Journal of International Accounting Auditing and Taxation最新文献

This study reviews 128 empirical studies on mandatory auditor rotation (MAR) in light of the long-standing debate on the effectiveness of MAR and the different regulatory choices made worldwide over time. A structured literature review was conducted to address three research questions. How has empirical research on MAR developed from 2000 to 2022? What is the focus and critique of the empirical research on MAR? What is the future of MAR empirical research? The findings reveal growing empirical evidence on MAR. However, this evidence is fragmented and country-based. Scholars have primarily focused on audit firm rotation rather than audit partner rotation. While quantitative research based on archival data predominates, survey questionnaires prevail in a few regions. Evidence on how MAR impacts auditor independence, the auditor–client relationship, and audit market concentration is scant, whereas audit quality is the most investigated research question. Nonetheless, assessing whether MAR benefits audit quality remains challenging because the research outcomes depend on the research question, rotation type, research method, and regulations enforced in the empirical setting. Based on this comprehensive and rigorous overview of worldwide MAR empirical research, knowledge gaps are underlined, avenues for future research are suggested, and warnings are issued to shareholders and policymakers.

Increasing levels of information disclosure and firm transparency are drawing researchers’ attention to abnormal audit fees (AAFs), and a growing body of literature is focused on the association between AAFs and financial reporting quality (FRQ). These studies use various FRQ constructs and theoretical lenses, and find contradictory results. Thus, it remains unclear whether AAFs are positively or negatively associated with FRQ. This meta-analysis of the literature assesses (a) the association between AAFs and FRQ; (b) the extent to which the FRQ proxies used in the literature are homogeneous; and (c) the different theoretical frameworks that are used to interpret the association between AAFs and FRQ. The results show that higher AAFs are associated with reduced FRQ, and this finding is robust to different FRQ constructs and theoretical frameworks.

We adopt a structured literature review methodology to review the literature on the impact of informal institutions on accounting outcomes. We address three key questions: How is research on the impact of informal institutions on accounting outcomes developing? What is the focus and critiques of the literature on the impact of informal institutions on accounting outcomes? Finally, what is the future for research on the impact of informal institutions on accounting outcomes? We contribute to the international accounting literature by producing a study that reviews this lively research area, enabling valuable and impactful future research in this field.

Information is considered value relevant when used by financial markets in equity valuation and is reflected in market values. The value relevance of different information, such as accounting numbers, changes according to shifts in investors’ needs. Given the rising importance of environmental and social agendas for policymakers and practitioners, this study examines whether accounting numbers have lost explanatory power and sustainability information has become value relevant. The analysis focuses on 3025 nonfinancial companies operating in the eurozone from 2005 to 2020. This study makes several contributions to the extant literature. First, analyzing the trend in the value relevance of financial accounting numbers, the results point to an overall decrease in the explanatory power of book values and earnings, particularly for environmental, social, and governance (ESG)-rated companies. However, the results indicate that ESG ratings have not gained value relevance over time. These findings have important implications for policymakers and practitioners. In line with the concept of “double materiality,” implementing ESG agendas will be possible only by redirecting corporate investment decision and increasing awareness of sustainability issues. This paper documents that such a shift has not yet been accomplished, despite the increasing commitment of the European Union to the ESG agenda.

This study examines whether there is a correspondence between auditor disclosures of key audit matters (KAMs) and management disclosures of significant accounting policies and estimates, following the introduction of the International Standard on Auditing (ISA) 701. In addition, we investigate how audit committees moderate the relationship. We employ a sample of Swedish listed firms (2016–2018), using measures that capture the extent and quality of management disclosures and how they relate to auditor KAM disclosures, including the number of accounting items disclosed, total number of words, and number of unique KAM-related words (via a “bag-of-word” technique). We find a positive correspondence between auditor and management disclosures, and the correlation is greater in firms with an audit committee. Additional analyses provide evidence that management disclosure quality increases after the introduction of ISA 701, but the positive effect is mostly found in firms with a separate audit committee on the board. The results are robust to alternative measures for disclosures and using a matched sample design. Our findings suggest that policymakers should consider the interplay between audit standards and audit committees.

Numerous corporate scandals, in conjunction with managerial misbehavior, demonstrate both the need for effective compliance management systems (CMS) and the relevance of compliance reporting. Disclosure elements are a major differentiator when reporting on CMS. This study investigates whether the tone, top managers’ signatures, and visual elements affect financial analysts’ perceptions and decisions. We use several theories from cognitive psychology which suggest that positive tone, the presence of signatures, and the combination of textual and visual elements can induce more favorable perceptions of compliance disclosure. In a 2 × 2 × 2 between-subjects experiment with 148 financial analysts from Germany, we manipulate tone (positive vs. negative), top managers’ signatures (present vs. absent), and visual elements (present vs. absent) to measure analyst perceptions of reliability, understandability, and usability, as well as credit risk, purchase, and recommendation decisions. We then sum up these dependent variables to create two new variables, perceptions, and decisions. Our results suggest that negatively toned compliance disclosure positively affects financial analyst perceptions, unless it is combined with a visual, as well as their decisions, unless it is combined with both a signature and a visual element. Additionally, signatures and a visual element have an overall positive effect on analyst perceptions. The study’s results confirm the relevance of disclosure elements in compliance reporting, which should be of interest to preparers, users, auditors, and regulators of compliance disclosure.

We investigate whether accounting and non-accounting female financial experts on audit committees influence carbon disclosures. Based on a sample of listed firms from the United Kingdom for 2009–2015, our findings show that non-accounting female experts on audit committees increase carbon disclosures. Our results support the view that non-accounting female experts possess greater business knowledge and are skilled in foreseeing the impact of management’s decisions, thus, enhancing carbon disclosures. Furthermore, our results are robust to alternative estimation techniques and endogenous concerns. We also find that firms in less carbon-intensive industries benefit from higher carbon disclosure in the presence of female non-accounting experts on audit committees. This study contributes to the recent research on corporate governance and carbon disclosures. Further, it extends recent studies identifying the specific characteristics of female directors that enhance environmental disclosures. Moreover, we respond to the calls for research on the personal attributes of directors and carbon disclosures by examining whether the accounting and non-accounting expertise of female directors on audit committees affects carbon disclosures.

Performance-based bonus contracts trigger financial rewards if goals are attained, while performance-based malus contracts punish target failure by means of financial penalties. Recommended and demanded by various stakeholders, malus contracts can be a competitive alternative that curbs high executive remuneration—nevertheless, firms rarely implement them in executive remuneration packages. A reason for this may lie in the tax treatment of corporate losses and executive remuneration. We analytically examine the effects of the most common forms of corporate taxation (symmetric and asymmetric) and personal wage taxation (proportional and progressive) on a firm owner’s contract choice. Our findings show that neither symmetric corporate nor proportional wage taxation impede malus contracts. However, asymmetric corporate taxation tends to disadvantage malus contracts compared to bonus contracts. Furthermore, progressive wage taxation has the potential to make malus contracts less attractive. This insight can add to the explanation for why firms rarely use performance-based malus contracts.

In this study, we analyze the association between national culture and voluntary operational risk disclosure quality in the European Union banking industry. Complementarily, we assess whether the potential impact of culture differs between global banks and banks with low levels of internationalization. Finally, we consider the impact of the formal institutional environment. Our sample covers 15 countries, and we construct a disclosure score based on hand-collected data. Three main results were obtained. First, banks in societies that score higher on individualism or long-term orientation and lower on uncertainty avoidance or power distance have better disclosures. Second, in global banks, where executive board members interact with stakeholders from different cultures, these associations are absent. Finally, contextual factors also affect the association between culture and disclosure, but this substitution effect is weaker than the one we document for globalization. Our results are robust to instrumental variables estimation, the use of the GLOBE project’s cultural dimensions, and a subsample analysis of civil code law countries.

This paper examines the impact of corruption prevention practices on tax avoidance from a neo-institutional theoretical perspective. Our study also contributes to the existing corruption and tax literature by considering the moderating effect of corporate board characteristics on the association between corruption prevention practices and tax avoidance. Based on a sample of FTSE 350 United Kingdom (UK) listed firms, our findings illustrate that a firm’s commitment to good anti-corruption practices is linked with lower tax avoidance. Furthermore, corporate board characteristics complement anti-corruption practices in minimizing corporate tax avoidance. Our findings provide useful evidence to governments, regulators, and other stakeholders who aim to determine best business practices that could help in reducing the risk of corporate tax avoidance. In general, our findings are robust to alternative measures of tax avoidance and different types of multivariate regression methods, namely ordinary least squares, two-stage least squares and Tobit regression techniques.