Accounting Commons^™

Financial Leverage And Firm Performance: An Empirical Review And Analysis, Iqbal Md. M Islam

Journal of Global Business Insights

This paper examines the dual impact of financial leverage on corporate performance by analyzing empirical data across developed and developing nations, industries, and different periods. Leverage can enhance profitability through tax benefits and improved efficiency, but it also maximizes financial risk, making its effects highly context dependent. Theoretical frameworks such as the Trade-off Theory, Modigliani-Miller Theorem, Agency Theory, and Pecking Order Theory offer diverse perspectives on how debt influences firm outcomes. Empirical findings reveal mixed results; moderate leverage may lower capital costs and boost performance, whereas unnecessary debt can lead to financial distress. Disparities emerge between developed and developing economies. …

Experience Accounting To Improve Strategic Decision-Making In A Rural Resort: Application Case Report, Mats Carlbäck, Ganna V. Demydyuk

Journal of Global Hospitality and Tourism

This report explores the application of Experience Accounting (EA) to enhance strategic decision making in a rural resort, focusing on improving profitability through customer-centric financial management. This study addresses the challenges faced by small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the hospitality industry, particularly the lack of tailored information systems for effective decision-making. By integrating the Resource-Based View (RBV) and the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) paradigm, EA aligns cost accounting with customer-perceived value, optimizing resource allocation to enhance customer experience and willingness to pay. The case study of a rural upmarket resort demonstrates the practical implementation of EA, revealing insights into resource consumption …

Links, Fit, And Sacrifice: How Job Embeddedness Impacts Work Modality And Intention To Stay In Public Accounting, Maryalice C. Trussell

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Historically, the public accounting profession has applied an in-person apprenticeship model to assimilate new professionals into the culture of the firm and client service profession. The COVID-19 pandemic quickly challenged this in-person apprenticeship model in early 2020 by forcing most professionals to work remotely. Initial post-pandemic research with public accountants highlighted issues related to remote work, including a lack of social bonds with coworkers, reduced organizational socialization as well as less commitment to the firm and profession. Notwithstanding the new obstacles with COVID-induced remote work, turnover and talent shortages have been persistent challenges in public accounting.

This study is the …

Essays On Machine Learning And Corporate Disclosure, Zicheng (Leo) Xiao

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation contains two essays that shed new light on the dynamic of information disclosure on the capital market. For both two essays I leverage computational linguistics and 20 million turns of dialogues from earnings conference calls from 2006-2022. In the first essay, I introduce a novel measure that quantifies the disparity in narrative focus between managers’ disclosures and analysts’ questions during these calls, denoted as Topic Attention Divergence (TAD). A higher level of TAD indicates a higher level of firm-investor asymmetry and lower information quality. My results confirm that higher TAD in earnings conference calls inversely (positively) predict firms’ …

Home Is Where The Work Is: How Biases In Managers’ Resource Allocation Decisions Affect Task Performance In Remote Work Environments, Richard D. Mautz Iii

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As the use of remote and hybrid work arrangements continues to grow, it is important to understand how these arrangements can yield performance. In this paper, I conduct two studies to examine how the remote work environment affects managers’ task assignment decisions across different task types and how those decisions affect workers’ task performance. First, I survey managers, in both a cross-section of industries and specifically in accounting, to study the effect of remote work on their task assignment decisions. Consistent with prior literature and economic theory, I predict and find that managers are more inclined to assign generative tasks …

Through The Looking Glass: Overcoming Algorithm Aversion In Accounting, David E. Watson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Artificial intelligence (AI) is growing rapidly in the accounting field as audit firms invest heavily in technology to enhance audit efficiency and effectiveness. Existing research reveals two contrasting behaviors: algorithm aversion, where individuals are reluctant to rely on algorithms even if their recommendations are equivalent to humans, and algorithm appreciation, where individuals excessively rely on AI without exercising professional skepticism. This study investigates whether auditors’ algorithm aversion can be mitigated through interventions of providing reliability information and transparency information (explainability) about the AI’s processes in order to enhance auditor reliance on AI tools. The results indicate that the participants were …

Employer Moral Hazard In Performance Evaluations: The Effects Of Performance Measure Subjectivity And Justification On Employer Opportunism, Chandler A. Miller

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Although organizations may use multiple types of performance measures when evaluating employee performance, such as objective and subjective measures, performance measure subjectivity can introduce unverifiable information on the employee side, giving rise to employer opportunistic behavior. Employers may use the unverifiable information within subjective performance measures to increase their own personal compensation by undercompensating evaluated employees, creating a control problem known as employer moral hazard. With a 2x2 multi-period experiment, this study investigates the effect employer moral hazard has on the allocation of employee bonus compensation when there are differing levels of objective and subjective performance measures and a requirement …

Fraud Brainstorming In An Era Of Remote Work: The Effects Of Alternative Video Conferencing Configurations And Audit Team Hierarchy, Ahmed Shuaib

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In 2020, the coronavirus pandemic prompted governments to respond by implementing social distancing regulations and travel bans. Although these actions helped mitigate the spread of the virus, they also created unique challenges for businesses and their employees. Firms transitioned quickly from face-to-face work settings to remote work arrangements using video conferencing technologies (VCT). These technologies enable video calls with or without instant messaging (chat) to facilitate information exchange. For audit firms, group tasks that were previously performed in face-to-face settings had to be performed using VCT. A commonly performed group task in auditing is fraud brainstorming, which auditing standards require …

Covid-19 And Its Impact On Multinational Enterprises: A Modified Value At Risk Approach, Kashi Khazeh, Leonard Arvi, Robert C. Winder

Journal of Global Business Insights

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) operating across different currencies are exposed to exchange rate risk. They may utilize a variety of tools to mitigate that risk. While there are different types of exchange rate risk, this study focuses specifically on the ongoing exposure of cash flow transactions denominated in the currencies of seven different developed countries. Since other types of risk (i.e., economic and translation) are evaluated based on yearly results, they are not considered in this study. The modified value-at-risk (MVaR) model is employed to estimate the maximum one-period losses during the eighteen months before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic …

An Empirical Analysis Of Sentiment And Confidence Regarding Interest Rates In Disclosures Of Public Firms In The U.S. Fintech Sector, James J. Farley

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation studied the channel of communication of 10-K and 10-Q financial reports and the effectiveness of relaying interest rate sentiment. 10-K financial reports relay information regarding a company’s financials on a yearly basis while 10-Q reports relay information on a quarterly basis. To study a newer industry of Fintech and how it may be affected by interest rates it was necessary to narrow Fintech to the United States and a coordinated public channel of communication using the 10-Q and 10-K financial reports. Fintech emerged as a relevant word and industry coming off the Great Recession of 2009. During the …

Two Essays On Audit Engagement Partner Quality, Han Dai

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

I have two essays in my dissertation. Essay 1 examines whether and how individual audit engagement partner quality is associated with client firms’ risk factor disclosures (Items 1A and 7) in the annual reports (10-K filings). Specifically, I investigate whether engagement partner quality is associated with the tone and sentiment in the risk factor disclosures, as well as the disclosure of financial and tax-related risk factors. I find that clients with high-quality engagement partners use an overall negative tone in the narrative disclosures in Item 1A and Item 7. Further, I find that high-quality engagement partners are specifically associated with …

The Rise Of Text Analysis: Using Machine Learning To Explain The Variation In Going Concern Accuracy, Yimei Zhang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Auditors are required to issue modified audit opinions if they have sufficient doubts about the client’s ability to continue as a going concern. These going concern opinions represent an important information resource for financial statement users to evaluate client performance, and are associated with a number of negative capital market outcomes (e.g. negative returns, increased cost of capital, etc.). Despite being used by capital market participants, going concern opinions are commonly plagued with Type I errors (false positive) and Type II errors (false negative), making them a particularly noisy measure. The purpose of this study is to determine whether machine …

Do Auditors Respond To Changes In Clients’ Analyst Coverage? Evidence From A Natural Experiment, Mohammad Alkhamees

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Prior research has established that analysts serve as an important monitor of managementand improve the quality of firms’ financial reporting. In this study, I utilize the natural experiment resulting from the mergers and closures of brokerage houses, to examine whether this exogenous change in firms’ information environment impacts the audit process. Specifically, I examine whether reductions in analyst coverage have an effect on auditor effort proxied by audit fees and audit report lag, as well as financial reporting quality, measured by future restatements. I find that client firms pay significantly higher audit fees following an exogenous reduction in analyst coverage …

Are All Pictures Worth 1,000 Words? An Investigation Of Fit Between Graph Type And Performance On Accounting Data Analytics Tasks, Shawn Paul Granitto

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The usefulness of accounting data is directly dependent on the presentation and interpretation of the data (DeSanctis and Jarvenpaa 1989; Brown-Liburd et al. 2015; Cao et al. 2015). While both corporate accounting and public accounting have a large focus on data analytics and visualizations, accountants in both fields have reported to have minimal experience creating visualizations and observe a growing use of visualizations within their role (Krumwiede 2019; Buchheit et al. 2020; Gibson et al. 2020). Vessey (1991) finds that the appropriateness of a visualization can impact a user’s decision-making performance. Although prior studies have provided suggestions of when to …

Managing Incomplete Data In The Patient Discharge Summary To Support Correct Hospital Reimbursements, Fadi Naser Eddin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The patient discharge summary is a document that conveys the patient's story to other healthcare practitioners, external users, and, most importantly from a financial perspective, health insurers. A defect or incompleteness in the patient's discharge summary will result in delays in the collection process through denial of the entire or partial reimbursement claim or, in the best-case scenario, delay until the discharge summary issue is resolved. The purpose of this project is to address the issue of the incompleteness of discharge summary from the perspective of healthcare providers, with the goal of understanding, diagnosing, and intervening in the research problem. …

Public Budgeting As Moral Dilemma, Ben Wroblewski

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Government budget managers are responsible for the proper stewardship of public funds and facilitating the business transactions necessary to meet the public’s needs. Sometimes, during these decisions, managers can experience pressure to make an unethical decision. A better understanding of this issue can help organizations prevent misallocation of funds and adverse effects within the community. The problem is that the general pressure model lacks a framework to explain the decision-making process. Moral utility theory can provide insight into how people weigh or score choices with ethical considerations. This study found that government budget managers included their self-interests when experiencing tension …

The Impact Of Rtgs On Internal Control - A Comparative Study Between Some Iraqi Banks, Salowan H. Al Taee, Noor A. Rahdi

University of South Florida (USF) M3 Publishing

The research aims to examine the impact of the Real time Gross settlement (RTGS) As an example of Electronic Payment Systems (EPS) in some Iraqi banks registered in the Iraq market for the securities and banks selected in the research sample (Iraqi Central bank, commercial Gulf Bank, United Bank for Investment of Iraq, Agricultural cooperative Bank) and researchers designed the resolution designed to achieve the objectives of research and test its hypothesis to gain access to the extent to which banks apply Sample search for internal controls of general procedures, application, security procedures and protection of proposed applications based on …

The Impact Of Working Capital On Cash Management Under Ias 7 Framework: An Examination Of Tourism Listed Companies In Indonesia And Turkey, Tri Damayanti, Tuba D. Baskan

University of South Florida (USF) M3 Publishing

The objective of this study is to find the impact of capital on cash management in tourism industries. We employ three models for measuring cash management. Working capital structure is measured by working capital turnover ratio. In order to get more understand of our analysis, we hired control variables such firm performance, firm size and country specific. We applied panel analysis of 93 financial reports of Indonesian and 27 Turkish tourism listed companies. We apply three models of cash management which could not be find in another prior research. The output shows that each model found that our hypotheses is …

A Nexus Between Mergers & Acquisitions And Financial Performance Of Firms: A Study Of Industrial Sector Of Pakistan, Fiza Quareshi, Mukhtiar Ali, Salar Hussain

University of South Florida (USF) M3 Publishing

Mergers and Acquisitions (M&As) have gained considerable interest in the last few decades and the purpose behind these events is to increase revenues, gain market share, achieve competitive edge and aimed to diversify the risk. This study aims to investigate the role of mergers and acquisitions on the financial performance of firms in the industrial sector of Pakistan. Financial Performance is measured on the basis of the stock market performance of the firms, which has been measured using the event study methodology as this is one of the recognized techniques in the conditions of M&As. Stock market performance is measured …

Comparative Measurement Of Working Capital Efficiency For Borsa Istanbul Restaurants And Hotels For The Covid-19 Period And Previous Quarters, Fatih Gunay, Gary Cokins

University of South Florida (USF) M3 Publishing

The working capital of a company is the current assets that should be converted into cash within a year. To meet the goal of value maximization and to survive in a competitive business environment, managing day-to-day operating activities effectively is important. As one of the important outcomes of Covid-19, international tourist numbers decreased dramatically in 2020 and still remain at a low level. Accordingly, countries’ tourism income and tourism companies’ sales revenues have decreased linearly. This paper is aimed at measuring and comparing the working capital efficiency of companies that are operating in tourism and listed in the Borsa İstanbul …

Relationship Between Business Confidence Index And Non-Financial Firms Foreign Exchange Assets And Liabilities: Evidence From Ardl Bound Approach, Ilkut E. Kandil-Goker

University of South Florida (USF) M3 Publishing

The effects of confidence indices on macroeconomic factors and stock returns are widespread in the literature. This study, unlike previous studies, examines the effect of the confidence index on foreign exchange positions of non-financial firms. Are the non-financial firms’ managers considering the business confidence index when they manage their foreign exchange position? According to the findings, while there is no significant relationship between non-financial firms' foreign currency assets and business confidence index; there is a significant relationship between the foreign currency liabilities and the business confidence index in both the long-run and the short-run. Although the coefficient is low, as …

Proceedings Of The Global Conference On Services Management: Volume 2, Cihan Cobanoglu, Valentina Della Corte

University of South Florida (USF) M3 Publishing

This is the second volume of the Global Conference on Services Management Proceedings Series.

ISSN: 2641-5062

Advances In Global Services And Retail Management: Volume 2, Cihan Cobanoglu, Valentina Della Corte

University of South Florida (USF) M3 Publishing

This is the second volume of the Advances in Global Services and Retail Management Book Series. This volume has the following parts:

• Part 1: Hospitality and Tourism
• Part 2: Marketing, E-marketing, and Consumer Behavior
• Part 3: Management
• Part 4: Human Resources Management
• Part 5: Retail Management
• Part 6: Economics
• Part 7: Accounting and Finance
• Part 8: Sustainability and Environmental Issues
• Part 9: Information Technology

ISBN: 978-1-955833-03-5

Hospitality and Tourism

• Significance of VR in the spa: A spatial analysis
  • Irini Lai Fun Tang, Schultz Zhi Bin Xu, and Eric Chan
• Social media marketing in rural hospitality and tourism destination research
  • Samuel …

Decentralized Approach To Deep-Learning Based Asset Allocation, Sarthak Sengupta, Priyanshu Priyam, Anurika Vaish

University of South Florida (USF) M3 Publishing

Investment is an artistic science. The study discusses deep learning-based techniques for asset allocation. Deep learning is a subset of machine learning. The majority of the population lacks either the skills or the time to self-analyze the different financial investment options available to them and therefore they seek the help of the portfolio managers who make trading decisions on behalf of their clients depending on their risk appetite. Besides, portfolio managers analyze different assets, compare the strengths and weaknesses of each option before making a decision about which equities are suitable, to optimally balance profit and risks. This makes portfolio …

The Use Of Data Analytic Visualizations To Inform The Audit Risk Assessment: The Impact Of Initial Visualization Form And Documentation Focus, Rebecca N. Baaske (Becca)

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Although data analytic technologies provide auditors with powerful tools for identifying high-risk areas during an audit (Austin, Carpenter, Christ, and Nielson 2019), they are not a substitute for necessary interpretation and judgment (Brown-Liburd, Issa, and Lombardi 2015). A major barrier for making better use of data analytic techniques and tools is the skillset needed to make necessary interpretations and judgments based on data visualizations within the tool (Appelbaum, Kogan, and Vasarhelvi 2017; Earley 2015; PwC 2015). Default visualizations provided to auditors could be suboptimal in relation to the underlying data, which could limit auditors’ ability to identify anomalies without some …

The Effects Of Critical Audit Matter Recurrence And Reporting Treatment On Investors’ Information Processing, Judgments, And Decisions, Hilda E. Carrillo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A new auditor reporting standard requires auditors to disclose critical audit matters (CAMs) in the auditor’s report. CAMs highlight accounts or disclosures that involved especially challenging, subjective, or complex auditor judgment. As one of few audit-related disclosures, CAMs act as an important signal of qualitative aspects of recognized (i.e., items shown on the face of the financial statements) or disclosed (i.e., items shown in the footnotes of the financial statements) financial statement items. While certain accounts or disclosures will consistently rise to the level of a CAM, other accounts or disclosures may only rise to the level of a CAM …

Forensic Accounting Education, Practice, And Career Path In Saudi Arabia, Mohammed Alzahrane

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The various high-profile cases of financial fraud that threatened to or led to the downfall of high ranking companies have reinforced the need to equip accounting professionals with the skills necessary to detect and investigate fraud. This study aims to evaluate forensic accountants' effectiveness in Saudi Arabia in meeting the needs of the judicial system and their clients. The study also seeks to explore forensic accounting in depth through the opinions, thoughts, concerns, conceptualizations, and experiences of Saudi judges who are routinely involved in forensic accounting cases. These cases often require expert testimony (i.e., cases involving, but not limited to, …

Who Rises To The Top: An Investigation Of The Essential Skills Necessary For Partners Of Non-Big 4 Public Accounting Firms, Amanda K. Thompson-Abbott

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The public accounting industry will face several challenges in the upcoming years. One challenge is an aging workforce that will be retiring in large numbers. This shift will result in a shortage of partner-ready candidates. The second challenge involves rapid technological disruption that is predicted to change the skill sets needed for success. Both issues underscore the need to recruit and retain talent in the public accounting profession. Academic research has focused primarily on Big 4 firms, so this paper focused on non-Big 4 firms. This study used exploratory research to examine two questions: “What skills does it take to …

Development Of Next-Generation, Fast, Accurate, Transferable, And Polarizable Force-Fields For Heterogenous Material Simulations, Adam E. Hogan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Theoretical modeling is extremely useful in guiding to experiment; however quantitatively accurate modeling of energy-relevant small molecule sorption at the heterogeneous interfaces present in metal-organic materials (MOMs) is currently challenging. MOMs are an emerging class of materials consisting of inorganic clusters and organic linkers that offer great potential in the areas of gas storage, gas separation, and catalysis due to the possibility of large surface areas, complex heterogeneous surfaces, and rational designability. Efficient chemical separations involving these materials could reduce the US’s total energy consumption by approximately 10 to 15%. In this dissertation, the parameterization of small molecules and metal …

An Analysis Of The Antecedents And Consequences Of Robotic Process Automation In Accounting Functions., Aharon Yoki

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Robotic Process Automation (“RPA”) is a recently emergent technology that has exploded in popularity as firms seek to capitalize upon the marketing promise of cost reduction and improved efficiency. Yet, with this expansion of RPA, very little is known about the firms’ initial drivers, perceptions during implementation, and how outcomes align with initial expectations. RPA could displace and dramatically change the workforce, but it is unclear how employees will respond to the continuing spread of RPA. This study seeks to fill that important gap in the scholarly literature with an exploratory mixed-methods study. The first chapter is an extensive literature …