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Small And Mighty: An Analysis Of Foundational Aspects Of Small Family Firms And Their Corporate Social Responsibility, Ashlyn Crosby

Accounting Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis investigates the foundational aspects of small family firms to understand how their unique characteristics create differences among various types of firms. This review examines five key business components: operations, longevity, innovation, succession, and decision-making within these firms. The analysis in this report focuses on businesses that operate within the United States. When considering the American economic model, it is also vital to consider the corporate social responsibility (CSR) of small businesses and, due to its emergence as an integral aspect of contemporary business practices, the impact on society, the environment, and stakeholders. While CSR is frequently associated with …

What Impact Did The Tcja Tax Cuts Have On The Manufacturing Sector?, Ryan Parker

Accounting Undergraduate Honors Theses

Throughout this paper I will examine positive effects the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 had on the manufacturing sector. To do this I begin by outlining the key provisions in the TCJA that directly benefit the manufacturing sector. This includes the corporate tax rate reduction from 35 percent to 21 percent, the changes to the repatriation tax for foreign funds, and the treatment for capital assets. I then analyze key metrics including pre-tax income, income tax provision, dividends, changes in retained earnings, and spending on property plant and equipment. I will show the interactions between the increase in …

20 Years In The Making: Do Executive Compensation Clawback Policies Have Claws?, Brielle Mackinnon

Accounting Undergraduate Honors Theses

Compensation clawback policies allow shareholders to recoup any incentive compensation that executives earn based on reported financial performance metrics that are subsequently determined to be misstated. They were introduced to encourage top executives to take increased responsibility for the financial statements, and to give shareholders increased security when designing compensation contracts for executives. Clawback policies have existed in several different forms for the past 20 years. In this study, I review the history of clawbacks, and discuss the enforcement (or lack thereof) of such provisions by regulators and corporations. The goal of my study is to further the understanding of …

Enhancing Audit Quality Through Artificial Intelligence: An External Auditing Perspective, Jonah Mitan

Accounting Undergraduate Honors Theses

The evolving landscape of the audit profession has been significantly influenced by the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) and automation, marking a pivotal shift in audit methodologies, the auditors' roles, and the overarching quality of audits. This thesis delves into the breadth of AI's impact on the industry through a comprehensive review of academic literature, professional publications, and industry insights, highlighting the transformative effects of AI on audit processes. AI-driven tools, including machine learning, deep learning, and natural language processing can expedite laborious audit tasks, enhancing data analytics capabilities, and enabling more accurate risk assessment and fraud detection. AI technologies …

Faculty-Led International Business Seminar In Dublin, Ireland: An Account Of Personal Experiences And Reflection Of The Difference In Work-Life Balance Between Ireland And The United States Of America, Megan Hanigan

Accounting Undergraduate Honors Theses

The study abroad program consisted of four weeks of learning through cultural immersion, tours, classes, travel, and personal experiences. I was granted the opportunity to travel abroad to a foreign country with fellow University of Arkansas students. While abroad, I learned about international business affairs and participated in local Irish activities. The purpose of the study abroad trip was to provide the students in attendance with the chance to immerse in another culture while learning about the differences between office structures in America and Ireland.

How Did The Tax Cuts And Jobs Act Of 2017 Effect Small Businesses?, Jackson Pittman

Accounting Undergraduate Honors Theses

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017 marked a significant overhaul of the United States tax system, promising to stimulate economic growth and enhance the competitiveness of American businesses. Amidst its broad-reaching reforms, the TCJA introduced several provisions directly impacting small businesses, aiming to alleviate their tax burdens and foster entrepreneurial activity. This thesis endeavors to evaluate the multifaceted effects of the TCJA on small businesses, examining its implications for their financial performance, investment behavior, and overall economic contribution.

Preliminary findings suggest that the TCJA has produced a generally positive result for small businesses. On one hand, reduced …

2024 Brings Many New Opportunities For Your Clients’ Tax Savings, Michelle Freeman, Shelby Follis

ETSU Faculty Works

Excerpt:

With the April 15 tax filing season deadline behind us, there are several conversations that practitioners still need to have with their clients about new tax savings opportunities for 2024. Helping your clients take advantage of some of these new opportunities, as well as reminding them of tax savings options that are often forgotten, are value-added services you can provide that will keep them returning for your advice [...]

Financial Literacy And Ipo Underpricing, Xiaoran Jia, Kiridaran G. Kanagaretnam, Chee Yeow Lim, Gerald J. Lobo

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Using an international sample of IPO firms and two country-level measures of financial literacy, we find strong evidence that financial literacy is negatively associated with IPO underpricing. In cross-sectional analyses, we find that the effect of financial literacy in reducing IPO underpricing is more pronounced when the information environment is less transparent. Employing path analysis, we document that information friction, firm transparency, and stock market participation are mechanisms that mediate this relationship. Our study contributes to and extends the literature by providing strong evidence that citizens' financial literacy has an important and consistent influence on IPO underpricing.

The Effect Of Remote Work On Career Success In The Accounting Profession, Erin Bynum

Honors Theses

This study analyzed the results of career success assessments of hypothetical public accountants working remotely and in a traditional office setting to determine if remote work affects assessments by partners, managers, and staff accountants. Subjects were randomly assigned resumes that included indications of either remote work or traditional in-office work. Resumes were otherwise identical. After an initial assessment of an assigned hypothetical accountant, subjects were asked to recommend activities that would increase the likelihood of future career success. Subjects were then told that the hypothetical accountant engaged in the recommended activity and were provided a description of a high or …

Study On The Influencing Factors And Performance Effects Of Donation Behavior Of Chinese Small And Medium-Sized Enterprises, Ling Zhou

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Since the implementation of the reform and opening-up policy, in tandem with the continuous evolution of the Chinese economy and society, there has been a mounting demand for enterprises to shoulder and fulfill social responsibilities. Corporate social donations have emerged as a crucial avenue for enterprises to discharge their societal duties. These donations support public welfare in education and healthcare, enhance enterprise image and brand value, foster consumer trust, and drive sustainable development and innovation.

Introduced in the 1990s in China, corporate social responsibility rapidly advanced, yet research on SMEs’ social donations remains scarce. Despite their economic significance, SMEs face …

Staggered Boards And Human Capital Disclosure, Xue Yang

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This article examines the effects of staggered boards on human capital management (HCM) disclosure quality. I find that firms with staggered boards exhibit significantly better HCM disclosure scores than non-staggered boards. Additionally, firms that transition from staggered boards to non-staggered boards are shown to experience significant decreases in their HCM disclosure scores. These results are robust to the exclusion of firms that switch to or from staggered boards to non-staggered boards, propensity score matching, and alternative disclosure quality measures. While various cross-sections and the usefulness of HCM disclosure information for analyst forecasts are explored, the results were not significant.

Fundamental Reporting Differences In Nonprofit Operating Models, Angelica G. Castro

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Not all nonprofit organizations rely on donations to achieve their social mission. Some nonprofit organizations, which Dart (2004) classifies as social enterprises, generate revenue through commercial transactions. This study identifies significant operating, monitoring, and efficiency differences between traditional fundraisers and social enterprises. Using panel data and fixed effects regressions, I find that social enterprises report more revenue persistence and better program ratios - a common metric for evaluating nonprofit performance - than traditional fundraisers. I also find that social enterprises are less likely to audit their financial statements than traditional fundraisers. Furthermore, when evaluating operating efficiency, social enterprises appear to …

Religiosity And Executive Compensation Tournaments, Toufiq Nazrul

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This paper examines the effect that local religiosity has on executive compensation tournaments. The main finding suggests that a higher degree of local religiosity significantly reduces the magnitude of executive compensation tournaments. Subsample analyses involving the majority religious group of Christianity show that a higher local presence of Protestants relative to Catholics and other non-religious population heightens the negative effect of community-level religiosity on the magnitude of executive compensation tournaments. Additional subsample analyses involving the minority religious denominations also show that the effect of overall community religiosity is not solely driven by the different sects within the Christian denomination. Minority …

Jp Morgan Chase Strategic Analysis, Carson Swartzbaugh

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

JP Morgan Chase is an American financial institution that touches all sides of the financial sector, including commercial banking, consumer banking, investment banking, and asset management, to name a few. JP Morgan Chase is the largest American Bank and a global leader in the financial industry. A PESTEL analysis of JP Morgan Chase and the financial sector of the United States will give an overall view of the industry while providing critical insight into the opportunities and challenges faced by JP Morgan Chase and its competitors. Additionally, Porter’s Five Forces will focus on the competitive environment in which JP Morgan …

The Governance Of Director Compensation, Lily Fang, Sterling Huang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

The average total compensation of directors in U.S.-listed companies was $342,030 in 2020, 5.06 times the median household income. Directors set their own pay, giving rise to potential self-dealing. We argue and document that in the presence of self-dealing, external mechanisms such as legal standards act as effective means of governance. Following a landmark Delaware court ruling that subjected director pay to a more stringent legal standard, Delaware-incorporated firms reduced director compensation relative to non-Delaware firms and experienced positive and non-transient stock price reactions. Our results indicate that proper governance of director compensation enhances firm value.

Research On The Impact Of Ai Technology Adoption On Organizational Resilience Of Service Enterprises, Jianlin Deng

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

In a time of frequent global economic fluctuations, understanding how service enterprises can sustain stability amid fluctuating environments, and even thrive during crises, has become a significant research focus within the current economic context. Advancements in the digital economy provide service enterprises with new digital technology support, leading to their reduced operational costs and heightened efficiency. Among them, artificial intelligence (AI) technology is highly praised by service enterprises. AI technology is extensively integrated into service enterprises’ daily operations and management decision-making. However, limited research has been conducted on how AI technology can assist these enterprises in navigating external environmental disruptions. …

Paying To Reduce Disparity: Financially Incentivizing Workforce Diversity And Its Effects On Managers’ Promotion Decisions And Employees’ Effort, Bret S. Sheeley

College of Business: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Disparities in employee representation persist in higher-level organizational positions despite recent attention to workforce diversity and its associated benefits. In response, companies have begun integrating diversity initiatives with varying degrees of specificity (hereafter, “initiative specificity”) into their managers’ compensation packages to increase underrepresented employees’ representation in higher-level organizational positions. This study uses an experiment to examine how offering managers financial incentives to accomplish diversity initiatives (hereafter, “diversity incentives”) and initiative specificity interact to influence managers’ promotion decisions and employees’ effort choices in a promotion setting.

The results suggest that as underrepresented employees’ pre-promotion efforts increase relative to overrepresented employees’ efforts, …

Classifying Forecasts, Michael S. Drake, James R. Moon Jr., James D. Warren

Faculty Publications

We employ a novel machine learning technique to classify analysts’ forecast revisions into five types based on how the revision weighs publicly available signals. We label these forecast types as quant, sundry, contrarian, herder, and independent forecasts. Our tests reveal that a greater diversity of forecast types within the consensus is associated with increased consensus dispersion and improved consensus accuracy. Additionally, consensus diversity is associated with an improved information environment for firms, as reflected in reduced earnings announcement information asymmetry and volatility, higher earnings response coefficients, and faster price formation. Our study sheds light on how analysts revise their forecasts …

Essays In Accounting And Financial Institutions, Hanmeng Wang

Olin Business School Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Financial institutions, e.g., mutual funds and banks, are important entities in the capital markets. They make decisions based on accounting information. Further, their activities influence information production on the firm side, because interests are aligned between institutional investors and firms either through contracting or through market price pressure. Within this context, my dissertation focuses on the interactions between financial institutions and firms. In Chapter 1, I study how institutional investors’ myopia affects firms’ voluntary disclosures. This research question is motivated by the concurrent debate in accounting theory about whether myopia leads to more or less voluntary disclosures. I explore the …

The Implications Of Artificial Intelligence On Junior Auditors, Kaye Ragasajo

Senior Honors Theses

The aim of this paper is to explore the evolving intersection of financial statement auditing and artificial intelligence (AI). A timeline of AI adoption in auditing is traced, detailing its impact on audit processes and the contemporary role of junior auditors. Challenges faced by junior auditors are identified, with an emphasis on the potential benefits and ethical concerns surrounding AI integration. Recommendations for adapting to AI's emergence and addressing challenges are provided. The analysis underscores the need for industry-wide collaboration, regulatory adjustments, and the cultivation of digital ethics. As AI continues to reshape auditing, future trends expected within the profession …

The Tax Cuts And Jobs Act And The Increase Of Stock Buybacks, Ruben Colon

Honors Theses

In 2017, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) decreased the corporate tax rate from thirty-five (35) percent to twenty-one (21) percent. In addition, the TCJA imposed a one-time tax on liquid and fixed assets held off-shore at fifteen-point five (15.5) percent and eight (8) percent, respectively, paid over eight (8) years, by awarding essentially an interest-free loan, creating an incentive for corporations in the United States to repatriate their offshore cash. This research investigates how the TCJA impacted corporate government tax revenue (CGTR), how corporations used the cash gained from the corporate tax rate decrease, whether the decrease in …

Presentation Format And Disclosure Overload: Evidence From The Public Sector, Melissa Hicks

Dissertations

Disclosure overload is a condition that occurs in some users of financial statement disclosures that may result in adverse effects, such as a lack of comprehension of information and increased time for cognitive processing. Disclosure overload research has focused primarily on decision quality and accuracy when using non-mandatory disclosures, largely excluding consideration of mandatory financial statement disclosures. This study examined mandatory financial statement disclosures through the lens of cognitive fit theory using an experimental research design. Cognitive fit theory was tested across different disclosure formats and at varying levels of financial accounting literacy to measure the effect on overload symptoms. …

Exploring Entrepreneurial Intention And Subjective Beliefs: A Comparative Analysis Of General Education Schools And Commercial Schools, Julia Riess, Bettina Fuhrmann, Gerhard Geissler

International Journal for Business Education

This study examines the entrepreneurial intentions of Austrian secondary school students, specifically comparing students from commercial schools with those from general education schools. We analyzed 2,329 data sets and found that subjective beliefs, primarily behavioral and control beliefs, significantly influence entrepreneurial intentions. In addition, demographic factors such as gender, language, acquaintance with entrepreneurs, and school type play a significant role in explaining the variance in entrepreneurial intentions.

Our detailed analysis shows that students from commercial schools have stronger entrepreneurial intentions and subjective beliefs. Particularly notable are the differences in behavioral beliefs, where students from commercial schools find all aspects of …

The Impact Of Recent Accounting Exam Scandals On Students' Perceptions Of The Accounting Profession Versus Individual Firms, Emily Blondin

Honors Projects in Accounting

Scandals regarding major accounting firms have not been uncommon throughout the twenty-first century; however, advancing technology and Certified Public Accountant (CPA) exam restructuring have created a new era of significant accounting scandals. This research paper analyzes the effects of the 2022 Ernst & Young LLC (EY) exam scandal on the perceptions of the accounting profession for the future workforce. Data collected explored undergraduate and graduate students’ perceptions of both the accounting profession and EY before and after reading about the scandal. This examination investigates whether the American Institute of Certified Professional Accountants’ (AICPA) Code of Professional Conduct (Code) holds true, …

The Effect Of Massage Therapy On Test Anxiety Experienced By Traditional-Aged Undergraduate Business Students, Jorge A. Pazmiño

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Capstones

Test anxiety impacts traditional-aged undergraduate business students and influences their academic performance and overall well-being. This study explored the efficacy of massage therapy (MT) as a means of mitigating test anxiety within this demographic. Building on existing literature that addresses the consequences of anxiety and alternative coping mechanisms, this research study focused on MT as a potential strategy for test anxiety management. The study employed the Adult Manifest Anxiety Scale–College Version (AMAS-C) to gather data from participants at a private liberal arts institution in the East South-Central region of the United States. An experimental group received an MT intervention, while …

Strategies For Maintaining The Financial Viability Of Behavioral Health Programs, Antonia Alford

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

No abstract provided.

Biases Within Internal Managerial Reports: The Trickle-Down Effect, Elizabeth Marses

Honors Projects in Accounting

Internal managerial reports are constantly utilized by managers within an organization to make decisions on behalf of the company. When biases become present within these reports, a trickle-down effect also becomes present being that biases have the power to impact one’s decisions and alter the future of a company. This thesis project presents literature that supports this idea and presents one of the more common causes of biases within internal managerial reports, subjective performance evaluations. This project empirically tests whether biased reports alter decision making by presenting an investment type scenario to respondents in both a neutral and biased tone. …

Do Eastern Religious Traditions Stifle Or Encourage Corporate Innovation? Evidence From China, Lihong Liang, Siyi Liu, Chunqiu Zhang

Accounting - All Scholarship

Although the relationship between Western religiosity and innovation is widely investigated, the effect of Eastern religious traditions on corporate innovation remains unexplored. Using a sample of firms listed in Chinese A-share stock exchanges, we find that firms registered in areas with stronger Eastern religious traditions (Buddhism and Taoism) are generally more innovative than firms registered in areas with weaker Eastern religious traditions. This result suggests that Eastern religiosity promotes rather than stifles corporate innovation. We find additional evidence suggesting that Eastern religiosity promotes corporate innovation mainly through the following three channels: (1) fostering nonexclusivity and openness to science and innovation, …

Reduced Audit Quality Acts: A Review And Organizational Model, Troy A. Hyatt, Douglas F. Prawitt, Kyle M. Stubbs

Accountancy Faculty Publications and Presentations

With increasing regulatory focus on improving audit quality, research on drivers of audit quality remains important to academics, professionals and regulators. One compelling branch of this research focuses on auditors' intentional actions that reduce audit quality, often referred to in the literature as reduced audit quality acts (RAQAs). This paper provides a review and synthesis of the RAQA literature, including a unifying definition for RAQAs and a model for organizing past and future RAQA research. With the model, we explore antecedents to RAQAs as well as the discovery of, responses to and subsequent consequences of RAQAs. We also discuss potential …

Money Laundering In The United States: A Review Of Current Regulations And Threats, Grace Hutchinson

Senior Honors Theses

Money laundering is the act of hiding illegally obtained money in the financial system. There are three stages of money laundering: placing, layering, and integration. In the United States, the Bank Secrecy Act, monitored by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), requires companies to establish an anti-money laundering (AML) compliance program and to exercise customer due diligence as preventative measures. The US government can detect money laundering through Suspicious Activity Reports, Currency Transaction Reports, and whistleblower tips. However, AML threats and vulnerabilities such as Professional Money Launderers, cryptocurrency, and the global art market allow criminals to continue to launder money …