Business Commons^™

Fairness And Luck: Contract Away Or Come What May?, H. Scott Asay, Jace Garrett, William B. Tayler

Faculty Publications

In practice, managers and employees often enter into risky, uncertain contracts. Prior works shows that managers use ex post discretion to reduce the effect of uncontrollable “bad luck” on employees’ performance-based compensation, but do not use ex post discretion to reduce the effect of uncontrollable “good luck,” due to fairness concerns. We investigate whether ex ante, objective compensation plans can help address the fairness concerns that lead to this asymmetric treatment of uncontrollable events. We provide evidence that compensation plans that account for uncontrollable factors can reduce differences between individuals’ fairness perceptions in good and bad luck settings. However, controlling …

The Effects Of A Second-Chance Exam Policy In A Large-Enrollment Introductory Accounting Course, Melissa Larson, William B. Tayler, Jared R. Stark

Faculty Publications

Using a quasi-experimental design, we compare two semesters of an introductory accounting course to evaluate the impact of a second-chance exam policy (SCEP) on student performance and anxiety, analyzing data from 1,986 students. The SCEP, allowing two additional attempts at exams capped at 80 percent credit, significantly improved academic outcomes and decreased perceived test anxiety. Specifically, students during the SCEP semester experienced an average increase of 4.46 percent in exam scores (p < 0.01), a 3.37 percent increase in course percentage points (p < 0.01), and a GPA increase of 0.21 (p < 0.01). Notably, women experienced greater improvements than men in measured academic outcomes. Our findings suggest that SCEPs can be an effective intervention to increase academic performance and reduce anxiety. We also examine an SCEP’s effect on preparation for exam first attempts and find that students perform better on a first attempt with an SCEP.

Perceptions Of Robotic Process Automation In Big 4 Public Accounting Firms: Do Firm Leaders And Lower-Level Employees Agree?, Lauren A. Cooper, D. Kip Holderness, Trevor L. Sorensen, David A. Wood

Faculty Publications

The use of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a recent innovation in the public accounting industry, and the Big 4 firms are at the forefront of its implementation. This paper examines how the adoption and use of RPA is affecting the perceived work experience of firm leaders and lower-level employees at Big 4 accounting firms. We interview 14 RPA leaders, survey 139 lower-level employees, and compare and contrast their responses. We find that the two groups generally agree that RPA is having a positive influence on the profession. Both groups believe that RPA is positively changing the work employees perform …

The Influence Of Management’S Internal Audit Experience On Earnings Management, Matthew Ege, Timothy Seidel, Mikhail Sterin, David A. Wood

Faculty Publications

We examine whether firms with managers that have prior internal audit experience are less likely to manage earnings. This examination is important because the internal audit function is uniquely positioned to provide experiences that could influence future managerial behavior, including limiting the potential negative repercussions of earnings management. We find that firms with managers that have internal audit experience are associated with lower real earnings management but not accruals-based earnings management. Effects are strongest when managers with internal audit experience have greater power or currently hold financial roles, or when there are a greater number of managers with internal audit …

A Framework For Using Robotic Process Automation For Audit Tasks, Marc Eulerich, Justin Pawlowski, Nathan J. Waddoups, David A. Wood

Faculty Publications

The ability to automate tasks and processes using robotic process automation (RPA)—or the development of bots—is receiving significant attention in accounting. Auditors often struggle to know what tasks to automate and how to prioritize bot development. Drawing upon sociotechnical systems theory and using a design science methodology, we develop and validate a three-step evaluation framework to assist auditors as they decide what activities to automate. We validate this framework using interviews, surveys of experienced internal and external auditors, and two case studies. By developing and validating our framework through the lens of sociotechnical systems theory, we also provide several insights …

Evidence On Internal Audit Quality From Transitioning To Remote Audits Because Of Covid-19, Marc Eulerich, Martin Wagener, David A. Wood

Faculty Publications

As in-person audits were banned by governments and by company policies due to the COVID-19 pandemic, internal auditors had to transition to remote audits to perform their work. Based on survey responses of internal auditors who have conducted both remote and in-person audits, we find that internal auditors perceive no difference in the efficiency and effectiveness of and stakeholders’ reliance on results from remote and in-person audits when considering all responses. However, we also find that perceived efficiency and effectiveness increase the more experience internal auditors have with remote audits. Supplemental analyses show that support from the auditee, but not …

Publication Benchmarking Data Based On Faculty Promoted At The Top 200 Worldwide Accounting Research Institutions, Jared S. Moon, Scott L. Summers, Nathan J. Waddoups, David A. Wood

Faculty Publications

The primary purpose of this paper is to update and extend past promotion benchmarking studies. We update prior benchmarking studies by providing publication benchmarking data for faculty promoted between 2013 and 2019, inclusive. We extend prior benchmarking studies by evaluating a larger number of institutions (the top 200 worldwide accounting institutions), using a more global journal list, and providing sensitivity analyses between journal lists. We group institutions based on rankings and report a possible minimum publication hurdle for each group in each journal category. In addition, we provide data on the mix, or percentage, of publications in each journal category …

Social Media Analysts And Sell‑Side Analyst Research, Michael S. Drake, James R. Moon Jr., Brady J. Twedt, James D. Warren

Faculty Publications

We examine how research posted by “social media analysts” (SMAs)—individuals posting equity research online via social media investment platforms—is related to research subsequently produced by professional sell-side equity analysts. Using data from Seeking Alpha, we find that the market reaction to sell-side analyst research is substantially reduced when the analyst research is preceded by the report of an SMA, and that this is particularly true of sell-side analysts’ earnings forecasts. We further find that this effect is more pronounced when SMA reports contain more decision-useful language, are produced by SMAs with greater expertise, and relate to firms with greater retail …

Fool Me Once, Shame On You; Fool Me Twice, Shame On Me: The Long-Term Impact Of Arthur Andersen’S Demise On Partners’ Audit Quality*, Feng Guo, Ling Lei Lisic, Jeffrey Pittman, Timothy Seidel, Mi Zhou, Ying Zhou

Faculty Publications

Although recent evidence suggests that individual audit partners explain a substantial portion of the variation in audit quality proxies, much less is known about what determines an audit partner’s quality. Psychology and behavioral economics theories hold that an individual’s experiences can have enduring impacts on subsequent behavior. We examine whether auditors’ direct exposure to Arthur Andersen’s collapse has a long-term impact on the quality of their audits. Our evidence implies that audit partners who directly experienced Andersen’s demise impose stricter monitoring evident in their clients exhibiting a lower propensity for misstatements and small profits, and paying higher audit fees. Importantly, …

You Can't Get There From Here: The Influence Of An Audit Partner's Prior Non-Public Accounting Experience On Audit Outcomes*, Ling Lei Lisic, Jeffrey Pittman, Timothy Seidel, Aleksandra "Ally" B. Zimmerman

Faculty Publications

We examine the importance of audit partners' prior non-public accounting experience (hereafter, “industry experience”) to audit outcomes. We conducted 20 (nine) semi-structured interviews of audit partners with (without) industry experience. These interviews shed light on industry-experienced partners’ career path choices, perceptions of the challenges and benefits stemming from industry experience, and perceptions of how this experience influences their current audit work. Grounded in theory and the results of these interviews, we empirically examine using a unique hand-collected dataset whether audit partners with industry experience conduct higher quality and more efficient audits. Our evidence implies that industry experience is associated with …

Tax Boycotts, H. Scott Asay, Jacob Thornock, Jeffrey L. Hoopes, Jaron H. Wilde

Faculty Publications

To what extent do consumers boycott in response to corporate tax activities? Anecdotes suggest potential consumer backlash is a meaningful deterrent to corporate tax planning, and the tax literature has developed expectations that these boycotts happen. But empirical evidence on their existence and impact is limited. We undertake a comprehensive study to examine how consumers’ purchase behavior relates to corporate tax activities, triangulating across several designs, samples, and measures. First, we survey a representative sample of U.S. consumers to examine the reported relationship between corporate tax planning and consumer behavior; we find that consumers report that precisely zero have ever …

Cloud-Based Machine Learning And Sentiment Analysis, Emmanuel C. Opara

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

The role of a Data Scientist is becoming increasingly ubiquitous as companies and institutions see the need to gain additional insights and information from data to make better decisions to improve the quality-of-service delivery to customers. This thesis document contains three aspects of data science projects aimed at improving tools and techniques used in analyzing and evaluating data. The first research study involved the use of a standard cybersecurity dataset and cloud-based auto-machine learning algorithms were applied to detect vulnerabilities in the network traffic data. The performance of the algorithms was measured and compared using standard evaluation metrics. The second …

Lessons From Psychology For Law Practice Management, Peter G. Glenn

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On Corporate Financial Fragility In The Vietnamese Manufacturing Industry, Trang Nguyen

Honors Theses

In the past decades, under the government’s export-led growth strategy, the Vietnamese manufacturing sector – the backbone of the whole Vietnamese economy – has established a deep tie with the international market and the reliance on foreign buyers has fueled the growth of this sector before COVID-19. However, during the pandemic, when the global market contracted at -3.5 percent and demand slumped globally, this existing growth model and the manufacturing sector’s reliance on foreign buyers induced significant risks to this sector from both the demand and supply side. Using the firm-level data on 41 manufacturing exporting companies from the Vietstock …

Gap, Inc., Jeffrey S. Harrison, Caroline Broadfoot, Julie Farmer, Surabhi Vittal

Robins Case Network

Sonia Syngal was appointed President and Chief Executive Officer of Gap Inc. in March of 2020. In an interview with the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Syngal directly addressed the 70% loss of revenue and $140 million in cash spending per week that occurred at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and how she plans to lead the executive leadership team to redefine their purpose. Syngal emphasized the decision to become “inclusive by design” and to use that as Gap’s guiding North Star as it makes decisions, both big and small, going forward.

Gap, previously known as The Gap Stores, …

The Effects Of The Trump Tariffs And The Coronavirus Pandemic On The U.S. Bicycle Industry, Thurston Randolph Mann

Honors Theses and Capstones

No abstract provided.

Entrepreneurial Ecosystems And Industry Knowledge: Does The Winning Region Take All?, Yating Li, Martin Kenney, Donald Patton, Abraham Song

All Faculty Open Access Publications

Entrepreneurial ecosystems (EE) are composed not only of startups but also the organizations that support them. Theory has been ambivalent about whether an EE is spatially bounded or includes distant organizations. This exploratory study uses a time series of all Internet industry initial public offerings (IPO) to explore the locational changes not only of startups but also four key EE service providers: lawyers, investment bankers, venture capitalists, and board directors. We find that while the startups became only slightly more concentrated, the EE service providers concentrated more rapidly, as an industry center in Silicon Valley emerged. Our results suggest that …

Technology, Gender And Organizations: A Systematic Mapping Study, Gonzalo Valdes, Bobbi Thomason, Andrea Bentancor, Isidora Jeria, Constanza Troncoso

All Faculty Open Access Publications

In this article, we employed a systematic mapping methodology to examine the existing literature at the intersection of technology, gender and organizations. While much has been written about gender in organizations, the research has not consistently considered that modern organizations are increasingly technology-driven - in technology may lie an underexplored lever that could help expand our understanding of gender issues at the workplace. By analyzing a final sample of 168 research papers, we found that two main forms of conceptualizing technology emerged: technology as culture and technology as tools. Papers in the first category are concerned with environments in which …

Do Managers Learn From Analyst Participation In Conference Calls?, Amanda Aw Zhi Xin Yong, Young Jun Cho, Holly I. Yang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

While research finds that conference calls are informative to the market and analysts, they can also be informative to managers as analysts’ questions can provide a feedback effect. Using a sample of conference call transcripts from 2002 to 2018, we find that greater analyst participation, as measured by the number of words spoken by analysts relative to the number of words spoken by managers during conference calls, is associated with higher accuracy in managers’ subsequent earnings forecasts. Cross-sectional tests show that this positive association is more pronounced when managers use more uncertain words in conference calls, when analysts use a …

Development Of A Framework To Support Informed Shipbuilding Based On Supply Chain Disruptions, Katherine Smith, Rafael Diaz, Yuzhong Shen

VMASC Publications

In addition to stresses induced by the Covid-19 pandemic, supply chains worldwide have been growing more complex while facing a continuous onslaught of disruptions. This paper presents an analysis and extension of a graph based model for modeling and simulating the effects of such disruptions. The graph based model combines a Bayesian network approach for simulating risks with a network dependency analysis approach for simulating the propagation of disruptions through the network over time. The initial analysis provides evidence supporting extension to for using a multi-layered approach allowing for the inclusion of cyclic features in supply chain models. Initial results …

Leveraging Maching Learning In Financial Fraud Forensics In The Age Of Cybersecurity, Md. Ariful Haque, Sachin Shetty

VMASC Publications

Financial sectors are lucrative cyber-attack targets because of their immediate financial gain. As a result, financial institutions face challenges in developing systems that can automatically identify security breaches and separate fraudulent transactions from legitimate transactions. Today, organizations widely use machine learning techniques to identify any fraudulent behavior in customers' transactions. However, machine learning techniques are often challenging because of financial institutions' confidentiality policy, leading to not sharing the customer transaction data. This chapter discusses some crucial challenges of handling cybersecurity and fraud in the financial industry and building machine learning-based models to address those challenges. The authors utilize an open-source …

Tax Implications Of The Infrastructure Investment And Jobs Act, Michelle Freeman

ETSU Faculty Works

On Nov. 15, 2021, President Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act into law. The purpose of this legislation is evident in its name as it encompasses funding for “roads, bridges, railroads, airports, public transportation, access to broadband internet, and clean water” (Stradling, 2021). The revenue to support the $1.2 trillion Act will mainly result from “repurposing COVID-19 relief funds and unused unemployment benefits, delaying a Medicare rebate, and enacting stronger cryptocurrency reporting requirements" (Stradling, 2021). Although there are few provisions in this Act that will affect the average taxpayer, there are some that tax preparers should note.

Racial Composition In Advertisements And Its Effects On White Consumers' Perceptions And Purchase Intention, Chung-Ting Wang

Honors Program Theses

Previous marketing research has generally not examined how ethnic majority consumers perceive advertisements featuring mixed racial compositions of model groups. This paper presents an investigation into how White consumers’ perceptions and purchase intentions change depending on the racial composition of the people represented in an advertisement. The study uses a single 12-condition experiment, in which we examine the type of advertisement (product vs. social advocacy advertising), racial composition (all-White vs. diverse mix vs. all-Black), and racial priming effects (racially-primed vs. racially-neutral message). Additionally, consumers’ levels of self-referencing to the ad and strength of ethnic identification are explored as possible mediation …

Fractal Dimension As A Predictor Of Organizational Change Success, Thomas Anthony Seitz

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

As many as two thirds of organizational change (OC) initiatives fail to achieve their outcome objectives. Researchers have demonstrated that successful change requires alignment among all levels of an organization. However, contemporary OC models do not quantify the degree of hierarchical alignment during the change process. The purpose of this quantitative, correlational study was to examine whether the fractal dimension of hierarchical alignment (predictor variable) was associated with OC success (criterion variable) as described by the self-organizing fractal theory (SOFT). The research question addressed the association between the fractal dimension related to the alignment of OC beliefs and behavioral intentions …

Exploring The Significance Of Digital Skills Training For Accountants, Limin Zhu

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Accounting firm leaders face a challenge with employees who lack digital skills. Employees without relevant digital skills put the accounting firm at a competitive disadvantage. Grounded in human capital theory, the purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore strategies regional accounting firm leaders used to help employees improve digital skills. Data were collected from six semistructured interviews with partners, directors, and managers with three years or more of experience who participated in the training and professional development process at four regional accounting firms in the Houston, Texas area. The review of company documents and company website postings …

Strategies Leaders Of Stem-Focused Education Nonprofit Organizations Use To Engage Hiring Corporations, Andrew Kanas

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Some leaders of nonprofit Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) focused nonprofit education organizations lack strategies to engage STEM-focused hiring corporations to support their organizations’ missions. Nonprofit leaders are concerned about engaging individuals, organizations, and government entities to help support sustainability. Grounded in human capital theory, the purpose of this qualitative single case study was to explore strategies leaders of nonprofit STEM-focused education organizations use to engage STEM-focused hiring corporations to support their nonprofit organizations’ mission. The participants consisted of five board members of a nonprofit partner organization in the U.S. state of Florida who successfully managed STEM-focused stakeholder engagement. …

Relationship Between Capital Structure And Financial Performance Of U.S. Retail Bank, Nelson Jonah Usoro

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

AbstractThe decision to fund the operations of a company through debt or equity has implications for the long-term sustainability of the organization. The purpose of this quantitative causal-comparative study was to evaluate the impact of capital structure on the financial performance of U.S. retail banks and to observe the behavior of the banks during a time of crisis to determine whether capital structuring decisions could support the bank in surviving financial distress. The research questions focused on the effects of capital structure, including common stock equity with preferred stock compared to common stock equity with secured debt, on earnings, profitability, …

Optimization Of Financial Performance In E-Commerce, Ishmael Fleming

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Financial performance is a challenge for business managers in the e-commerce industry that lack the knowledge to meet their operational objectives consistently. Business managers are concerned with poor financial performance due to the adverse impact on business sustainability. Grounded in total quality management theory, the purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to examine the relationship between working capital management (WCM), operating expense ratio (OER), and e-commerce financial performance. Archival data were collected from 107 small- to medium-sized publicly traded e-commerce businesses headquartered in the United States from 2019 to 2021. The results of the multiple linear regression were significant …

Strategies To Generate Innovation For Profit Gains Of U.S.-Based Global Retailing, Kazue Goto

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Ineffective innovation strategies can negatively affect profit gains of U.S.-based global retailing companies (USGRC). Leaders in the retailing industry who fail to use strategies to generate innovation for profit gains can experience decreased profitability. Grounded in the dynamic theory of strategy, the purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore strategies that leaders of USGRC use to generate innovation for profit gains. Participants included six USGRC leaders in California, who used strategies to generate innovation for profit gains. Data were collected from semistructured interviews, company documents and analyzed using thematic data analysis. Three themes emerged: customer-centric opportunity identification …

Strategies To Decrease Unethical Financial Management Behavior In Nonprofit Organizations, Cristi Michelle Hargrave

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Unethical financial management leadership conduct in nonprofit organizations threatens organizational mission accomplishment. Leaders of nonprofit organizations who fail to decrease unethical financial management conduct can observe a lack of mission accomplishment in their organizations. Grounded in the stakeholder and agency theories, the purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore strategies nonprofit leaders use to decrease unethical financial management conduct. Participants were three nonprofit leaders from organizations on the East Coast of the United States who implemented strategies to reduce unethical financial management conduct. Data were collected using semistructured interviews and a review of nonprofit regulatory reporting documents. …