Accounting Perspectives最新文献

This paper synthesizes the literature on management earnings forecasts (MFs) and adaption mechanisms, combines existing theories into a unifying framework, and discusses the primary determinants of MF accuracy and informativeness. The proposed model refines existing theories by emphasizing the dynamics and multiperiod interactions among firm management, financial analysts, and investors, thereby simplifying the assessment of the complex relations within the forecast cycle. Furthermore, we analyze when and to what extent financial analysts and investors anticipate bias and misleading information. Overall, the literature review provides strong support for a positive correlation between the extent and credibility of MFs, on the one hand, and stock returns, share liquidity, and analyst coverage, on the other hand. Earnings forecasts tend to be optimistically biased, with a positive correlation with forecast uncertainty, earnings flexibility, financial distress, investor sentiment, and the share price dependency of managers' remuneration. Firm growth, legal liability, and litigation risk are significantly associated with forecast pessimism. We also find that MF accuracy increases with previous forecast accuracy, firm size, analyst coverage, analyst agreement, management qualifications, and corporate governance level. Moreover, investors do not anticipate the full extent of predictable forecast bias, leading to systematic share price drifts after the announcement of earnings forecasts and actual earnings. The study's results have substantial implications for researchers, firm managers, investors, financial analysts, and regulators. Although managers may enhance their forecasts' credibility by providing precise, bundled, and disaggregated forecasts, external stakeholders should carefully analyze forecast antecedents and characteristics to assess the direction and magnitude of expected MF bias.

Drawing on qualitative field studies, this literature review synthesizes research on the formation of professional identities. This journey is organized based on employee level, from the pre-exposure phase of recruitment, up the hierarchy to staff-, manager-, and partner-level work at auditing firms, to the level of those who leave professional service firms to pursue other work. Our analysis highlights the importance of acquiring soft skills over technical training in identity building, including the ability to incorporate unwritten rules and norms of professionalism that persist throughout professional careers. Our review reveals a scarcity of studies on the identity formation of managers. We also question the relevance of the literature on the socialization of staff auditors and partners and the impact on their identity. Critically, prior literature on auditor professional identity has emphasized one type of practitioner and setting—Western, urban, and Big 4 oriented—to the exclusion of other sites and perspectives. This emphasis has led to a disconnect between the extant research and the diversity of the realities in which auditing practices and auditors evolve. Thus, this review recognizes a need for new research directions and calls for research on professional services firms outside the Big 4 and in new and emerging markets. In addition, it advocates a greater focus on individuals and groups that have been excluded from prior research as the face of the profession changes.

This study examines the role of accountability in the governance and delivery of healthcare to a First Nations community in Canada. Drawing on actor network theory, this study explores the role of accountability in the formation and sustenance of a healthcare network using the case study of a First Nations healthcare organization. The study provides insights into how accountability helps to sustain a network of actors with divergent interests and a plurality of strategies. It finds that network accountability is the central mechanism that motivates the principal actors in the network to reconstitute themselves and converge around the purpose of strengthening governance. This study also finds evidence of accountability as a multidimensional construct that facilitates the sustenance of the federal government as the controlling actor in the network. This study provides fresh empirical insights gained from a flesh-and-blood, actual network that acknowledges the context of a marginalized group—namely, First Nations peoples. Furthermore, this study extends and presents a viable accountability model that can be adopted as the federal government enters into self-governance agreements with First Nations peoples. In contrast to the dominant literature on accountability, this study adopts the unique context of a marginalized group in a market-based developed economy.