environment. We focus on three dimensions of the information environment: total, public, and private information precision (Barron, Kim, Lim and Stevens 1998). Our results suggest that firms’ total and public information precision are positively related to managerial ownership. In contrast, there is no clear pattern in private information precision across different levels of managerial ownership. We also observe that managerial ownership has a greater impact on the firm’s public information environment after the implementation of Regulation Fair Disclosure, suggesting that the regulation was effective in improving the firms’ …


Managerial Ownership And Firms' Information Environment, Soongsoo Han, Tony Kang, Gerald Lobo Aug 2008

Managerial Ownership And Firms' Information Environment, Soongsoo Han, Tony Kang, Gerald Lobo

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We examine the relation between managerial stock ownership and the firm’s information environment. We focus on three dimensions of the information environment: total, public, and private information precision (Barron, Kim, Lim and Stevens 1998). Our results suggest that firms’ total and public information precision are positively related to managerial ownership. In contrast, there is no clear pattern in private information precision across different levels of managerial ownership. We also observe that managerial ownership has a greater impact on the firm’s public information environment after the implementation of Regulation Fair Disclosure, suggesting that the regulation was effective in improving the firms’ …


Cross-Country Analysis Of Auditor Specialization Premium: Effect Of Legal, Extra-Legal And Political Environments, Sirinidhi Bin, M. Hossain, Chee Yeow Lim Jul 2008

Cross-Country Analysis Of Auditor Specialization Premium: Effect Of Legal, Extra-Legal And Political Environments, Sirinidhi Bin, M. Hossain, Chee Yeow Lim

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Previous literature has provided mixed evidence of a premium in audit fee for industry-specialist auditors in US and other developed countries. In this cross-country study spanning twelve non-US countries, we provide evidence of such a premium in the international context, implying that specialist auditors provide a higher level of investor assurance than non-specialists. Further, we show that the average audit fee in countries with effective legal, extra-legal and political institutions is higher but the specialization premium is lower than in other countries. We interpret this finding as evidence that while effective institutions increase the demand for average level of audit …


The Association Between Excess Audit Fees And Audit Quality: A Us-Uk Comparison, Soongsoo Han, Tony Kang, Yong Keun Yoo Jun 2008

The Association Between Excess Audit Fees And Audit Quality: A Us-Uk Comparison, Soongsoo Han, Tony Kang, Yong Keun Yoo

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Prior studies that examine the association between excess audit fees and audit quality (measured by discretionary accruals) using US data fail to document a significant association. However, there is no convincing explanation for this result to date. In this study, we test a cancellation hypothesis, which suggests that the non-association might be due to the cancellation effect between the risk-effort effect and the bonding effect that excess fees capture. To the extent that excess fees capture the compensation for effort the auditor puts in for a risky client, which is not captured in the existing audit fee models (the risk-effort …


Governance Role Of Auditors And Legal Environment: Evidence From Corporate Disclosure Transparency, Sam Han, Tony Kang, Yong Keun Yoo May 2008

Governance Role Of Auditors And Legal Environment: Evidence From Corporate Disclosure Transparency, Sam Han, Tony Kang, Yong Keun Yoo

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

This study examines whether auditor size associates with disclosure transparency. Given thatprior studies generally focus on discretionary accruals to investigate the relation betweenauditor size and financial reporting quality, there is little evidence on how auditor size relates toother attributes of reporting quality. Further, studies that examine this associationinternationally produce mixed results as to how auditor size relates to reporting quality indifferent legal origins. Focusing on corporate disclosure transparency (i.e., disclosure levels), wefind that auditor size and disclosure level are positively associated across countries and that theassociation is stronger in code law regimes than in common law regimes. The latter findingsupports …


Too Little Or Too Much? Untangling The Relationship Between Corporate Philanthropy And Corporate Financial Performance, Heli Wang, Jaepil Choi, Jiatao Li Jan 2008

Too Little Or Too Much? Untangling The Relationship Between Corporate Philanthropy And Corporate Financial Performance, Heli Wang, Jaepil Choi, Jiatao Li

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

What is the relationship between corporate philanthropy and corporate financial performance? Some scholars argue that corporate philanthropy facilitates stakeholder cooperation and helps secure access to critical resources controlled by those stakeholders, suggesting that corporate philanthropy should be positively associated with corporate financial performance. In contrast, other scholars take a negative stance, suggesting that corporate philanthropy diverts valuable corporate resources and tends to inhibit corporate financial performance. Existing empirical studies have not found conclusive evidence on the corporate philanthropy-financial performance relationship. Integrating and extending existing perspectives, this study develops the argument that the relationship between corporate philanthropy and financial performance is …


Audit Partner Tenure, Audit Firm Tenure, And Discretionary Accruals: Does Long Auditor Tenure Impair Earnings Quality?, Chih-Ying Chen, Chan-Jane Lin, Yu-Chen Lin Jan 2008

Audit Partner Tenure, Audit Firm Tenure, And Discretionary Accruals: Does Long Auditor Tenure Impair Earnings Quality?, Chih-Ying Chen, Chan-Jane Lin, Yu-Chen Lin

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Mandatory audit partner relation has been adopted in some countries while audit firm rotation is still being debated in many places. Most of the extant research on the relation between auditor tenure and earnings quality provides evidence at the audit firm level. However, since audit firm tenure is correlated with partner tenure and audit firm rotation is more costly than partner rotation, it is important to know whether earnings quality is related to audit firm tenure, partner tenure, or both. We investigate this issue using a sample of Taiwanese companies for which the audit report must be signed by two …


The Association Between Audit Fees And Auditors' Opinions On Internal Control Weakness Under Section 404 Of The Sox, Jong-Hag Choi, Jeong-Bon Kim, Soo Young Kwon, Yoonseok Zang Dec 2007

The Association Between Audit Fees And Auditors' Opinions On Internal Control Weakness Under Section 404 Of The Sox, Jong-Hag Choi, Jeong-Bon Kim, Soo Young Kwon, Yoonseok Zang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

The Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) requires top management toestablish, maintain, and regularly evaluate the effectiveness of the internal controlover financial reporting (ICOFR), and obtain an auditor’s attestation. In this paper, weidentify 232 firms that received “Ineffective” audit opinion on the effectiveness ofICOFR due to one or more material weakness in internal control (WIC). We examinethe association between audit fees and the WIC for pre- and post-SOX period. Wefind that highly levered clients with the WIC paid greater audit fees even in the preSOXperiod and continuously paid the high fees in post-SOX period, whereas theloss-making clients with WIC paid …


Japanese Corporate Governance: Structural Change And Financial Performance, Asli M. Colpan, Toru Yoshikawa, Takashi Hikino, Hiroaki Miyoshi Dec 2007

Japanese Corporate Governance: Structural Change And Financial Performance, Asli M. Colpan, Toru Yoshikawa, Takashi Hikino, Hiroaki Miyoshi

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper analyzes institutional and legal changes related to corporate governance and their impact on financial performance in Japan since the second half of the 1990s. We attempt to address two issues systematically: (1) how much the governance reforms of Japanese firms transformed the conventional system of alliance capitalism and managerial control; and (2) what economic outcomes those governance changes have yielded. As the Commercial Code and other legal and institutional frameworks were revised, Japanese firms experienced shifts in terms of stock ownership, corporate control and managerial organizations. Our empirical results show that the influence of new ownership composition and …


Auditor Locality, Audit Quality And Audit Pricing, Jong-Hag Choi, Jeong-Bon Kim, Aini Qiu, Yoonseok Zang Aug 2007

Auditor Locality, Audit Quality And Audit Pricing, Jong-Hag Choi, Jeong-Bon Kim, Aini Qiu, Yoonseok Zang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

No abstract provided.


The Association Between Audit Quality And Abnormal Audit Fees, Jong-Hag Choi, Jeong-Bon Kim, Yoonseok Zang Aug 2006

The Association Between Audit Quality And Abnormal Audit Fees, Jong-Hag Choi, Jeong-Bon Kim, Yoonseok Zang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Using a sample of 9,820 firm-year observations over the 2000-2003 period, this paper examines whether, and how, audit quality proxied by unsigned discretionary accruals is associated with abnormal audit fees, i.e., actual audit fees in excess of expected, normal audit fees. The results of various regressions reveal that the association between the two is insignificant for the full sample, significantly positive for the subsample of clients with positive abnormal fees, and insignificantly negative for the subsample of clients with negative abnormal fees. The above results suggest that auditors’ incentives to compromise audit quality differ systematically for more profitable clients (with …


Client, Industry And Country Factors Affecting Choice Of Big N Industry Expert Auditors, Michael Ettredge, Soo Young Kwon, Chee Yeow Lim Sep 2005

Client, Industry And Country Factors Affecting Choice Of Big N Industry Expert Auditors, Michael Ettredge, Soo Young Kwon, Chee Yeow Lim

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

This study investigates client choice of industry specialist auditors from among the Big N (Big 4 or 5) in an international (non-U.S.) setting. We investigate client-specific, industry-level and country-level factors hypothesized to enhance or decrease Big N clients' demand for industry expertise. Using data for 29 countries and 14 broad industries from 1993-2005, we find that international client choice of industry specialist Big N auditors is positively associated with client size, client growth opportunities, and client capital intensity. The choice of industry specialists from among the Big N is more prevalent in countries where levels of investor protection, quality of …


Too Little Or Too Much? Reexamining The Relationship Between Corporate Charitable Giving And Corporate Financial Performance, Heli Wang, Jaepil Choi, Jiatao Li Aug 2005

Too Little Or Too Much? Reexamining The Relationship Between Corporate Charitable Giving And Corporate Financial Performance, Heli Wang, Jaepil Choi, Jiatao Li

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

How do corporate charitable contributions affect corporate financial performance? Instrumental stakeholder theory posits that corporate giving can lead to high levels of corporate financial performance through improved stakeholder relations. In contrast, agency theory suggests that corporate giving diverts valuable corporate resources and inhibits corporate financial performance. Extant empirical studies that have examined the relationship found inconclusive results. We depart from and extend the existing literature in two main aspects. First, building upon the instrumental stakeholder argument and agency perspective, we develop the argument that there is an inverse U-shaped relationship between corporate charitable giving and corporate financial performance. Second, we …