Accounting Research Journal最新文献

Purpose

An audit committee (AC) whose members hold multiple directorships can adversely affect a firm’s earnings management (EM) behavior due to a lack of time that can prevent members from performing their responsibilities effectively. This paper aims to investigate the moderation role of foreign ownership (FOWN) on audit committee multiple directorships (ACMD) as it relates to accrual EM.

Design/methodology/approach

Using a sample of 528 observations for Palestinian listed companies over 2009–2019, this research used panel data regression to explore the specified relationships. Additionally, the study conducted a regression analysis using alternative measurements of the ACMD and the extended modified Jones model (2006) to assess robustness. Furthermore, generalized method of moments and a two-stage least squares method were used to address potential endogeneity concerns.

Findings

The results show that multiple directorships lead to a scarcity of time that can adversely affect efficient management oversight and documented an adverse association between FOWN and discretionary accruals. The results are consistent with agency theory that FOWN brings in expertise and experience from countries with strong governance to benefit local firms and thus recover control, lower agency costs, raise a firm’s value and thus alleviate EM.

Originality/value

This study provides unique explanations and recommendations for restraining excessive ACMD because this practice decreases managers’ ability to decrease EM. The mixed outcomes in earlier literature on the AC characteristics and EM also indicate a contingent role that may clarify this inconsistency.

Purpose

This study aims to investigate window dressing as practiced by commercial banks in Kuwait, using monthly aggregate balance sheet data covering the period January 1993 to December 2017.

Design/methodology/approach

This study applies the structural time series model to decompose an observed time series into unobserved components based on monthly data covering January 1993 to December 2017 on the consolidated balance sheet of commercial banks in Kuwait.

Findings

The empirical results indicate that Kuwaiti commercial banks indulge in upward window dressing to boost size and liquidity. This kind of behaviour is indicated by a statistically significant rise in assets under the control of banks in December, followed by a statistically significant decline in January. The operation is funded by borrowing, leading to a December rise and a January fall in foreign and other liabilities, which are also under the control of commercial banks.

Originality/value

This study uses a novel methodology to detect window dressing based on the seasonal behaviour of balance sheet items. This study suggests a unified framework for the motives, targets, types and consequences of window dressing and how they are related.

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether the amendments to International Accounting Standard (IAS) 39 and the introduction of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) 9 enhanced the readability, and thus the quality and usefulness of risk disclosure information.

Design/methodology/approach

Readability analyses are performed on companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) from 2005 to 2021. The sample period includes the period when companies disclosed information according to IAS 39 (2005–2017) and IFRS 9 (2018–2021).

Findings

The results of the analyses show risk disclosures for JSE-listed companies to be complex and difficult to understand. Furthermore, risk disclosures have become longer and less readable with the introduction of amendments to IAS 39 and the introduction of IFRS 9.

Research limitations/implications

This study uses readability measures as a proxy for the complexity and usefulness of risk disclosures. The amount of utility a user of financial statements derives could be dependent on other factors such as the quality of disclosure, individual user background and perceptions.

Practical implications

The results have valuable implications for the various stakeholders that make use of the information contained in financial statements. Stakeholders such as regulators and standard setters should carefully assess how accounting standards change to ensure that one of the key objectives of the IASB, namely, to provide information that is relevant, reliable and understandable, is met.

Originality/value

The results of this study contribute to the discourse on the usefulness of companies’ risk disclosures. Though, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to compare the readability of risk disclosures from an emerging market perspective, the results can be applied to other countries using IFRS to assess the readability of risk disclosures.