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Articles 421 - 450 of 1947

Full-Text Articles in Business

The Effect Of New Accounting Standards On The Performance Of Quantitative Investors*, Travis Dyer, Nicholas Guest, Jia Yin (Elisha) Yu Jan 2021

The Effect Of New Accounting Standards On The Performance Of Quantitative Investors*, Travis Dyer, Nicholas Guest, Jia Yin (Elisha) Yu

Faculty Publications

Quantitative investing relies on stable data generating processes and limited human involvement, which could create lower flexibility in the face of changing economic conditions. In this study, we examine quantitative investors’ ability to navigate a common and material change to the financial data generating process: new accounting standards. We find that returns of quantitative mutual funds temporarily decrease following the implementation of standards that change the definition of key accounting variables. The lower performance we document is relative to more traditional “discretionary” funds that rely heavily on human skill and judgment to make day-to-day investment decisions. Our result is predictably …


Tutorial: Mapping Your Institutional Curriculum To The Is2020 Competency Model, Paul M. Leidig, Hannu Salmela, Greg Anderson, Jeff Babb, Venky Shankararaman, Raja Sooriamurthi, Mark Thouin Jan 2021

Tutorial: Mapping Your Institutional Curriculum To The Is2020 Competency Model, Paul M. Leidig, Hannu Salmela, Greg Anderson, Jeff Babb, Venky Shankararaman, Raja Sooriamurthi, Mark Thouin

Faculty Publications

The Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Association for Information Systems (AIS), two global professional and academic societies with a stake in Information Systems (IS) education, engaged in a project to revise the Information Systems Curriculum for bachelor’s degrees. This tutorial introduces the recently approved IS2020 competency guidelines, hence serving to disseminate the IS competency model and related guidelines within the SIGED community. This tutorial session should be of interest to all IS academics, especially faculty developing college-level curricula in Information Systems.


Are Monthly Market Returns Predictable?, Jussi Keppo, Tyler Shumway, Daniel Weagley Jan 2021

Are Monthly Market Returns Predictable?, Jussi Keppo, Tyler Shumway, Daniel Weagley

Faculty Publications

We document significant persistence in the market timing performance of active individual investors, suggesting that some investors are skilled at timing. Using data on all trades by active Finnish individual investors over almost 15 years, we also show that the net purchases of skilled versus unskilled investors predict monthly market returns. Our results lend credibility to the view that market returns are predictable, without having to specify which variables active investors use to successfully time the market.


Strategic Planning That Incorporates Strategic Risk, Paul C. Godfrey, John Bugalla Jan 2021

Strategic Planning That Incorporates Strategic Risk, Paul C. Godfrey, John Bugalla

Faculty Publications

Risk has been a fixture in the business landscape since the beginning of time. Over the years, new techniques, such as Enterprise Risk Management (ERM), have emerged to help leaders address multiple and complicated risks, but the ability to measure and therefore manage those risks are key. Today, strategic planners face an environment where certain risks are neither calculable nor transferrable. This article defines strategic risks and proposes a new tool strategy teams can use to monitor and manage these risks to their advantage: the Strategic Uncertainty Map.


Blockchain Technology: A Survey Of Croatian Business Leaders, Dražen Zec, William G. Heninger Jan 2021

Blockchain Technology: A Survey Of Croatian Business Leaders, Dražen Zec, William G. Heninger

Faculty Publications

Blockchain or distributed ledger technology emerged over ten years ago as the underlying technology of bitcoin. Blockchain is a special kind of database with individual records or blocks linked together in a sequential list called chain of blocks. These records are validated by multiple nodes in peer-to-peer networks and they are immutable. It is a decentralized system, with no need for intermediaries where all decisions are made using different consensus mechanisms. High expectations from blockchain technology, combined with a lack of deeper knowledge about the technology are expressed in the results from the survey conducted on a sample of Croatian …


Measuring Credit Risk Using Qualitative Disclosure*, John Donovan, Jared Jennings, Kevin Koharki, Joshua A. Lee Jan 2021

Measuring Credit Risk Using Qualitative Disclosure*, John Donovan, Jared Jennings, Kevin Koharki, Joshua A. Lee

Faculty Publications

We use machine learning methods to create a comprehensive measure of credit risk based on qualitative information disclosed in conference calls and in management’s discussion and analysis section of the 10- K. In out-of-sample tests, we find that our measure improves our ability to predict future credit events (future bankruptcies, future interest spreads, and future credit rating downgrades) relative to existing credit risk measures developed by prior research (e.g., z-score). We also find our measure based on conference calls explains within-firm variation in future credit events; however, we find little evidence that the existing measures of credit risk developed by …


Beyond Borders: Uncertainty In Supragovernmental Tax Enforcement And Corporate Investment, Zackery D. Fox, Martin Jacob, Jaron H. Wilde, Ryan J. Wilson Jan 2021

Beyond Borders: Uncertainty In Supragovernmental Tax Enforcement And Corporate Investment, Zackery D. Fox, Martin Jacob, Jaron H. Wilde, Ryan J. Wilson

Faculty Publications

Amid growing globalization, many countries have offered tax incentives to attract corporate investment. Prior research studies the role such incentives play in firms’ location and investment choices. However, we have limited evidence on the role that uncertainty about the intensity of future tax enforcement plays in those decisions. In 2013, the European Commission (“E.C.”) abruptly began investigating tax ruling practices of several countries in response to allegations that certain firms received preferential tax treatment (“state aid cases”). We use this setting to study the economic consequences of increased uncertainty about future tax enforcement. We find evidence consistent with significant reductions …


Simulating Municipal Cybersecurity Incidents: Recommendations From Expert Interviews, Kira Gedris, Kayla Bowman, Aatish Neupane, Amanda Lee Hughes, Elizabeth Bonsignore, Ryan W. West, Jon Balzotti, Derek L. Hansen Jan 2021

Simulating Municipal Cybersecurity Incidents: Recommendations From Expert Interviews, Kira Gedris, Kayla Bowman, Aatish Neupane, Amanda Lee Hughes, Elizabeth Bonsignore, Ryan W. West, Jon Balzotti, Derek L. Hansen

Faculty Publications

As cyberattacks on city and public infrastructures become increasingly common and harmful, it is critical that we train the professional workforce to prepare and respond appropriately. This paper supports the development of educational simulations and related experiential learning exercises that help prepare city and public infrastructure personnel to effectively respond to cybersecurity attacks. Specifically, it synthesizes the findings from 8 expert interviews including 12 cybersecurity experts from federal, state, city organizations, as well as academics with relevant expertise. We organize the findings into key learning outcomes, scenarios, roles, and issues that simulation designers should consider. The result paints a vivid …


Increasing Cybersecurity Career Interest Through Playable Case Studies, Justin Scott Giboney, Jason K. Mcdonald, Jonathan Balzotti, Derek L. Hansen, Desiree M. Winters, Elizabeth Bonsignore Jan 2021

Increasing Cybersecurity Career Interest Through Playable Case Studies, Justin Scott Giboney, Jason K. Mcdonald, Jonathan Balzotti, Derek L. Hansen, Desiree M. Winters, Elizabeth Bonsignore

Faculty Publications

In this paper we introduce an approach to cybersecurity education and helping students develop professional understanding in the form of a Playable Case Study (PCS), a form of educational simulation that draws on affordances of the broader educational simulation genre, case study instruction, and educational Alternate Reality Games (or ARGs). A PCS is an interactive simulation that allows students to “play” through an authentic scenario (case study) as a member of a professional team. We report our findings over a multi-year study of a PCS called Cybermatics, with data from 111 students from two different U.S. universities who interacted with …


A Computational Simulation-Based Framework For Estimating Potential Product Impact During Product Design, Christopher S. Mabey, Andrew G. Armstrong, Christopher A. Mattson, John L. Salmon, Nile W. Hatch, Eric C. Dahlin Jan 2021

A Computational Simulation-Based Framework For Estimating Potential Product Impact During Product Design, Christopher S. Mabey, Andrew G. Armstrong, Christopher A. Mattson, John L. Salmon, Nile W. Hatch, Eric C. Dahlin

Faculty Publications

The impact of engineered products is a topic of concern in society. Product impact may fall under the categories of economic, environmental or social impact, with the last category defined as the effect of a product on the day-to-day life of people. Design teams lack sufficient tools to estimate the social impact of products, and the combined impacts of economic, environmental and social impacts for the products they are designing. This paper aims to provide a framework for the estimation of product impact during product design. To estimate product impact, models of both the product and society are required. This …


What Is Your Status Portfolio? Higher Status Variance Across Groups Increases Interpersonal Helping But Decreases Intrapersonal Well-Being, Catarina R. Fernandes, Siyu Yu, Taeya M. Howell, Alison Wood Brooks, Gavin J. Kilduff, Nathan C. Pettit Jan 2021

What Is Your Status Portfolio? Higher Status Variance Across Groups Increases Interpersonal Helping But Decreases Intrapersonal Well-Being, Catarina R. Fernandes, Siyu Yu, Taeya M. Howell, Alison Wood Brooks, Gavin J. Kilduff, Nathan C. Pettit

Faculty Publications

Individuals belong to multiple groups across various domains of life, which in aggregate constitute a portfolio of potentially distinct levels of experienced status. We propose a two-factor model for assessing the effects of an individual’s status portfolio, based on status average (mean status level across groups) and status variance (degree to which status varies across those groups). Five studies using samples in general-life and work-specific contexts reveal the importance of both status average and status variance, the latter of which has been largely unexplored by status researchers to date. Individuals experiencing higher status variance show greater perspective taking, which in …


Models Behaving Badly: The Limits Of Data-Driven Lending, Itzhak Ben-David, Mark J. Johnson, René M. Stulz Jan 2021

Models Behaving Badly: The Limits Of Data-Driven Lending, Itzhak Ben-David, Mark J. Johnson, René M. Stulz

Faculty Publications

Data-driven lending relies on the calibration of models using training periods. We find that this type of lending is not resilient in the presence of economic conditions that are materially different from those experienced during the training period. Using data from a small business fintech lending platform, we document that the small business credit supply collapsed during the COVID-19 crisis of March 2020 even though the demand for loans doubled relative to pre-pandemic levels. As the month progressed, most lenders significantly reduced or halted their lending activities, likely due to the heightened risk of model miscalibration under the new economic …


Marketplace Lending: Matching Small Businesses With Specialized Fintech Lenders, Mark J. Johnson Jan 2021

Marketplace Lending: Matching Small Businesses With Specialized Fintech Lenders, Mark J. Johnson

Faculty Publications

Fintech promises improvements in access to credit for small businesses through more efficient search and better pricing. Using novel data from a marketplace platform of 115,000 loan offers from 46 online lenders I show that the primary contribution of fintech is not in precisely measuring and pricing risk, but rather in facilitating search between small firms and preferred-habitat lenders. Loan rate offers are largely unexplained by firm characteristics and differ substantially even for the same applicant. The dispersion in offers is largely explained by the fact that lenders have preferred habitats -- lending to borrowers of certain risk types and …


Is 2020: Developing An Acm/Ais Information Systems Model Curriculum For Undergraduate Programs, Paul M. Leidig, Hannu Salmela, Greg Anderson, Jeff Babb, Lesley Gardner, Jay F. Nunamaker Jr., Brenda Scholtz, Venky Shankararaman, Raja Sooriamurthi, Mark Thouin, Carina De Villiers Jan 2021

Is 2020: Developing An Acm/Ais Information Systems Model Curriculum For Undergraduate Programs, Paul M. Leidig, Hannu Salmela, Greg Anderson, Jeff Babb, Lesley Gardner, Jay F. Nunamaker Jr., Brenda Scholtz, Venky Shankararaman, Raja Sooriamurthi, Mark Thouin, Carina De Villiers

Faculty Publications

The Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Association for Information Systems (AIS) engaged in a project to revise the Information Systems Curriculum. The IS2010 model curriculum has been widely used for nearly a decade. However, its value may be decreasing as new approaches to model curricula have been introduced. The AIS and ACM established an exploratory taskforce which found there have been substantial changes in the IS field, and that current graduates’ technical skills do not appear to meet industry needs. The IS discipline must express its core in terms of a standard curriculum that meet stakeholder demands. A …


Bolstering Creativity Willingness Through Digital Task Interdependence, Disruptive And Smart Hrm Technologies, Samuel Ogbeibu, Vijay Pereira, Jude Emelifeonwu, James Gaskin Jan 2021

Bolstering Creativity Willingness Through Digital Task Interdependence, Disruptive And Smart Hrm Technologies, Samuel Ogbeibu, Vijay Pereira, Jude Emelifeonwu, James Gaskin

Faculty Publications

To sustain competitive advantage, employees must be willing to generate and pursue creative ideas. Sustaining competitive advantage in this way, can put organizational leaders under pressure to ensure smart human resource management technology (SHRMT) is effectively used to drive the exchange of creative ideas in work teams. Though collective creative idea generation could increase task interdependence between teams, we argue that this does not sufficiently guarantee “willingness” to exert increased creative behaviour, especially under disruptive technological conditions. Our study employed a cross-sectional (time lag) survey design with 396 respondents from 56 manufacturing organisations in Nigeria. We utilised partial least squares …


Earnings Announcement Delays And Implications For The Auditor-Client Relationship, Kimball Chapman, Michael S. Drake, Joseph Schroeder, Timothy Seidel Jan 2021

Earnings Announcement Delays And Implications For The Auditor-Client Relationship, Kimball Chapman, Michael S. Drake, Joseph Schroeder, Timothy Seidel

Faculty Publications

We examine whether delays in the expected release of annual earnings have implications for the future auditor-client relationship. Managers have strong incentives to release earnings on schedule and auditors play an important role in helping their clients avoid costly earnings announcement delays. We find an increased likelihood of subsequent auditor-client realignments after earnings announcement delays. We further find that clients changing auditors realign with audit firms that better meet their earnings announcement timing demands without any evidence of a significant compromise to the reliability of the financial statement numbers in the earnings announcement. Our results help inform regulatory concerns about …


Anonymous Equity Research, Travis Dyer, Eunjee Kim Jan 2021

Anonymous Equity Research, Travis Dyer, Eunjee Kim

Faculty Publications

Crowdsourced financial information platforms often allow content contributors to publish equity research anonymously. This study examines whether investors value or discount information in anonymous equity research. In the short window around research releases, we find that investors’ stock price reaction to anonymous research is muted in comparison to nonanonymous research. Consistent with credibility concerns influencing investor response, we document that this discount to anonymous research dissipates as the monitoring of content contributors intensifies and as authors develop a reputation for high-quality reporting. In addition, we perform a content analysis on the research reports and find that the muted market reaction …


Factors Affecting The Outcomes Of Legal Claims Against Auditors, Karen D. De Meyst, D. Jordan Lowe, Mark E. Peecher, Jeffrey Pickerd, Andrew Reffett Jan 2021

Factors Affecting The Outcomes Of Legal Claims Against Auditors, Karen D. De Meyst, D. Jordan Lowe, Mark E. Peecher, Jeffrey Pickerd, Andrew Reffett

Faculty Publications

Maksymov, Pickerd, Lowe, Peecher, and Reffett (2020b) draw insights based on interviews with 27 prominent audit litigation attorneys about the factors affecting the initiation of legal claims against auditors and how such factors affect settlement outcomes. We summarize their key findings and discuss important implications for audit practitioners. Specifically, we focus on the key factors that affect plaintiff attorneys’ willingness to pursue legal claims against auditors, including the merits of the claim, size of alleged economic damages, auditors’ ability to pay, and the expected cost to pursue the claim. We also discuss the reasons why most audit disputes settle (as …


The Effects Of High Estimate Uncertainty In Auditor Negligence Litigation*, Jeffrey Pickerd, M. David Piercey Jan 2021

The Effects Of High Estimate Uncertainty In Auditor Negligence Litigation*, Jeffrey Pickerd, M. David Piercey

Faculty Publications

We examine how jurors’ negligence judgments and attorneys’ out-of-court settlements are differently impacted by two features of a materially misstated accounting estimate—the amount of estimate uncertainty and whether the misstated account is disaggregated into its own line-item or aggregated with other accounts into a single financial statement line-item. We predict and find that jurors and attorneys react to estimate uncertainty in opposite directions under common conditions. This finding is important because when jurors’ judgments and attorneys’ settlements differ, research into juror judgments alone may not capture a complete picture of auditor liability because the vast majority of audit litigation is …


Corporate Governance And Tax Avoidance: Evidence From Governance Reform, Jon Kerr, Richard Price, Francisco J. Román, Miles A. Romney Jan 2021

Corporate Governance And Tax Avoidance: Evidence From Governance Reform, Jon Kerr, Richard Price, Francisco J. Román, Miles A. Romney

Faculty Publications

Prior literature struggles to find evidence in U.S. settings to support the Desai and Dharmapala (2006) theory on how corporate governance affects tax avoidance. Most studies rely on equity incentive compensation as their governance proxy. We use a Mexican setting to examine this association and find firms with stronger governance engage in less tax avoidance. We rely on both a hand-collected governance index and governance reform to show improved corporate governance pushes tax avoidance toward a new equilibrium. Supplementary analyses show associations between governance and tax avoidance are greatest for tax-cost-sensitive familyowned firms and non-cross-listed firms with naturally weaker governance. …


Accruals Earnings Management Proxies: Prudent Business Decisions Or Earnings Manipulation?, Theodore E. Christensen, Adrienna Huffman, Melissa F. Lewis-Western, Rachel Scott Jan 2021

Accruals Earnings Management Proxies: Prudent Business Decisions Or Earnings Manipulation?, Theodore E. Christensen, Adrienna Huffman, Melissa F. Lewis-Western, Rachel Scott

Faculty Publications

Over the last 5 years, the top accounting journals have published 388 articles that incorporate an empirical proxy for accruals-based earnings management. Researchers use these proxies to measure diverse managerial activities that represent fundamentally different constructs (from beneficial earnings management at one end of the spectrum to earnings manipulation at the other). We present a simple framework that defines the specific construct of “earnings manipulation” and places it within the context of the broader concept of “earnings management.” At the construct level, one distinguishing characteristic of earnings manipulation is that accruals reversals cause future earnings to be lower than earnings …


Does Visibility Of An Engagement Partner’S Association With Recent Client Restatements Increase Fee Pressures From Non-Restating Clients?, Wuchun Chi, Ling Lei Lisic, Linda A. Myers, Mikhail Pevzner, Timothy Seidel Jan 2021

Does Visibility Of An Engagement Partner’S Association With Recent Client Restatements Increase Fee Pressures From Non-Restating Clients?, Wuchun Chi, Ling Lei Lisic, Linda A. Myers, Mikhail Pevzner, Timothy Seidel

Faculty Publications

We examine whether engagement partners who have recently been associated with client restatements experience increased audit fee pressures from their non-restating clients. Using data from the United States (U.S.) and Taiwan, we find evidence of lower audit fees among non-restating companies whose audit engagement partner was recently associated with another client’s restatement. These findings are generally strongest when the partner-associated restatement is more prominent or severe, and in the U.S., when non-restating clients are in the same industry as the restating client. Although we find very limited evidence that fee pressures lead to lower quality audits for these partners’ other …


How Has The Change In The Way Auditors Determine The Audit Report Date Changed The Meaning Of The Audit Report Date? Implications For Academic Research, Steven M. Glover, James C. Hansen, Timothy Seidel Jan 2021

How Has The Change In The Way Auditors Determine The Audit Report Date Changed The Meaning Of The Audit Report Date? Implications For Academic Research, Steven M. Glover, James C. Hansen, Timothy Seidel

Faculty Publications

Archival research in accounting often relies on the audit report date to capture the constructs of audit efficiency, audit timeliness, audit effort, or audit completion. Auditors’ view of what constitutes sufficient appropriate evidence to support the audit opinion, and consequently the date of the audit report, previously coincided with the substantial completion of audit fieldwork, which would be days or weeks before a 10-K filing. However, this view has shifted to coincide with the timing of the public issuance of clients’ financial statements (i.e., the 10-K filing date) following several regulatory actions, audit practice changes, and professional standard setting changes …


Prior Audit Experience And Cfo Financial Reporting Aggressiveness, Eric R. Condie, Kara M. Obermire, Timothy Seidel, Michael S. Wilkins Jan 2021

Prior Audit Experience And Cfo Financial Reporting Aggressiveness, Eric R. Condie, Kara M. Obermire, Timothy Seidel, Michael S. Wilkins

Faculty Publications

In this study, we investigate the financial reporting behavior of chief financial officers (CFOs) with significant prior audit experience. Our tests indicate that, on average, CFOs who were former audit managers or partners report less aggressively than CFOs without prior audit experience. Thus, the mindset that auditors develop during their time in public accounting – which should value objective, transparent, and conservative financial reporting – appears to persist when auditors take high-level positions in industry. However, we also find that the reporting behavior of prior-auditor CFOs becomes more aggressive over time as the salience of their audit experience decays. Further, …


A Megastudy Of Text-Based Nudges Encouraging Patients To Get Vaccinated At An Upcoming Doctor’S Appointment, Katherine L. Milkman, Mitesh S. Patel, Linnea Gandhi, Heather N. Graci, Dena M. Gromet, Hung Ho, Brigitte C. Madrian Jan 2021

A Megastudy Of Text-Based Nudges Encouraging Patients To Get Vaccinated At An Upcoming Doctor’S Appointment, Katherine L. Milkman, Mitesh S. Patel, Linnea Gandhi, Heather N. Graci, Dena M. Gromet, Hung Ho, Brigitte C. Madrian

Faculty Publications

Many Americans fail to get life-saving vaccines each year, and the availability of a vaccine for COVID-19 makes the challenge of encouraging vaccination more urgent than ever. We present a large field experiment (N = 47,306) testing 19 nudges delivered to patients via text message and designed to boost adoption of the influenza vaccine. Our findings suggest that text messages sent prior to a primary care visit can boost vaccination rates by an average of 5%. Overall, interventions performed better when they were 1) framed as reminders to get flu shots that were already reserved for the patient and 2) …


Perceptions Of Tone At The Top From The Inside: Insights Into Audit Pricing, Jace Garrett, Rani Hoitash, Douglas F. Prawitt Jan 2021

Perceptions Of Tone At The Top From The Inside: Insights Into Audit Pricing, Jace Garrett, Rani Hoitash, Douglas F. Prawitt

Faculty Publications

Tone at the top plays an important role in entities’ internal control over financial reporting (ICFR) and in auditors’ planning and risk assessment decisions. Using a novel measure based on employee perceptions, we find that strong tone at the top is associated with reduced audit pricing and that this relation holds even for firms that report effective ICFR. This relation is stronger when employees’ tone perceptions are more consistent throughout the organization, when accounting is more complex, and when earnings manipulation risk is higher. We also find that strong tone is negatively associated with the incidence of reported material weaknesses …


Issues Related To The Assessment Of The Effectiveness Of Management Review Controls: Roundtable Summary, Douglas F. Prawitt Jan 2021

Issues Related To The Assessment Of The Effectiveness Of Management Review Controls: Roundtable Summary, Douglas F. Prawitt

Faculty Publications

The Center for Audit Quality and the Financial Education & Research Foundation(FERF) of Financial Executives International (FEI) commissioned John Fogarty, Mark Beasley and Doug Prawitt to conduct an independent qualitative research study on Internal Control over Financial Reporting (ICFR) management review controls (MRCs), Perspectives on Management Review Controls: Challenges and Solutions (the Research Report). The research focused on subjective, judgmentbased MRCs. Through a series of detailed, semistructured interviews with preparers – in particular the control owners and control performers – the researchers gathered perspectives on how management determines what constitutes effective design, precision, implementation, execution and documentation of MRCs. The …


Mental Health Benefits Of Nature-Based Recreation: A Systematic Review, Nancy Qwynne Lackey, Deborah A. Tysor, G. David Mcnay, Leah Joyner, Kensey H. Baker, Camilla Hodge Jan 2021

Mental Health Benefits Of Nature-Based Recreation: A Systematic Review, Nancy Qwynne Lackey, Deborah A. Tysor, G. David Mcnay, Leah Joyner, Kensey H. Baker, Camilla Hodge

Faculty Publications

The demand for mental health services around the world has risen dramatically. Many researchers and practitioners are looking for alternative mental health treatments, including nature-based recreation. However, reviews examining nature-based recreation’s therapeutic effectiveness are limited. The purpose of this study was to conduct a systematic review of available research regarding the potential mental-health benefits of nature-based recreation. Following the preferred reporting items for systematic review and meta-analysis protocols (PRISMA-P) guidelines, a global standard established to ensure consistency and quality in literature reviews, a systematic search generated 51 articles for review. Most articles (n = 46, 90%) observed at least one …


Archival Evidence On The Audit Process: Determinants And Consequences Of Interim Effort*, Brant E. Christensen, Nathan J. Newton, Michael S. Wilkins Jan 2021

Archival Evidence On The Audit Process: Determinants And Consequences Of Interim Effort*, Brant E. Christensen, Nathan J. Newton, Michael S. Wilkins

Faculty Publications

Using proprietary data from a global accounting firm, we investigate the determinants of auditors’ interim effort as well as the impact of interim effort on audit quality, client disclosure timeliness, audit hours, and audit fees. Public statements from accounting firms and regulators suggest various benefits from accelerating auditor effort, but these claims remain largely untested. We find that interim effort is higher for large, complex clients that require integrated audits of both financial statements and internal control over financial reporting. With respect to consequences, we find that allocating relatively more work to the interim period is associated with a reduced …


Surrogation Fundamentals: Measurement And Cognition, Paul Black, Thomas Meservy, William B. Tayler, Jeffrey O. Williams Jan 2021

Surrogation Fundamentals: Measurement And Cognition, Paul Black, Thomas Meservy, William B. Tayler, Jeffrey O. Williams

Faculty Publications

Measurement is a fundamental part of accounting. A primary purpose of measurement is to provide more concrete representations of abstract strategic objectives. A potential consequence of using measures to proxy for less-tangible strategic constructs is the tendency for managers to fall prey to surrogation, losing sight of strategic constructs and behaving as though measures are the constructs of interest. We show that surrogation is a nonconscious process. We also extend understanding of the conditions necessary for surrogation to occur by showing that mere awareness of measurement (even absent compensation) is sufficient to induce surrogation. These findings have implications for any …