Business Commons^™

Audit Report Timeliness In Local Governments: An Observation Of North Carolina Governmental Units’ Response To State-Imposed Deadlines And Consequences, Amber N. Daniels

Doctor of Business Administration Dissertations

To provide citizens with transparent financial information regarding the health of their respective districts, local government unit leaders must furnish governmental audit reports in a timely manner. Further, for management to effectively implement auditor suggestions for improvements, leaders must have accessibility to timely audited information. Many governmental units in the state of North Carolina have demonstrated significant lags in reporting timeliness and often miss state-mandated deadlines. Therefore, this research utilized ordinary least-squares regression to estimate the effects the variables representing report message and managerial competency, accountability, and audit environment groups had on the time required for each unit to file …

Essays In Mutual Funds, Aadhaar Verma

Doctor of Business Administration Dissertations

This dissertation examines mutual fund portfolio formation, the economic forces that determine how fund managers construct their portfolios, and the market effects of fund portfolio disclosures.

In the first chapter of my dissertation, I study how funds modify their portfolios around disclosure dates in order to cater to their investors’ non-financial preferences. Using social norms and investor boycotts surrounding tobacco and firearm sectors as a proxy for non-financial preferences, I find that these stocks experience significant negative returns on portfolio disclosure dates and significant positive returns on the day after the portfolio disclosure. I also find that funds accelerate their …

Losing Altitude: The Impact Of Asc 842: Leases On The Reported Liquidity Of Large U.S. Airlines, Philip Slater

Doctor of Business Administration Dissertations

The airline industry in the United States represents fertile ground for research due to its susceptibility to extraneous demand shocks such as fuel price hikes, terrorist attacks, and global pandemics coupled with high leverage and high reliance on leasing. Accounting Standards Codification (ASC) 842: Leases became effective January 1^st, 2019, requiring capitalization of the majority of leased assets. This study was motivated by how the act may have affected both reported airline liquidity and attempts to restructure leases to avoid capitalization, which may provide an initial impact. The objective of this study was to examine whether passage of …

Is A Pension Fund's Mix Of Fair Value Investments, Audit Type, And Audit Quality Associated With The Firm's Credit Rating?, Trevor England

Doctor of Business Administration Dissertations

There has been a proliferation of alternative investment holdings by defined benefit pension plans during the 21^st century. While holdings of alternative investments may advantage pension plans and their sponsoring firms through diversification and/or less volatile returns, they may also present valuation problems because underlying investments in opaquely valued (or marked-to-model) securities contain larger estimation error and uncertainty. Such valuation problems may concern credit reporting agencies because the sponsoring firm’s pension plan liability is uncertain. This problem is exacerbated through agency relationships within pension plans that enable executives and investment managers to engage in opportunistic financial reporting of fair …

Investigating Information Security Policy Characteristics: Do Quality, Enforcement And Compliance Reduce Organizational Fraud?, Dennis T. Brown

Doctor of Business Administration Dissertations

Organizational fraud, a deceitful practice or willful device resorted to with intent to deprive another of his right, or in some manner to do harm or injury, is a growing global concern. While cyberattacks from the outside are more expected, the internal security threat from trusted insiders is responsible for significantly more information compromise than external threats. Information systems make life easier but are increasingly used by employees to perpetrate fraudulent activities. For example, a trusted insider employee with access to sensitive customer databases could misappropriate information and sell it to a competitor for personal gain. These type losses are …

Data Analytics In An Audit: Examining Fraud Risk And Audit Quality, Sondra Smith

Doctor of Business Administration Dissertations

ABSTRACT

DATA ANALYTICS IN AN AUDIT: EXAMINING FRAUD RISK AND

AUDIT QUALITY

by

Sondra Smith

This study is comprised of two papers which examine, through interviews and an experiment, the current practices of data analytics of CPA firms, whether and how fraud risk impacts the usage of data analytics in an audit, and the effect data analytics has on the efficiency and effectiveness of an audit. The implementation of data analytics in an audit is relatively new, and there is not a good understanding of how it is currently being used in practice. Although historically the auditing profession has been …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Are Out-Of-Period Adjustments A Type Of Stealth Restatement? An Examination Of Non-Audit Services, Clawback Provisions, And Out-Of-Period Adjustments, Cori Oliver Crews

Doctor of Business Administration Dissertations

Over the last decade, out-of-period adjustments (OOPAs) have risen in popularity in direct contrast to the simultaneous decreasing trend in restatements. This could indicate an improvement in financial reporting quality or could indicate the use of a type of stealth restatement for opportunistic purposes. These less prominent restatements are more likely to go undetected and would be an apt way to perpetuate opportunistic disclosure and to mitigate the likelihood of unfavorable market reactions.

The purpose of this study is to investigate (1) the association between non-audit services (NAS) and OOPAs, (2) the association between clawback provisions and OOPAs, and (3) …

Merger And Acquisition Financial Reporting Outcomes: An Examination Of Non-Audit Fees And The Impact On Auditor Independence, Jimmy Carmenate

Doctor of Business Administration Dissertations

For over 40 years, the issue of auditors providing both auditing and non-audit services (NAS) to their audit-clients continues to be at the forefront of concerns to regulators, investors, and academics. The literature primarily provides two competing effects of NAS on financial reporting quality. The first being the compromise on auditor independence and the other on the benefits attained from knowledge spillover. Though these competing effects have been studied in various contexts, there has been little to no research on the association between NAS and the outcomes from mergers and acquisitions (M&A) to infer whether NAS lessens the threat to …

Enterprise Risk Management: The Transformation Of Board-Level Engagement As Evidenced By Disclosure, Timothy L. Baker

Doctor of Business Administration Dissertations

Utilizing available information about ERM practices within organizations disclosed by boards of directors in annual proxy statements filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), this study expands the understanding of the value of disclosure of board-level ERM oversight information in proxy statements. The study first creates a board-level ERM engagement index (BODERMX) to identify aspects of board engagement in the ERM efforts disclosed by companies. Development of this index will present opportunities to future researchers to conduct empirical ERM-related research as information about firms’ ERM is costly to obtain. The study next examines associations between the extent of …

Audit Firm Rotation, Audit Firm Tenure, And Audit Committee Support In Accounting Disputes, Janice E. Rummell

Doctor of Business Administration Dissertations

Since the late 1990s, U.S. regulators have sought to increase auditors’ independence from management and to reduce the presumed detrimental effects of economic bonding on public company financial reporting. Implementation of mandatory audit firm rotation that limits auditor tenure to reduce potential independence impairment has been discussed in the U.S. and other jurisdictions, and adopted in some non-U.S. jurisdictions. While audit firm rotation is expected to increase auditor independence, the opponents of mandatory rotation cite decreasing auditor expertise as a significant counter-argument. This independence/expertise trade-off is integral to much of the academic discussion of mandatory audit firm rotation. The audit …

The Effects Of Risk Management Programs On Financial Professionals' Judgments, James F. Boyle

Doctor of Business Administration Dissertations

Despite the present focus in practice on enterprise risk management (ERM), academic studies have not responded to the question, “How do risk management programs (RMPs) influence the business decisions of financial professionals?” This study addresses this issue by examining the effects of RMPs on the levels of judgment conservatism and effort exercised by financial professionals. Specifically, in a 2 x 2 between-subjects experiment using experienced financial professionals as participants, I manipulated RMP type (i.e., robust or ceremonial) and financial risk level (i.e., high or low). The study examines the effect of RMP type and the interaction of RMP type and …

The Influence Of Leadership Style And Personal Costs On Fraud Whistleblowing Intent, Tonya D.W. Smalls

Doctor of Business Administration Dissertations

Using an experimental approach, this study examines employees’ intention to report occupational fraud through various channels based on the leadership style (transformational or transactional) of the manager and the expected personal costs (either high or low) of reporting. The study also focuses on the influence of value congruence between the manager and the employee, as well as trust factors that motivate employees to report occupational fraud. In examining these issues, I consider two types of occupational fraud schemes (misappropriation of assets and financial statement fraud). Unexpectedly, the results indicate leadership style and/or personal costs do not have a significant influence …

The Effect Of Audit Committee Compensation On The Procurement Of Non-Audit Services, Caroline Hayek

Doctor of Business Administration Dissertations

Over the last decade, audit committee member compensation has shifted from a cash compensation structure toward a more equity-based compensation structure, with members on the audit committee holding substantially large equity positions. Although contrasting viewpoints exist as to whether more equity-based compensation aligns with shareholders’ interest, empirical evidence suggests that the form of compensation has an impact on financial reporting quality and audit committee members’ objectivity. Despite these results, to date there is no authoritative guideline on the appropriate compensation structure for audit committees. Non-audit services (NAS) have also been at the forefront of regulators’ attention in the last decade …