Pub Date : 2022-08-12DOI: 10.1108/ara-01-2022-0012
Shaojun Fan, Juan Chen, H. Han
PurposeThe authors expand the connotation of the research on the accounting information quality characteristics, provide empirical evidence for the factors of consistency and also help to deepen further their understanding of the economic consequences of ownership concentration and other ownership structures.Design/methodology/approachUsing financial data of Chinese listed companies as samples, coupled with a method to calculate the consistency of the sample enterprises on the corporate level in the 2007–2019 period, the authors studied its impact of ownership concentration on consistency.FindingsThe study finds that after controlling other factors, ownership concentration could significantly reduce accounting information consistency. Further research finds that when the executives' shareholding is higher, the reduction effect of ownership concentration on consistency is weaker. After the robustness test, the conclusion remains basically unchanged.Research limitations/implicationsFirst, maybe there is a limitation of De Franco et al. (2011) method the authors use in China. As some scholars pointed out, the systematic component of returns variation is large in emerging markets (Morck et al., 2000), so it is hard to determine to what extent market stock returns will capture the net effect of earnings. As is mentioned above, there are multiple methods for measuring comparability and consistency, but it is not easy to judge which way is the best. Maybe the authors will have a perfect process in the future. Second, in addition to the factors mentioned in this study's hypotheses, there should be other factors (these include internal factors and external factors) that play moderating role in the impact of ownership concentration on accounting information consistency. The authors have not thoroughly studied the effect of those factors. These limitations all need to be further explored in the future.Originality/valueThe study finds that after controlling other factors, ownership concentration could significantly reduce accounting information consistency, but the reduction will be affected by some other factors related to corporate governance. The new insights from these advances are that the conclusions provide a technical path for management of companies to improve corporate governance efficiency and the quality of accounting information, and also provide more reference and empirical evidence for information users to identify the company's accounting information quality, which contributes to creating a prerequisite for the usefulness of accounting information.
目的拓展会计信息质量特征研究的内涵,为一致性因素提供实证证据,也有助于进一步加深对股权集中等股权结构的经济后果的理解。设计/方法论/方法以中国上市公司的财务数据为样本,结合2007-2019年样本企业在公司层面一致性的计算方法,研究了股权集中对一致性的影响。研究发现,在控制其他因素后,股权集中会显著降低会计信息的一致性。进一步研究发现,高管持股比例越高,股权集中度对一致性的降低作用越弱。经过稳健性测试,结论基本保持不变。研究局限性/含义首先,可能存在De Franco等人的局限性。(2011)作者在中国使用的方法。正如一些学者所指出的,新兴市场回报变化的系统性成分很大(Morck et al.,2000),因此很难确定市场股票回报在多大程度上会反映收益的净效应。如上所述,衡量可比性和一致性的方法有多种,但要判断哪种方法最好并不容易。也许作者在未来会有一个完美的过程。其次,除了本研究假设中提到的因素外,股权集中对会计信息一致性的影响还应该有其他因素(包括内部因素和外部因素)发挥调节作用。作者没有彻底研究这些因素的影响。这些局限性都需要在未来进一步探索。原创性/价值研究发现,在控制其他因素后,股权集中会显著降低会计信息的一致性,但这种降低会受到其他一些与公司治理相关的因素的影响。这些进展带来的新见解是,结论为公司管理层提高公司治理效率和会计信息质量提供了技术路径,也为信息使用者识别公司会计信息质量、,这有助于为会计信息的有用性创造先决条件。
{"title":"Ownership concentration and accounting information consistency—evidence from Chinese listed companies","authors":"Shaojun Fan, Juan Chen, H. Han","doi":"10.1108/ara-01-2022-0012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/ara-01-2022-0012","url":null,"abstract":"PurposeThe authors expand the connotation of the research on the accounting information quality characteristics, provide empirical evidence for the factors of consistency and also help to deepen further their understanding of the economic consequences of ownership concentration and other ownership structures.Design/methodology/approachUsing financial data of Chinese listed companies as samples, coupled with a method to calculate the consistency of the sample enterprises on the corporate level in the 2007–2019 period, the authors studied its impact of ownership concentration on consistency.FindingsThe study finds that after controlling other factors, ownership concentration could significantly reduce accounting information consistency. Further research finds that when the executives' shareholding is higher, the reduction effect of ownership concentration on consistency is weaker. After the robustness test, the conclusion remains basically unchanged.Research limitations/implicationsFirst, maybe there is a limitation of De Franco et al. (2011) method the authors use in China. As some scholars pointed out, the systematic component of returns variation is large in emerging markets (Morck et al., 2000), so it is hard to determine to what extent market stock returns will capture the net effect of earnings. As is mentioned above, there are multiple methods for measuring comparability and consistency, but it is not easy to judge which way is the best. Maybe the authors will have a perfect process in the future. Second, in addition to the factors mentioned in this study's hypotheses, there should be other factors (these include internal factors and external factors) that play moderating role in the impact of ownership concentration on accounting information consistency. The authors have not thoroughly studied the effect of those factors. These limitations all need to be further explored in the future.Originality/valueThe study finds that after controlling other factors, ownership concentration could significantly reduce accounting information consistency, but the reduction will be affected by some other factors related to corporate governance. The new insights from these advances are that the conclusions provide a technical path for management of companies to improve corporate governance efficiency and the quality of accounting information, and also provide more reference and empirical evidence for information users to identify the company's accounting information quality, which contributes to creating a prerequisite for the usefulness of accounting information.","PeriodicalId":8562,"journal":{"name":"Asian Review of Accounting","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2022-08-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47186970","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-09DOI: 10.1108/ara-08-2021-0151
E. Fedorova, P. Drogovoz, A. Nevredinov, Polina Kazinina, Cai Qitan
PurposeThe goal of the study is to examine the effects of management discussion and analysis (MD&A) sentiment in public companies' annual reports on corporate investment incentives in developing economies.Design/methodology/approachThe authors use sentiment analysis of MD&A texts based on Loughran and McDonald (2011) and combination of panel data regression, logit model and random forest. The text data consists of 3,511 annual reports of Chinese listed companies for the period from 2010 to 2019.FindingsThis paper provides empirical evidence of signaling theory that sentiment of annual reports and MD&A influences corporate decisions on both M&A and internal investments. The authors found that comparing to annual reports MD&A sentiment has more stable and significant explanatory and predictive power.Practical implicationsThis paper confirms the importance of MD&A sentiment for corporate investment decision taking and provides practical techniques for analysts and researchers to study corporate investment incentives from the point of view of signaling theory.Originality/valueThe study aims to expand the domains of signaling theory and corporate investment valuation by including a broader range of data on companies' M&A and internal investments in developing economies. To explore the impact of MD&A sentiment on corporate investment, a state-of-the-art set of text mining and machine learning techniques is used. The authors' results confirm that MD&A has signaling effect and can get a positive market response. Furthermore, this study enhances the empirical evidence of overconfidence theory, i.e. optimistic management whose MD&A tend to positive overestimates the management's investments decision and also underestimate the potential risk to the firm.
{"title":"Impact of MD&A sentiment on corporate investment in developing economies: Chinese evidence","authors":"E. Fedorova, P. Drogovoz, A. Nevredinov, Polina Kazinina, Cai Qitan","doi":"10.1108/ara-08-2021-0151","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/ara-08-2021-0151","url":null,"abstract":"PurposeThe goal of the study is to examine the effects of management discussion and analysis (MD&A) sentiment in public companies' annual reports on corporate investment incentives in developing economies.Design/methodology/approachThe authors use sentiment analysis of MD&A texts based on Loughran and McDonald (2011) and combination of panel data regression, logit model and random forest. The text data consists of 3,511 annual reports of Chinese listed companies for the period from 2010 to 2019.FindingsThis paper provides empirical evidence of signaling theory that sentiment of annual reports and MD&A influences corporate decisions on both M&A and internal investments. The authors found that comparing to annual reports MD&A sentiment has more stable and significant explanatory and predictive power.Practical implicationsThis paper confirms the importance of MD&A sentiment for corporate investment decision taking and provides practical techniques for analysts and researchers to study corporate investment incentives from the point of view of signaling theory.Originality/valueThe study aims to expand the domains of signaling theory and corporate investment valuation by including a broader range of data on companies' M&A and internal investments in developing economies. To explore the impact of MD&A sentiment on corporate investment, a state-of-the-art set of text mining and machine learning techniques is used. The authors' results confirm that MD&A has signaling effect and can get a positive market response. Furthermore, this study enhances the empirical evidence of overconfidence theory, i.e. optimistic management whose MD&A tend to positive overestimates the management's investments decision and also underestimate the potential risk to the firm.","PeriodicalId":8562,"journal":{"name":"Asian Review of Accounting","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2022-08-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44754051","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-09DOI: 10.1108/ara-09-2021-0165
Dian Agustia, I. Harymawan, M. Nasih, J. Nowland
PurposeJoint board management meetings bring boards of directors and top management teams together to share information and discuss company matters. The authors investigate whether these joint meetings are associated with higher agency costs or information sharing benefits in the context of firm earnings management.Design/methodology/approachUsing publicly disclosed data on the frequency of joint board management meetings in Indonesian firms, the authors examine the relationship between joint board management meetings and earnings management during 2010–2017.FindingsThe authors find that more joint board management meetings are associated with lower earnings management. This is consistent with joint board management meetings providing net information sharing benefits. Additional testing indicates that the results are the strongest when firms hold more joint board management meetings than regular board meetings.Originality/valueThe findings suggest that in addition to holding regular board and audit committee meetings, formal meetings between boards of directors and top management teams are beneficial to shareholders by restricting opportunistic accounting choices by firm management.
{"title":"Joint board management meetings and earnings management","authors":"Dian Agustia, I. Harymawan, M. Nasih, J. Nowland","doi":"10.1108/ara-09-2021-0165","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/ara-09-2021-0165","url":null,"abstract":"PurposeJoint board management meetings bring boards of directors and top management teams together to share information and discuss company matters. The authors investigate whether these joint meetings are associated with higher agency costs or information sharing benefits in the context of firm earnings management.Design/methodology/approachUsing publicly disclosed data on the frequency of joint board management meetings in Indonesian firms, the authors examine the relationship between joint board management meetings and earnings management during 2010–2017.FindingsThe authors find that more joint board management meetings are associated with lower earnings management. This is consistent with joint board management meetings providing net information sharing benefits. Additional testing indicates that the results are the strongest when firms hold more joint board management meetings than regular board meetings.Originality/valueThe findings suggest that in addition to holding regular board and audit committee meetings, formal meetings between boards of directors and top management teams are beneficial to shareholders by restricting opportunistic accounting choices by firm management.","PeriodicalId":8562,"journal":{"name":"Asian Review of Accounting","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2022-08-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43897630","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-12DOI: 10.1108/ara-10-2021-0195
Guoquan Xu, Fang-Chun Liu, Hsiao-Tang Hsu, Jerry W. Lin
PurposeThe choice of accounting methods is critical in measuring the performance and sustainability of a public defined benefit pension (DBP) plan, and such measurement has an impact on the effectiveness of the entire pension system. Prior literature rarely discusses the choice and rationale of the accounting assumptions for public DBP plans. This study fills the gap by investigating whether crucial plan characteristics, including operational performance, financial health, sponsor fiscal stress, and audit quality, are associated with the accounting assumptions of public DBP plans.Design/methodology/approachThe sample includes 1,170 plan-years from the intersection of the Center for Retirement Research and public DBPs' annual financial reports for the years 2001–2013. This study develops regression models to examine the relationship between the characteristics of public DBP practices and DBP accounting choices.FindingsThe empirical results show that the public DBPs that have better investment performance, higher funding status, less fiscal stress, and that are audited by Big 4 accounting firms are more likely to adopt conservative accounting choices.Originality/valueThe study documents the impact of crucial pension plan characteristics on public DBP managers' accounting choices, which were not extensively discussed in pension literature. The findings help us understand the rationale for employing different accounting treatments in the context of public pension fund practices. In addition, the study sheds light on policy implications for the future reform of public pension regulations.
{"title":"The association between public pension fund characteristics and pension accounting choices","authors":"Guoquan Xu, Fang-Chun Liu, Hsiao-Tang Hsu, Jerry W. Lin","doi":"10.1108/ara-10-2021-0195","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/ara-10-2021-0195","url":null,"abstract":"PurposeThe choice of accounting methods is critical in measuring the performance and sustainability of a public defined benefit pension (DBP) plan, and such measurement has an impact on the effectiveness of the entire pension system. Prior literature rarely discusses the choice and rationale of the accounting assumptions for public DBP plans. This study fills the gap by investigating whether crucial plan characteristics, including operational performance, financial health, sponsor fiscal stress, and audit quality, are associated with the accounting assumptions of public DBP plans.Design/methodology/approachThe sample includes 1,170 plan-years from the intersection of the Center for Retirement Research and public DBPs' annual financial reports for the years 2001–2013. This study develops regression models to examine the relationship between the characteristics of public DBP practices and DBP accounting choices.FindingsThe empirical results show that the public DBPs that have better investment performance, higher funding status, less fiscal stress, and that are audited by Big 4 accounting firms are more likely to adopt conservative accounting choices.Originality/valueThe study documents the impact of crucial pension plan characteristics on public DBP managers' accounting choices, which were not extensively discussed in pension literature. The findings help us understand the rationale for employing different accounting treatments in the context of public pension fund practices. In addition, the study sheds light on policy implications for the future reform of public pension regulations.","PeriodicalId":8562,"journal":{"name":"Asian Review of Accounting","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49027879","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-11DOI: 10.1108/ara-04-2022-0077
D. M. Lopez, Michael A. Schuldt, J. G. Vega
PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine the association between auditor industry specialization and accounting quality in the European Union (EU).Design/methodology/approachThis study employs a difference-in-differences design and explores audit quality from different industry specialist perspectives and different accounting standard regimes. Specifically, this study examines accounting quality among audits performed by non-industry specialists, EU member country-level industry specialists (EUM-level), EU community-level industry specialists (EUC-level), as well as joint industry specialists.FindingsThis study finds evidence of an improvement in accounting quality among audits performed by non-industry specialists post-IFRS. There is also evidence of an improvement in accounting quality among audits performed by EUC-level industry specialists post-IFRS. In addition, accounting quality among audits performed by EUM-level industry specialists seems to be greater than that of audits performed by non-industry specialists in either the pre-IFRS period or the post-IFRS period. Overall, the mandatory adoption of IFRS in the EU appears to be associated with an improvement in accounting quality among some auditor groups.Research limitations/implicationsIndustry specialization and accounting quality are not directly observable constructs; this study inevitably employs proxy measures for both. The findings of this study are location-specific and apply to mandatory IFRS adopters only.Practical implicationsThis study informs regulators with respect to the importance of industry specialist auditors and financial reporting quality, particularly within the context of the EU. The findings suggest that industry specialists were a significant accounting quality determinant during the mandatory adoption of IFRS. The findings have implications for regulators in the EU and beyond.Originality/valueThis study is among the first to investigate the impact of auditor specialization on accounting quality in the EU, particularly in connection with the adoption of IFRS.
{"title":"Do industry specialist auditors enhance accounting quality in the EU? Evidence from the pre-IFRS and mandatory post-IFRS periods","authors":"D. M. Lopez, Michael A. Schuldt, J. G. Vega","doi":"10.1108/ara-04-2022-0077","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/ara-04-2022-0077","url":null,"abstract":"PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine the association between auditor industry specialization and accounting quality in the European Union (EU).Design/methodology/approachThis study employs a difference-in-differences design and explores audit quality from different industry specialist perspectives and different accounting standard regimes. Specifically, this study examines accounting quality among audits performed by non-industry specialists, EU member country-level industry specialists (EUM-level), EU community-level industry specialists (EUC-level), as well as joint industry specialists.FindingsThis study finds evidence of an improvement in accounting quality among audits performed by non-industry specialists post-IFRS. There is also evidence of an improvement in accounting quality among audits performed by EUC-level industry specialists post-IFRS. In addition, accounting quality among audits performed by EUM-level industry specialists seems to be greater than that of audits performed by non-industry specialists in either the pre-IFRS period or the post-IFRS period. Overall, the mandatory adoption of IFRS in the EU appears to be associated with an improvement in accounting quality among some auditor groups.Research limitations/implicationsIndustry specialization and accounting quality are not directly observable constructs; this study inevitably employs proxy measures for both. The findings of this study are location-specific and apply to mandatory IFRS adopters only.Practical implicationsThis study informs regulators with respect to the importance of industry specialist auditors and financial reporting quality, particularly within the context of the EU. The findings suggest that industry specialists were a significant accounting quality determinant during the mandatory adoption of IFRS. The findings have implications for regulators in the EU and beyond.Originality/valueThis study is among the first to investigate the impact of auditor specialization on accounting quality in the EU, particularly in connection with the adoption of IFRS.","PeriodicalId":8562,"journal":{"name":"Asian Review of Accounting","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44557363","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}