Business Commons^™

The Market At Work, Patrick Flynn

Honors Projects

I believe my project will be the best project for me using both of my majors. It is a great way for me to take some of the knowledge I learned here at BGSU and apply it to a real life scenario I could pursue in future years. Investing at a young age is very important to help raise a lot of money for my retirement, something that I am learning right now in class. People coming out of college usually aren’t very concerned with investing at such a young age. I want to take advantage of this opportunity that …

Keeping Glass Recycling Financially Sustainable: A Cost - Benefit Analysis, Tia Newlove

Honors Projects

Previous research has shown the value that recycled glass, cullet, has in glass container production, road construction and fiberglass production. This cost - benefit analysis explores the value chain of cullet to glass container manufacturers. Glass container manufacturers have a tradeoff between the economic limitations and the environmental benefits of using cullet in the manufacturing process. The cost of cullet is greatly impacted by the location of recycled glass processors relative to the location of glass container manufacturing plants. Strategic investment by glass container manufacturers into maintaining the supply of cullet is essential as recycling programs evolve in the United …

The Effects Of Repealing The Estate Tax And Reducing The Corporate Tax Rate Coupled With A Repatriation Act, Trenton Vanderlende

Honors Theses

Given that significant U.S. federal tax reform is taking place for the first time in over 30 years, this paper examines how changing specific tax provisions may affect the average individual taxpayer as well as the wealthiest 1% of Americans. Three potential federal tax law changes are addressed: repealing the estate tax, reducing the corporate statutory income tax rate, and offering a repatriation holiday for remitting the foreign profits earned by U.S. businesses. These changes are analyzed using publicly available data from U.S. Congressional hearings, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Based on this …

Continuing Professional Education For Licensed Accountants In Tennessee, Brian J. Lucas

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Accounting is a professional occupation that is continually evolving and requires a dedication to continuing education to meet the legal demands of new regulations and to maintain professional competency. Continuing Professional Education (CPE) is required by state boards for certified public accountants (CPA) to meet these requirements and to maintain professional competence. CPAs are responsible for complying with all applicable CPE requirements, rules, and regulations of state boards of accountancy, as well as those of other professional organizations.

The purpose of this study was to determine the opinions of CPAs about the current requirements for CPE and to determine their …

The Effect Of Corporate Social Responsibility Investment And Disclosure On Cooperation In Business Collaborations, Sukari Farrington

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

I experimentally examine whether disclosure of corporate social responsibility (CSR) investment facilitates cooperation in business collaborations. Business collaborations are essential for firms to maintain their competitive advantage. However, half of all ventures fail. A major reason for this high failure rate is a lack of cooperation among business collaboration partners, known as relational risk. Findings suggest that CSR disclosure leads to greater CSR investment, but does not result in an overall higher level of cooperation. However, CSR disclosure moderates the link between CSR investment and cooperation. When CSR investment is disclosed, cooperation is highest when both managers invest in CSR. …

The Economic Costs To Audit Firms Of Ethical Violations And The Resulting Pcaob Disciplinary Orders, Stephanie Ann Merrell

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This paper examines whether ethical violations committed by an audit partner and the public release of the resulting PCAOB disciplinary order affects the associated audit firms’ switching risk, audit fees and audit quality relative to other comparable audit firms. I examine the effects of ethical violations on audit firms affiliated with a sanctioned auditor (also referred to as affiliated audit firm or sanctioned auditor) at the city (office), MSA, state, regional, and national (firm) level in order to determine if there is a spill-over effect. My findings suggest that at no level in my analysis did the public disclosure of …

Fees, Going Concern Opinions And Auditor Dismissals: An Empirical Assessment, Frances Ann Stott

Doctor of Business Administration Dissertations

Auditors issue going concern modified opinions when there is substantial doubt about the company’s ability to continue its operations into the foreseeable future. Companies frequently respond to this type of audit opinion by changing auditors. Critics, such as the SEC, suggest that this may be done in order to opinion shop (i.e., find an auditor who is likely to issue a more favorable unqualified opinion). However, prior research has indicated that opinion shopping may not be effective. Since firms receiving a going concern modified opinion are clearly under significant financial distress, the effect a change in auditor has on subsequent …

The Fall Of Enron And The Creation Of The Sarbanes-Oxley Act Of 2002, Megan Connell

HON499 projects

The goal of this research paper is to analyze accounting fraud and its characteristics, explore the collapse of Enron and what happened because of it, and how the relationship between an auditor and its client has changed because of the creation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. Learning about some of the positives and negatives of SOX will help the progression of the research into how the passing of SOX has changed over 15 years later. After discussing these topics, a personal opinion on the fall of Enron, if one group is more at fault than another, and how regulation …

Have We Overlooked The Benefits Of Nas, James C. Rich

Doctor of Business Administration Dissertations

Are nonaudit services (NAS) good or bad? Regulators, investors, and the professional accounting community have intensely debated this question for the last five decades. While seemingly a simple question, the abundance of conflicting literature surrounding this topic has indicated that the answer is anything but simple. The professional accounting community maintains that joint provision of the audit engagement and NAS results in a more in-depth knowledge base that positively impacts the auditor/client relationship. Regulators and investors have taken an opposing view by arguing that NAS lead auditors to compromise their independence. While an extensive body of literature has sought to …

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 …

The Association Between Audit Committee Overboarding, Audit Committee Responses To Increased Workloads, And Financial Reporting Quality After Sox, John Kyle Castonguay

Doctoral Dissertations

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) added a multitude of financial oversight responsibilities to the audit committee of public companies. These responsibilities increased the amount of time each audit committee member needed to devote to each committee served, leading to concerns amongst regulators and the investing community that audit committees that were overboarded and serving on multiple other board seats would be unable to effectively monitor the companies they represented. I find that these concerns are undue. More overboarded audit committees have adequately adjusted to their increased workloads in the decade since SOX to such a degree that they have lower misstatement …

Does Industry-Level Information Affect Auditors’ Assessment Of Client-Level Risk?, David Rosser

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates auditors’ consideration of industry-level information in their assessment of client-level risk. Auditing standards suggest that industry-level information is likely to be important in the assessment of client-level risk, but the standards provide few specifics about how auditors should use industry-level information in the risk assessment process. I argue that industry norms serve as a benchmark for evaluating the risk of the client and that deviations from industry norms could indicate increased audit risk. I create measures that capture the extent to which clients deviate from industry norms using proxies for client-level risk factors. In my primary tests, …

Navigating The Auditor-Client Relationship During Sensitive Events: Insight On Audit Firm Practices And An Experimental Study, Mary Dodgson

Doctoral Dissertations

Maintaining a positive auditor-client relationship is critical for audit firms, particularly during sensitive events. For instance, audit firms state in transparency reports that they take steps to minimize disruption during audit partner rotations, yet it is unclear what these actions entail or the potential effects of these actions on auditor independence and audit quality. I use multiple methods to provide insight into these practices and their related effects. First, I interview 20 audit partners to learn about the process by which audit firms manage the auditor-client relationship during sensitive partner rotation events. Interviewees describe how audit firms identify appropriate partner …

The Impact Of Forecast Roundness, Forecast Uncertainty, And Managers’ Language On Investors’ Judgments, Jessica Osgood

Doctoral Dissertations

Management forecasts can have varying degrees of roundness, including sharp (e.g., a sales growth forecast of 9.73% or 10.27%), explicitly round (e.g., 10.00%), and rounded (e.g., 10%). Prior archival research indicates investors rely less upon round than sharp forecasts (Bamber, Hui, and Yeung 2010), yet it is unclear why this occurs or how contextual features of earnings forecasts moderate this effect. Moreover, this prior research has not distinguished between the effects of explicitly round versus rounded estimates. I provide evidence that the impact of forecast roundness on willingness to invest depends upon forecast uncertainty. That is, rounded sales forecasts enhance …

Do Tax Directors Face Consequences From Tax Avoidance?, Liora Y. Schulman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

I examine the association between tax avoidance and tax director turnover. Specifically, I hand collect the names of tax directors and explore whether tax directors face consequences from making tax avoidance decisions. This unique dataset allows me to identify the tax director, who is directly responsible for taxes, which are one of the most significant accounts, and who prior literature has largely ignored due to a lack of availability of data. I find evidence that the tax director is more likely to face consequences, as measured by turnover, when their firm’s effective tax rate is above their industry median’s effective …

Illegal Insider Trading, Christian Presto

Economic Crime Forensics Capstones

According to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission illegal insider trading is defined as "buying or selling a security, in breach of a fiduciary duty or other relationship of trust and confidence, while in possession of material, nonpublic information about the security. Insider trading violations may also include "tipping" such information, securities trading by the person "tipped," and securities trading by those who misappropriate such information." (US Securities and Exchange Commission, 2013). As time progresses individuals and companies are in need of the most current information in order to execute trading strategies. Some individuals and organizations are willing to pay …

Hawala: How Extralegal Compliance Helps Bank The Unbanked, Morgan Henry

Economic Crime Forensics Capstones

Informal value transfer systems (IVTS') predate not only traditional banking systems, but the entire Western European civilization as well. Used as a reliable method to transfer value from one geographic region to another through a close-knit network of trusted individuals, IVTS' serve as an invaluable facilitator for the movement of billions of dollars across international borders without ever leaving a paper trail. The term “hawala”, which is Arabic for “transfer” or “trust”, is an IVTS that serves as a parallel banking system for those wishing to send value (often in the form of currency) overseas. Hawala has historically thrived as …

General Counsel Characteristics And Financial Reporting Quality, John R. Sparger

Doctor of Business Administration Dissertations

The general counsel (GC) plays a key role in a firm’s financial reporting system as a participant and governance monitor. As a participant in various disclosure and filing processes and advisor in transactional activities reflected in the firm’s reported results, the GC directly influences a firm’s reported results and disclosures. As a governance monitor, the GC holds a position of public trust and duty to investors based on various laws, rulings and regulations. Accordingly, accounting literature has begun to examine the role of the GC in financial reporting quality. The results of this research have produced conflicting results which indicate …

The Expanded Auditor's Report: A Case Study From The United Kingdom, Maria Jones

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

This paper examines whether or not the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board should adopt new standards similar to those recently adopted in the United Kingdom by performing a qualitative analysis of the information provided in the expanded auditor’s reports of four major UK grocery store chains both prior to and after the adoption of the new standard. In my analysis I find that the external auditor is frequently reporting on key audit matters and risks that are already being reported by management, and therefore already known to investors, suggesting little to no added value in the expanded auditor’s report.

Implicit Taxes In Imperfect Markets, Hannah Elizabeth Smith

Doctoral Dissertations

Implicit taxes are defined as the pre-tax rate of return disadvantage earned on an investment that is taxed preferentially. Implicit tax theory predicts that implicit taxes will fully offset any benefit from preferential tax treatment leading to no benefit from lower explicit taxes; however, implicit tax theory assumes perfect market competition. This paper relaxes the assumption of perfect market competition and finds that firms in industries with lower competition bear lower implicit taxes, and firms in industries with higher competition bear higher implicit taxes. These findings are consistent with firms in industries with less competition having price setting power. Further, …

The Rise Of Artificial Intelligence: An Analysis On The Future Of Accountancy, Cara Jaslove

Psychology

The concern for the replacement of accountants with an artificial intelligence system is a current and pressing issue. As new certified public accountants enter the field, they must adapt to the rapid changes and innovations of today. This thesis will exam ine and analyze how the accounting industry has been impacted by artificial intelligence, as well as potential threats to new hires. Ultimately, accountants should not fear replacement, but rather must tailor their abilities to the newest technologies. Ove rall, artificial intelligence will add value to the accounting industry, as certified public accountants can shift their attention from monotonous tasks …

Exploring The Significant Differences Between Chinese And U.S. Corporations, Tianqi Liao

Accounting

This thesis explores the significant differences between a Chinese corporation and an American corporation. Their corporate structures, governance, compensation packages, shareholder rights, information transparency, types of disclosure, and government support were assessed. The two similar public companies which were selected included Suning Commerce Group Co., Ltd., the Chinese firm and Best Buy Co., Inc. the American firm. The corporations were compared and contrasted and the advantages and disadvantages of each type of system were explored. A wide range of differences were discovered including the fact that the Chinese firm has two governing boards (Board of Directors and Supervisory Committee) and …

Equity Sell Disciplines Across The Style Box, Robert S. Krisch

Accounting

This study examines the use of four major equity sell disciplines across the equity style box. Specifically, large-cap and small-cap securities are tested to see which of the four sell disciplines consistently produces the best portfolio returns. Data from the Plan Sponsor Network (PSN) are used to calculate each portfolio’s benchmark-adjusted return (BAR), information ratio, and Sharpe ratio. These ratios are used to evaluate sell discipline strategy based on each portfolio’s market capitalization and style focus. Three regressions are run for each BAR, information ratio and Sharpe ratio. The analysis is repeated for all four corners of the style box. …

The Internal Revenue Code: A Burden For Taxpayers Or An Instrument For Social Change?, Heather N. Murray

Honors Theses

Social engineering in the tax code has been evident from the beginning of the U.S. tax history. Today, it is as much as ever a part of the fabric of the tax codification, but there is very little research that investigates 1) how social engineering plays a role in the creation of new tax law, and 2) whether tax law is effective in altering taxpayer behavior. This paper streamlines the history of social engineering in the most popular revenue-reducing measures and analyzes how they've affected the U.S. taxpayer, with notes on future policy implications.

The Entrepreneurial Philanthropist: Can It B?, Abby M. Kinnard

Honors Theses

The corporate culture is constantly shifting and with change comes the need to reexamine the priorities of a company. Social responsibility is no optional for companies and with the help of Benefit Corporations and B Corps the Entrepreneurial Philanthropist can be.

Corporate Political Activity, Ceo Hubris, And Earnings Management, Abbey Rozanski

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Ifrs In Higher Education: An Exploratory Study, Joshua A. Kalifeh

Honors Theses

Globalization of capital markets and technological advances enhancing global communications has led to the need for a set of international accounting standards. Comparability among financial statements prepared by numerous accounting standards depending upon the regulations of the country in which these statements are prepared is seriously impaired. Accordingly, serious convergence efforts have been made for the last few decades. Accordingly, higher education in the United States must reflect these changes in accounting curriculum available to students entering this environment. This exploratory study presents evidence that progress is being made in institutions. The progress, however, is not spread equally among the …

How Healthcare Accounting Adapts To Lean Practices, Caitlin R. Duke

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Healthcare has recently begun a push towards more lean practices and management. Healthcare accounting, in an effort to reflect business practices, must change to accurately reflect reality. This research seeks to explore how healthcare providers improve their accounting systems to keep up with an ever-changing lean environment. By examining both healthcare and accounting literature, this comprehensive literature review seeks to answer the question, “How does healthcare accounting adapt to lean philosophies?”.

The Impact Of Increased Tax Return Reporting On Financial Statement Tax Disclosure Quality: Evidence From Irs Schedule Utp, Michelle Kim Harding

Doctoral Dissertations

This study uses the 2010 implementation of IRS Schedule UTP (Uncertain Tax Position) to examine the impact of additional tax return reporting on financial statement tax disclosure quality. Using a hand-collected sample, I find that firms reduce the quality of their Financial Accounting Standards Board Interpretation No. 48 (FIN 48) disclosures for Accounting for Uncertainty in Income Taxes in response to increased proprietary costs of disclosure following the adoption of IRS Schedule UTP. Standard setters intended FIN 48 disclosures to benefit investors. Contrary to this intended outcome, I find that as tax return reporting increases, firms reduce discretionary FIN 48 …

Bank Specific Determinants Of Profitability In Turkish Banks, Ahmet Karakuza

Master's Theses

This paper examines the profitability of Turkish commercial banks during the period 2005 – 2014. We use bank – specific determinants to predict the following years’ profitability measured by return on assets (ROA). Among the performance measures, the amount of net interest income as a proportion of total operating income is positive related to profitability. It remains important for banks to loan money out at a rate higher than their cost of capital. Non-interest income as a proportion of total assets is strongly positively related to profitability. Consumer loans as a proportion of total loans is negatively related to profitability. …