Business Commons^™

Discussion Of "Why Can’T I Trade? Exchange Discretion In Calling Halts", Michael S. Drake

Faculty Publications

Liquidity is an important feature of well-functioning capital markets. While many market frictions exist that constrain liquidity, none are as dramatic as trading halts when trading is suspended altogether. Trading halts became a common feature of US securities markets in the aftermath of Black Monday (October 19, 1987). The hope of regulators was that system-wide trading halts, so-called market circuit breakers, would decrease the likelihood of dramatic sell-offs by allowing markets to cool off. Regulators further argued that security-specific trading halts implemented in advance of a material news release could also reduce volatility and help level the playing field between …

Check Your Attitude: An Examination Of Companies’ Adversarial Disclosures About Tax Enforcement, Hannah W. Judd, Sean T. Mcguire, Connie D. Weaver, Junwei Xia

Faculty Publications

This study examines companies’ voluntary disclosures of an adversarial stance toward tax enforcement in income tax footnotes, where companies express disagreement with tax authorities or a willingness to litigate unresolved audit issues. We find that larger companies, industry leaders, and companies in industries with high litigation risk are more likely to make adversarial disclosures toward tax enforcement, and companies’ tax planning activities do not solely determine such disclosures. We examine the implications of adversarial disclosures on future tax audit outcomes and find that future settlement outcomes are more unfavorable for companies with such disclosures relative to those without. Finally, our …

Auditing With Data And Analytics: External Reviewers’ Judgments Of Audit Quality And Effort, Scott A. Emett, Steven E. Kaplan, Elaine G. Mauldin, Jeffrey Pickerd

Faculty Publications

Audit firms hesitate to take full advantage of data and analytics (D&A) audit approaches because they lack certainty about how external reviewers evaluate those approaches. We propose that external reviewers use an effort heuristic when evaluating audit quality, judging less effortful audit procedures as lower quality, which could shape how external reviewers evaluate D&A audit procedures. We conduct two experiments in which experienced external reviewers evaluate one set of audit procedures (D&A or traditional) within an engagement review, while holding constant the procedures’ level of assurance. Our first experiment provides evidence that external reviewers rely on an effort heuristic when …

The Icfr Process: Perspectives Of Accounting Executives At Large Public Companies, Eldar Maksymov, Jeffrey Pickerd, T. Jeffrey Wilks, Devin Williams

Faculty Publications

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act charges management with the primary responsibility for internal control over financial reporting (ICFR). However, prior research tells us little about the ICFR process from management’s perspective. We develop a theoretical model of the ICFR process from management’s perspective and examine that model by surveying 145 and interviewing 35 accounting executives at large US public companies. Our primary finding is that executives feel constrained in their ability to direct ICFR and hold perspectives that reflect these constraints. Specifically, most executives feel compelled by auditors to follow the PCAOB’s preferences even though executives believe these preferences often tend to …

Corporate Political Activism And Information Transfers, Dane M. Christensen, Hengda Jin, Joshua A. Lee, Suhas A. Sridharan, Laura A. Wellman

Faculty Publications

Prior research suggests that: (1) politically active firms have an information advantage over firms that do not engage in the political process, but also that (2) politically active firms are more likely to disclose policy-related information. We examine whether there are externalities associated with the processing of political information by politically active firms. We study this question in the setting of intra-industry information transfers around earnings announcements. Measuring firms’ political activism using campaign contributions, we find stronger intra-industry information transfers from politically active firms to their industry peers. These information transfers are stronger when there is more discussion during conference …

Data Visualization In 10-K Filings, Theodore E. Christensen, Karson E. Fronk, Joshua A. Lee, Karen K. Nelson

Faculty Publications

The Securities and Exchange Commission encourages the presentation of information or data in graphical form to improve users’ ability to understand financial disclosures. We find a dramatic increase in the disclosure of both qualitative and quantitative infographics in 10-K filings over time and substantial cross-sectional variation in firms’ choices regarding image types, data content, and the placement of infographics within 10-Ks. We provide evidence on factors associated with firms’ use of infographics and explore the persistence with which they are disclosed over time. Finally, we investigate the relation between the use of infographics and uncertainty in capital markets.

Managers’ Use Of Humor On Public Earnings Conference Calls, Andrew C. Call, Rachel W> Flam, Joshua A. Lee, Nathan Y. Sharp

Faculty Publications

Despite the prevalence and importance of humor in interpersonal communication, the disclosure literature is silent on the use of humor in the context of corporate communication. Using a sophisticated machine learning algorithm, we identify managers’ successful uses of humor during public earnings conference calls. When managers use humor on an earnings call, stock market returns and analyst forecast revisions following the call are more positive, primarily because of a muted response to negative earnings news. Consistent with managers’ successful use of humor being a favorable signal of future firm performance, we find no evidence of a return reversal over the …

The Spillover Effect Of Sec Comment Letters Through Audit Firms, Kenneth L. Bills, Ryan Cating, Chenxi Lin, Timothy Seidel

Faculty Publications

This study examines whether auditors serve as a conduit for disseminating Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) views on reporting and disclosure matters as the result of being privy to clients’ SEC comment letters. This examination is important because auditors’ involvement in, and private access to, clients’ comment letters can enhance the timeliness of dissemination and have a constraining influence on reporting or disclosure choices that diverge from SEC views. Among clients with a greater expectation of impaired goodwill that do not receive a comment letter with a goodwill-related comment, we find a greater likelihood of goodwill impairment when the audit …

Does Gender And Ethnic Diversity Among Audit Partners Influence Office-Level Audit Personnel Retention And Audit Quality?, Eric R. Condie, Ling Lei Lisic, Timothy Seidel, J. Mike Truelson, Aleksandra "Ally" B. Zimmerman

Faculty Publications

Motivated by prior literature on organizational identification and 23 semistructured interviews with a variety of U.S. audit partners and directors, we examine whether the gender and ethnic diversity of an office’s audit partners influences the retention of the office’s audit professionals and the quality of the audits conducted by the office. Using hand-collected data on U.S. audit partners, we find that greater levels of (or changes in) diversity in office audit partners’ gender and ethnicity are associated with lower (reduced) turnover among office audit professionals and higher (increased) office-level audit quality. To provide further insight into the audit quality results, …

Automatic Enrollment With A 12 Percent Default Contribution Rate, Josh Beshears, Ruofei Guo, David Laibson, Brigitte C. Madrian, James J. Choi

Faculty Publications

We study a retirement savings plan with a default contribution rate of 12 percent of income, which is much higher than previously studied defaults. Twenty-five percent of employees had not opted out of this default 12 months after hire; a literature review finds that the corresponding fraction in plans with lower defaults is approximately one-half. Because only contributions above 12 percent were matched by the employer, 12 percent was likely to be a suboptimal contribution rate for employees. Employees who remained at the 12 percent default contribution rate had average income that was approximately one-third lower than would be predicted …

Balancing Loyalties: A Behavioral Study On How The Quality Of Supervisor-Subordinate Relationships Affects Whistleblowing Intentions, Jace B. Garrett, Douglas F. Prawitt, Kyle Sopp

Faculty Publications

While high-quality relationships among employees yield many benefits to organizations, they may have unintended consequences for whistleblowing. In a first experiment, we investigate whether high-quality employee-supervisor relationships reduce employees’ willingness to report supervisor wrongdoing through an internal hotline. We also investigate whether the quality of such relationships mitigates the effect of evidence strength on reporting intention. In a second experiment, we test the robustness of the effects of relationship quality and evidence strength on employees’ willingness to report wrongdoing identified in our first experiment, but to an external auditor. We also examine two factors that may mitigate the negative effect …

Current Issues Faced By Controllers, Anthony C. Bucaro, T. Jeffrey Wilks, Christopher Yust

Faculty Publications

We conduct a series of semi-structured interviews with controllers and chief accounting officers from large public and private companies—over half are Fortune 500—to identify the current issues faced by the controllership function. We map these issues into the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA®) Management Accounting Competencies and highlight recent research that addresses these issues and where there are gaps. Our findings suggest three IMA competencies that weigh heavily on controllers’ minds: (1) collaboration, teamwork, and relationship management; (2) information systems and technology; and (3) talent management. Finally, we describe how the insights from controllers suggest important improvements to accounting curriculum …

Human Connection: A Crucial Ingredient In Vacation Experience, Ondrej Mitas, Moji Shahvali, Peter Ward, Mat Duerden, Marcel Bastiaansen

Faculty Publications

The past decade (2012–2022) has seen a blossoming of research on tourists’ quality of life. Frameworks such as subjective well-being (Diener & Seligman, 2002), the PERMA wellbeing theory (Seligman, 2012) and eudaimonia (Filep & Deery, 2010) have been used to document the numerous positive psychological effects of tourist experiences. One of the most robust findings from this literature is that engaging in tourism triggers emotions. Ranging from the excitement of hobby-focused competitions and tours (Mitas et al., 2012a) to the relaxation of a spa (Strauss-Blasche et al., 2004a), dozens of studies have now documented salubrious emotional profiles over the course …

The Impact Of Reflection On Experience Type Perceptions, Mat D. Duerden, Camilla Hodge, Karen Melton, Aubrey Rushton, Lexi Anderson, Madison Bagley

Faculty Publications

Whether an experience is perceived as ordinary or extraordinary (i.e., memorable, meaningful, transformational) (Duerden et al., 2018) depends on a variety of potential factors including but not limited to time, social connection, and reflection. The purpose of this experimental study was to assess how activity type, social connection, and reflection type influences exper ience type, ordinary versus extraordinary, perceptions overtime. Data was collected from 209 undergraduates using a 4x4 experimental design. Participants engaged in one of four different 20-minute activities based upon Melton's (2017) family activity model (e.g., core:parallel, core:joint, balance:parallel, and balance:joint). Each activity was run for four different …

Category Versus Labeled Magnitude Scale Measures Of Immediate Conscious Leisure Experiences: Engagement, Immersion, And Absorption, Gary D. Ellis, Patti A. Freeman, Brian J. Hill, Jingxian Jiang

Faculty Publications

We developed and validated single-item category (CAT) and labeled magnitude (LM) scales of three recalled immediate conscious leisure experiences: engagement, immersion, and absorption. These minimally invasive scales are suitable for use in experiments, surveys, and evaluations in the travel and leisure industries. The CAT scales followed a familiar Likert-type format, while the LM scales involved calibration by 169 judges using two modalities (drawing lines of differing lengths and providing numeric magnitude judgments) to establish empirically determined ratio-scaled distances among seven modifiers (not at all, slightly, somewhat, quite, very, greatly, and extremely). We collected 3,821 experience observations from 621 visitors to …

Land Prices And The Development Process, Henry J. Munneke, C. F. Sirmans, Barrett Slade

Faculty Publications

As lot area increases, it is commonly believed that land prices will increase at a nonconstant rate. In the case where the land price-area curve increases at a decreasing rate with respect to parcel area, it is believed the cost of subdividing land is the driving factor behind the concavity. This paper uses a unique data set to explore how the area elasticity of price changes over the development cycle as land moves from raw land to finished lots. The results show the area elasticity of price increases as parcels of land move through the phases of development. The results …

Improving Psychological Well-Being Of Young Adults By Conducting Family History Research At A Religious University, Barry M. Lunt, Kelly R. Summers, David A. Wood

Faculty Publications

Prior research suggests that knowledge of one’s family is correlated with, but does not produce, psychological well-being. We test this conjecture, by examining whether participating in family history research (i.e., genealogical research) is associated with psychological well-being above and beyond the effects of knowledge of one’s family, documented in prior research. To test this, we examine whether students enrolled in a university level family history course, improve in family identification, self-esteem, anxiety, resilience, and locus of control more than a control sample. For students enrolled in the family history course, we find an increase in family identification, which in turn …

The Impact Of Audit Technology On Audit Task Outcomes: Evidence For Technology-Based Audit Techniques, Marc Eulerich, Adi Masli, Jeffrey Pickerd, David A. Wood

Faculty Publications

As audit technology becomes more widespread, practice and academia are raising concerns about the costs and benefits of these technologies. We examine how internal auditors use technologybased audit techniques (TBATs) and how TBATs impact the efficiency and effectiveness of their audits. We use two surveys and interviews of individual auditors and chief audit executives (CAE) to examine their perceptions of TBATs. Auditors perceive TBATs as beneficial. Specifically, an increase in the use of TBATs is associated with completing more audits, finding more risk factors, providing more recommendations, and decreasing audit days. However, CAEs also perceive TBATs to be costly. An …

Accounting History Collections, University Of Mississippi. J. D. Williams Library

Individual and Corporate Publications

No abstract provided.

Policy Innovation As The Cornerstone Of Energy Transition: An Analysis Of Energy Policy In The Shipping Economy And Operations, Peyman Ghaforian Masodzadeh

World Maritime University Ph.D. Dissertations

Despite being excluded from most climate change treaties, the maritime sector is expected to manage and reduce carbon emissions in line with global decarbonization goals. Although the IMO's effort has been evident by the adoption of energy regulations and the GHG strategy during the past decade, however, the effectiveness and adequacy of the adopted energy policy remain questionable. This thesis aims to identify problems associated with energy policy in the shipping industry and propose appropriate solutions. Initially, this study was premised on the hypothesis that “energy policy in the shipping industry involves problems associated with policy design, policy implementation, and …

Empirically Testing The Experience Type Framework, Mat Duerden, Camilla Hodge, Karen Melton, Peter Ward, Madison Bagley, Lexi Anderson, Tessa Meredith, Aubrey Rushton, Dennis Eggett, Andrew Lacanienta, Mark A. Widmer

Faculty Publications

In 2018, Duerden et al. proposed an experience type framework (ETF) which articulated key characteristics of ordinary and extraordinary experiences. While conceptually helpful, the framework has yet to be empirically tested. Thus, the purpose of this study was to empirically test the proposed hierarchical structure of the ETF. To achieve this purpose, we first developed, refined, and validated an operationalized ETF measurement tool, the experience type scale (ETS), to test the ETF. Data from three separate studies involving samples drawn from an online panel, participants in an executive Master of Business field study experience, and undergraduate students (n¼405) are analyzed …

Exploration And Implementation Of Seaport Manatee To Relieve The Supply Chain Congestion At California Ports, Diane Wells Maclennan

Theses and Dissertations

For the global economy to thrive, a stable supply chain network is imperative to provide control of the seamless flow of goods. What is detrimental to supply chain performance due to inconsistency can be costly and consequently cause out-of-stock items, deficient use of container storage capacity and faulty logistics planning. This feasibility study examined leadership decisions in the face of supply chain turbulence. The analysis introduces the congestion free SeaPort Manatee in Palmetto, Florida. It establishes how this seaport could offer an alternative sea trade path to alleviate the supply chain strain since the U.S. will most likely continue to …

Motivated And Determined & Making A Difference As Executives (Mad & Made) In The Entertainment Industry: A Phenomenological Study Of Black Female Entertainment Industry Executives’ Challenges And Paths To Elevation, Angela M. Killens

Theses and Dissertations

Since the birth of the United States and the enslavement of Africans in America, Black women have had to navigate challenges in various industries to elevate toward, and excel in, positions of power. From grade school to the workplace, Black women have had to contend with racism, discrimination, and inequities that have been impediments despite their level of education and experience. With little literature specifically documenting the experiences of Black women who work on the corporate side of the entertainment industry, the data acquired from this qualitative phenomenological study provides insight into these women’s lives. The study discloses some of …

Survive And Thrive: An Exploration Of Methods Implemented By Small Businesses In The Construction Industry To Sustain Their Business Beyond 5 Years, Tamar Barsoumian

Theses and Dissertations

Small businesses represent an influential portion of the American economy yet retain a high rate of closure especially in their early years, therefore; this study sought to address a lack of available research regarding small businesses in the construction industry, by investigating the methods and strategies existing small business owners use to support business survivability, in the regionally specific area of Southern California. The purpose of this study was to investigate strategies used by existing construction industry small businesses, identify the challenges experienced as a construction industry small business organization in Southern California, and determine how the small business owners …

An Application Of Lewin In A Trans-Pandemic World: A Narrative Inquiry In A Case Study With A Suggested Model For The Future, Chandler Barksdale Ewell Caldwell

Theses and Dissertations

Change is constant in today’s post-pandemic world. This is truly evident in online business success with entrepreneurs that defy past limitations and rely on future vision. This study purposely attempts to identify and qualify the impact of stylized change focused leadership in response to workplace changes during the variant challenges of the corona virus pandemic. The relevancy of Lewin’s organizational change model in today’s new normal provides the foundation for this research. Data were gathered through interview with a purposive sample of 12 managers executives and team members from a public sector organization. Evolving through an iterative process of evaluation …

An Examination Of The Saudi Arabian Citizens’ Perception On Leisure Tourism’S Impact On Culture In Saudi Arabia, Ihsan Bayaa

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation aims to understand the perception of Saudi Arabian citizens on the impact of leisure tourism on culture in the country. Given that Saudi Arabia is the second most popular tourist destination in the Middle East, with more than 16 million visitors in 2017, and that the leisure tourism industry is rapidly expanding, it is important to examine the impact of this growing industry on the local culture.

This study is significant as it provides valuable insights into the perceptions of Saudi Arabian citizens on the impact of leisure tourism on their culture and ways it may shape their …

Exploring Prosocial Theories For Teaching Civility In Baccalaureate Level Business Communication, Mikelle Barberi-Weil

Theses and Dissertations

The paralysis of civility and the heightened acrimony in both public and private fora is considered a detriment to the health of a high-functioning and prosperous society. In the context of contemporary culture, the potential conflict between people with antithetical values and antithetical ideologies in a nonconsensual and neutral-ground locale is at a heightened level. When two people are obligated to each other in professional environments, they need to get along. Yet, as organizations have flattened and gone casual over recent decades, the boundaries of traditional politeness and respect have diminished (Andersson & Pearson, 1999). Leadership and organizational environments are …

The Relationships Among Financial Literacy, Financial Behaviors, Financial Attitudes, And Homeownership Within Low-Moderate Income Households In Los Angeles County, Aliyu Ahmed

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores how financial literacy, financial capability, financial self-efficacy, and future time perspective affect the likelihood of low-moderate income (LMI) households in Los Angeles County owning a home and holding a mortgage. It draws on existing literature on financial literacy, financial capability, financial self-efficacy, future time perspective, and homeownership to develop a theoretical framework that identifies the factors that influence LMI households’ access to homeownership. Using secondary data merged from six surveys conducted by the University of Southern California (USC) Understanding America Study (UAS) from 2015 to 2022, it analyzes the relationships among financial literacy, financial behaviors, financial attitudes, …

Beyond Competing For Talent: An Integrative Framework For Coopetition In Talent Management In Smes, Stefan Jooss, Julia Lenz, Ralf Burbach

Articles

This paper aims to unpack how small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can operationalise coopetition in talent management, addressing ongoing talent shortages in the hospitality industry which were intensified during the Covid-19 pandemic

Examining Incivility Through A Moral Lens: Coworker Morality Appraisals, Other-Condemning Emotions, And Instigated Incivility, Gerardo A. Miranda, Jennifer L. Welbourne

Management Faculty Publications

While much is known about the prevalence and impact of incivility in the workplace, relatively less is known about those who instigate workplace incivility. This research aims to investigate incivility instigation through a moral lens by examining the roles of other-condemning moral emotions (contempt, disgust, and anger) and appraisals of coworkers’ morality as predictors of this behavior at work. In Study 1, we used structural equation modeling to analyze two waves of self-report data collected from a sample of 447 full-time United States (U.S.) working adults. Findings from this study indicate that appraising coworkers as low in morality elicited feelings …