Business Commons^™

From Independence To Regulation: A Look Into Major Accounting Scandals And The Changes Implemented By The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, Rachel A. Elkins

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

The Importance Of Executive Effort, Lee Edward Biggerstaff

Doctoral Dissertations

Agency theory stipulates that managerial effort is important to shareholders and costly for managers to provide. Executives may provide sub-optimal levels of effort because shareholders cannot easily observe the day-to-day actions of managers and therefore have difficulties properly monitoring the effort provided by firm management. Researchers also face the challenge of measuring executive effort. In this dissertation, I use an observable measure of leisure consumption to proxy for the effort provided by executives to study the impact of executive effort on firm outcomes.

In the first essay, I focus on Chief Executive Officers (“CEOs”) and the impact of their effort …

Deferred Tax Assets And Credit Risk, Scott David White

Doctoral Dissertations

This paper examines the impact of deferred tax assets on firm creditworthiness. Specifically, I investigate whether the proportion of a firm’s total assets that are composed of deferred tax assets is associated with Standard & Poor’s credit ratings. The benefits associated with deferred tax assets are primarily realized through deductions from future taxable income. If declines in financial performance lead to a subsequent default, deferred tax assets may provide no value to creditors seeking recovery of their investment. I document a significant negative association between deferred tax assets and credit ratings. The evidence is consistent with credit market participants incorporating …

Client Responses To Non-Compliant Audits: An Analysis Of Clients Targeted By Pcaob Inspection, Quinn Thomas Swanquist

Doctoral Dissertations

PCAOB inspectors are afforded privileged insight into the quality of audits selected for inspection. Using inspection reports from 2005-2012, I create a unique sample of audits that were inspected by the PCAOB (i.e., all of an auditor’s clients were selected for inspection). By tracing inspection findings to specific engagements, I directly identify compliant and non-compliant audits. I examine the contributing factors of ‘audit quality’ and provide evidence that higher audit fees and greater human capital are positively related to compliant PCAOB inspections. When PCAOB findings can be linked to a specific engagement, I also find that, on average, the client …

Do Clients Avoid ‘Contaminated’ Offices? The Economic Consequences Of Low Quality Audits, Robert Lowell Whited

Doctoral Dissertations

This study investigates whether local audit offices suffer financially following their association with low-quality audits. The announcement of a restatement indicates that the contracting auditor failed to detect and correct a material misstatement. Therefore, I predict that office reputation suffers following restatements of previously audited financial information. As the frequency of restatement announcements increases, the perceived pervasiveness of systematic audit failures (‘contamination’) within the office will increase accordingly. I document that contaminated offices (Big 4 and non-Big 4) suffer a decline in market share relative to their peers. Furthermore, when examining auditor retention decisions at the individual client level, I …

International Taxation And Initial Foreign Entries, Hannah Grace Alexander

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

A Proposal For An Ethics Class For The Master Of Accountancy Program At The University Of Tennessee, Knoxville, Philip Hardman

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Investor And Client Responses To The First Pcaob Sanction And Part Ii Disclosure Of A Big N Auditor, Leah Elena Muriel

Doctoral Dissertations

I examine investor and client responses to the first PCAOB sanction and the first release of “Part II – Issues Related to Quality Controls” of a Big N auditor. I examine the following: the stock market reaction to the Part II disclosure, investors’ perceptions of earnings quality after both events using the earnings response coefficient (ERC), and client dismissals after the sanction. I find that December year-end clients that operate in highly litigated industries or those with auditor tenure greater than three years are more likely to dismiss Deloitte in the post-sanction period. For the sample of U.S. highly litigated …

Collaborative Tenure, Audit Committee Chair Changes, And Earnings Management, Nelson Milan Carrasco Abarca

Doctoral Dissertations

In a recent concept release the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) highlighted concerns regarding auditor independence and auditor objectivity. They expressed concern that auditors may have a bias to accept management’s views, particularly in long auditor tenure relations, and asked for public comments on the idea of mandatory auditor rotation. Prior research has focused primarily on the auditor side of the relation, however, my study considers the collaborative effect of the three parties involved in the financial reporting process (management (Chief Executive Officer (CEO), the auditor, and the audit committee).I find that longer collaborative tenure between the CEO and …

An Analysis Of Consumer Response To Businesses’ Expression Of Beliefs, Justin P. Boyter

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Global Implementation Of Ifrs, Robert L. Hibbard Ii

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Optimal Tax Risk And Firm Value, Rebekah Daniele Mccarty

Doctoral Dissertations

I use the tax reserve data available from FIN 48 to investigate whether equity market value and tax risk exhibit a concave association, consistent with an optimal level of tax risk from an equity valuation standpoint. I find a concave association between tax risk and firm value which suggests firm value is increasing in tax risk at a diminishing rate until an optimal level is reached, after which firm value is decreasing in tax risk. I do not find evidence of excessive risk taking in the context of tax avoidance. Instead almost all firms in my sample are below the …

Clawback Provisions: How Sharp Are The Claws? An Analysis Of The Deterrence Effectiveness Of Voluntary Clawback Provisions, Allison Kristina Beck

Doctoral Dissertations

This paper investigates the effectiveness of voluntary clawback provisions as a deterrent for earnings management behavior. The Dodd-Frank (DF) Bill signed into law July 21, 2010 mandates that the SEC adopt a rule requiring all U.S.-listed companies to implement clawback provisions that recapture excess compensation received by executives on the basis of a faulty financial statement filing with the SEC that later must be restated. Implicitly, the DF regulation assumes that clawbacks will successfully constrain financial misreporting and that a “one-size-fits-all” approach is best. In contrast with prior research that has investigated factors associated with a firm’s decision to adopt …

Ifrs And The Repeal Of Lifo, Jonathan Spenser Tipton

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Incorporating Ethics Into Accounting Education: A Proposal For An Undergraduate Accounting Ethics Course For The University Of Tennessee, Knoxville, Courtney Michaluk

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

International Tax Treaty And Withholding System (Itts), Shehroz Bolievich Yarkulov

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Price Appreciation, Bargaining Power, And The Determinants Of Corporate Leasing Policy, Daniel John Stone

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Ceo Serps: Are They Related To Firm Risk And Who Approves Them?, Colin D. Reid

Doctoral Dissertations

This paper investigates whether CEO supplemental executive retirement plans (SERPs) are associated with firm risk. Sundaram and Yermack (2007) show that CEOs manage their firms more conservatively as their debt incentives increase. Using new executive compensation disclosures mandated by the SEC, I find a negative association between CEO SERPs and firm risk but only for unsheltered SERPs. I find that when a CEO SERP is protected by a lump sum payment or by a trust (i.e. sheltered), the negative association between SERPs and firm risk is greatly diminished and even eliminated in some models. Furthermore, I show that having a …

Competing Globally With Cost Accounting, Long Ho Kwan

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Is All Goodwill Created Equal? An Analysis Of The Association Between Agency Conflicts, Board Monitoring, And Goodwill In U.S. Mergers And Acquisitions, Matthew L. Hoag

Doctoral Dissertations

The objective of this study is to examine the association between goodwill and governance structures – specifically, potential agency conflicts and internal and external board monitoring mechanisms – over a four-year period (2004-2007). To do this, I perform two distinct analyses to test (1) whether governance structures appear to be determinants of aggregate goodwill, and (2) whether governance structures appear to moderate investors’ perceptions of aggregate goodwill. I then extend these tests to a sample of U.S. merger and acquisition (M&A) transactions where I calculate a more refined measure of residual goodwill and re-perform the tests using this alternative goodwill …

Rhymin' & Stealin' - How Napster Stole The Industry, Johnathan D. Holbrook

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Free Enterprise Fund V. Pcaob: A Challenge To The Appointments Clause And Its Ramifications To Corporate Governance, Todd B. Skelton

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Can A Financial Statement Pronouncement Increase State Tax Compliance And Revenues? Understanding The Effect Of Fin 48 On The National Nexus Program, Ann Boyd Davis

Doctoral Dissertations

Since 1982, 40 states and the District of Columbia have offered amnesty programs. In December 1990, the Multistate Tax Commission (MTC) established the National Nexus Program (NNP), a permanent tax amnesty program. Prior literature has focused on amnesty programs and has shown that these programs do little to increase tax revenues and compliance when increased future enforcement is absent. I examine the impact of the NNP on state corporate tax revenues. From 1991 through 2008, state corporate tax revenues are significantly lower than revenues from 1973 through 1990. Further, I find that states joining the NNP have a negative impact …

Ias 16 And The Revaluation Approach: Reporting Property, Plant And Equipment At Fair Value., Sarah E. Monday

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Sas 99 & Fraud Detection, Shunlan Lu

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Using Topside Journal Entries To Conceal Fraud, Jordan Ray Marshall

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Estimated Distribution Of The Tennessee Tax Burden And Public Expenditure Benefits--1957, Thomas M. Humphrey

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to estimate the incidence of the taxes and the distribution of the expenditures of Tennessee state and local governments in 1957 upon resident households (families) classified by income brackets.

An Analysis And Digest Of The Legal Accounting Requirements Of The Officers Of The State And County Governments Of The State Of Tennessee, Herman Darrell Carriger

Masters Theses

(From Introduction)

Governments, in devising their accounting systems, have commonly place emphasis upon the function of enforcing fidelity with accounting being looked upon as a mechanical process of checking. The result is, the accounts of most governments are ill-adapted to meet the need of providing data for administration and policy administration.