Accounting Commons^™

Mining Open Government Data For Business Intelligence Using Data Visualization: A Two-Industry Case Study, Anne Gottfried, Caroline Hartmann, Donald Yates

Faculty Publications

The business intelligence (BI) market has grown at a tremendous rate in the past decade due to technological advancements, big data and the availability of open source content. Despite this growth, the use of open government data (OGD) as a source of information is very limited among the private sector due to a lack of knowledge as to its benefits. Scant evidence on the use of OGD by private organizations suggests that it can lead to the creation of innovative ideas as well as assist in making better informed decisions. Given the benefits but lack of use of OGD to …

Two Essays On Investor Attention, Investor Sentiment, And Earnings Pricing, Qiuye Cai

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

This dissertation proposes novel direct measures for both firm-level and market-level investor attention and investor sentiment and provides new empirical evidence on the effects of investor attention and investor sentiment on earnings pricing.

The first essay proposes novel direct measures for both market-level and firm-level attention using user activity data from StockTwits.com. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first direct measure of market-level attention. By measuring market-level and firm-level attention separately, I am be able to not only distinguish between attention allocated on market level and firm level but also detach attention from equilibrium outcomes. I document …

Analytical Procedures In External Auditing: A Comprehensive Literature Survey And Framework For External Audit Analytics, Deniz Appelbaum, Alex Kogan, Miklos A. Vasarhelyi

Department of Accounting and Finance Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

There is an increasing recognition in the public audit profession that the emergence of big data as well as the growing use of business analytics by audit clients has brought new opportunities and challenges. That is, should more complex business analytics beyond the customary analytical procedures be used in the engagement and if so, where? Which techniques appear to be most promising? This paper starts the process of addressing these questions by examining extant external audit research. 301 papers are identified that discuss some use of analytical procedures in the public audit engagement. These papers are then categorized by technique, …

Big Data And Analytics In The Modern Audit Engagement: Research Needs, Deniz Appelbaum, Alexander Kogan, Miklos A. Vasarhelyi

Department of Accounting and Finance Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Modern audit engagements often involve examination of clients that are using Big Data and analytics to remain competitive and relevant in today’s business environment. Client systems now are integrated with the cloud, the Internet of Things, and external data sources such as social media. Furthermore, many engagement clients are now integrating this Big Data with new and complex business analytical approaches to generate intelligence for decision making. This scenario provides almost limitless opportunities and the urgency for the external auditor to utilize advanced analytics. This paper first positions the need for the external audit profession to move toward Big Data …

Impact Of Business Analytics And Enterprise Systems On Managerial Accounting, Deniz Appelbaum, Alexander Kogan, Miklos Vasarhelyi, Zhaokai Yan

Department of Accounting and Finance Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The nature of management accountants' responsibility is evolving from merely reporting aggregated historical value to also including organizational performance measurement and providing management with decision related information. Corporate information systems such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems have provided management accountants with both expanded data storage power and enhanced computational power. With big data extracted from both internal and external data sources, management accountants now could utilize data analytics techniques to answer the questions including: what has happened (descriptive analytics), what will happen (predictive analytics), and what is the optimized solution (prescriptive analytics). However, research shows that the nature and …

Securing Big Data Provenance For Auditors The Big Data Provenance Black Box As Reliable Evidence, Deniz Appelbaum

Department of Accounting and Finance Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The purpose of this article is to highlight a main issue regarding reliable audit evidence derived from Big Data—that of secure data provenance. Traditionally, audit evidence external to the client has been regarded as superior to other forms of evidence. However, regarding external “messy” Big Data sources that may be material to aspects of the audit, these sources may lack provenance and verifiability. That is, the origins of the data may be unclear and its log files incomplete. According to the standards, such evidence should be considered as less reliable for audit evidence. External auditors, as outsiders of the client, …

Toward Effective Big Data Analysis In Continuous Auditing, Juan Zhang, Xiongsheng Yang, Deniz Appelbaum

Department of Accounting and Finance Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Big Data now pervades every sector and function of the global economy. This paper focuses on the gaps between Big Data and the current capabilities of data analysis in continuous auditing (CA). It identifies four dimensions of Big Data and five subsequent gaps: namely, data consistency, integrity, aggregation, identification, and confidentiality. For each gap, the paper outlines challenges and possible solutions derived from traditional data systems, which can be further applied to CA systems in an era of Big Data.