Business Commons^™

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 …

Built To Last: Exploring Family Strategy In Dynastic Business Families, Mark William Auger

Doctor of Business Administration Dissertations

Dynasties entwine family and fortune. They are organizational longevity outliers. Society offers a conflicting view of dynasties. On one hand, dynasties are associated with conflict, divisiveness, conspicuous consumption, and entitlement. On the other hand, dynastic business families employ people, produce and innovate products and processes, and give to community. Linked to values and enacted by strategic leaders, strategy organizes and mobilizes capital toward goals attainment. The firm-centric perspectives of the strategic management and family business strategy literatures overlook the systematic investigation of family strategy as a means of perpetuation. This grounded theory influenced study explores the components of a family …

What’S In It For Me? Consumer Perceived Value Of Marketing Activities As A Driver Of Consumer Brand Engagement On Social Network Sites., Mary Jane Gardner

Doctor of Business Administration Dissertations

Social network sites are transforming the way companies, both big and small, communicate and market to consumers. Many businesses recognize the need for incorporating a social networking strategy as part of their overall marketing efforts. This strategy involves the use of social network sites as a means of promoting and communicating about a focal brand to consumers, attracting and building relationships with consumers, and increasing sales. However, an effective social network strategy is much more complex than simply having a Facebook page to which companies occasionally post. The effectiveness of marketing on social network sites depends at least in part …

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 …

Redefining The Sales Call, Judi Billups

Doctor of Business Administration Dissertations

The sales process is undergoing a revolution as a result of social media and related technological advancements. Although each step of the sales process is being affected, the most drastically altered step is likely the sales call. The purpose of this research is to examine the impact the type of sales call used by sellers has on both the buyer’s evaluation of the salesperson and the seller’s attribution of sale call success or failure. The study consists of two essays. The first focuses on the buyer’s evaluation of the salesperson based on the frequency and alignment of their use of …

Conceptualizing And Measuring Design Of Retail Environments, Julie C. Steen

Doctor of Business Administration Dissertations

Managing the retail environment is critical for retailers since the retail environment affects consumer’s behavior within a store. To investigate retail environments, researchers often group the environment into three dimensions—an ambient, a social and a design dimension. While the ambient dimension is frequently investigated and research on the social dimension is gaining momentum, the design dimension has received comparably little attention. There is not a common definition of design in the literature. The lack of common definition has led to many different scales for design being offered in the literature, generating conflicting and incomparable empirical results.

This dissertation addresses these …

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 …

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 …

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) …

Salesperson Perceptions - An Examination Of Sales Manager Leadership And Salesperson Engagement, Marleen Pope

Doctor of Business Administration Dissertations

Employee engagement is vital to organizations because of its relationship with performance and retention. Specifically, salespeople, as boundary spanners, pose unique challenges to organizations. To date, the literature has given limited attention to salesperson engagement. This study explores the assertion that managers are the primary source of employee disengagement by examining the perceptions salespeople have of their sales manager and how their perceptions influence salesperson engagement. Salesperson perceptions are the focus of this study because what one perceives is one’s reality.

Job-Demands Resource (J-DR) theory was used as the theoretical framework to investigate the relationships in the proposed model. First, …