Busy auditors, ethical behavior, and discretionary accruals quality in Malaysia

The required professional and ethical pronouncements of accountants mean that auditors need to be competent and exercise due care and skill in the performance of their audits. In this study, we examine what happens when auditors take on more clients than they should, thus raising doubts about their ability to maintain competence and audit quality. Using 2803 observations of Malaysian companies from 2010 to 2013, we find that auditors with multiple clients are associated with lower earnings quality, proxied by total accruals and discretionary accruals. Our results demonstrate that associating client firms’ reported discretionary accruals with individual auditors, rather than their firms or offices, is important in determining audit quality. Moreover, we demonstrate that the disclosure of auditors’ signatures on their reports is useful for assessing auditor quality at the individual level, thus contributing to the debate on the usefulness of having auditor identities on reports.

Accruals accounting in the public sector: A road not always taken

The move from cash to accruals accounting by many governments is viewed as an aspect of an ongoing New Public Management agenda designed to achieve a more business-like and performance-focused public sector. Proponents argue that accruals accounting provides more appropriate information for decision makers and ultimately leads to a more efficient and effective public sector. The transition from cash to accruals accounting for UK central government departments was announced in the early 1990s and was embedded within approximately ten years. At that time there were clear indications that analogous changes, following a similar timeline, would occur in the Republic of Ireland (RoI). In reality, the changes were significantly less extensive. Utilising document analysis and interviews with key actors, this paper considers why a functioning accruals system was established in the UK whereas in the RoI the change to accruals accounting was a ‘road not taken’.

Public Value as Performance: Politicians’ and Managers’ Perspectives on the Importance of Budgetary, Accruals and Non-Financial Information

Purpose
The study contributes to the literature on public value and performance examining politicians’ and managers’ perspectives by investigating the importance they attach to the different facets of performance information (i.e. budgetary, accrual based- and non-financial information (NFI)).

Design/methodology/approach
We survey politicians and managers in all Italian municipalities of at least 80,000 inhabitants.

Findings
Overall, NFI is more appreciated than financial information (FI). Moreover, budgetary accounting is preferred to accrual accounting. Politicians’ and managers’ preferences are generally aligned.

Research limitations/implications
NFI as a measure of public value is not alternative, but rather complementary, to FI. The latter remains a fundamental element of public sector accounting due to its role in resource allocation and control.

Practical implications
The preference for NFI over FI and of budgetary over accruals accounting suggests that the current predominant emphasis on (accrual-based) financial reporting might be misplaced.

Originality/value
Public value and performance are multi-faceted concepts. They can be captured by different types of information and evaluated according to different criteria, which will also depend on the category of stakeholders or users who assesses public performance. So far, most literature has considered the financial and non-financial facets of performance as virtually separate. Similarly, in the practice, financial management tends to be decoupled from non-financial performance management. However, this research shows that only by considering their joint interactions we can achieve an accurate representation of what public value really is.

Accounting accruals and information asymmetry in Europe

We investigate whether the positive relation between accounting accruals and information asymmetry documented for U.S. stock markets also holds for European markets, considered as a whole and at the country level. This research is relevant because this relation is likely to be affected by differences in accounting standards used by companies for financial reporting, in the traditional use of the banking system or capital markets for firm financing, in legal systems and cultural environment. We find that in European stock markets discretionary accruals are positively related with the Corwin and Schultz high-low spread estimator used as a proxy for information asymmetry. Our results suggest that the earnings management component of accruals outweighs the informational component, but the significance of the relation varies across countries. Further, such association tends to be stronger for firms with the highest levels of positive discretionary accruals. Consistent with the evidence provided by the authors, our results also suggest that the high-low spread estimator is more efficient than the closing bid-ask spread when analysing the impact of information quality on information asymmetry.

Uma investigação sobre o impacto dos accruals na variabilidade dos resultados nos diferentes contrastes cross-sectional nas firmas brasileiras de capital aberto

Esta dissertação tem como objetivo principal investigar o impacto dos accruals na variabilidade dos resultados corporativos (EVAR) que influenciam a aplicação prática do income smoothing nas firmas brasileiras de capital aberto. Inicialmente, é demonstrada a importância das demonstrações contábeis que devem ser evidenciadas em cumprimento aos princípios contábeis geralmente aceitos. Sua evidenciação deve representar a realidade econômico-financeira da firma para o processo de tomada de decisão dos acionistas e credores. Porém, em determinados momentos, os gestores se sentem motivados a praticar o gerenciamento dos resultados contábeis na tentativa de reduzir a variabilidade dos lucros por meio da utilização dos accruals. Os accruals correspondem à diferença entre o lucro líquido e o fluxo de caixa operacional. Nesse processo de redução da volatilidade dos resultados, os gestores se utilizam da prática do income smoothing procurando reduzir eventuais distorções no preço das ações da firma. A amostra neste estudo é composta por um grupo de 163 firmas de capital aberto listadas na Bovespa e que apresentaram informações financeiras no intervalo de 2000 a 2007, categorizadas por setores através de dados obtidos na Economática. O modelo estatístico utilizado na pesquisa foi a análise de regressão para explicar os diferentes modelos de cross-sectional. Os resultados desta pesquisa indicam que os accruals são significativos para explicar a variabilidade dos resultados corporativos (EVAR) de empresas brasileiras. Além disso, nossos resultados sugerem que o modelo estrutural de identificação do EVAR nas empresas brasileiras deve ser explicado por variáveis não contábeis diferentes das que são apresentadas pelas firmas norte-americanas.

Evidências internacionais dos efeitos da atuação de investidores institucionais na anomalia dos accruals

Os investidores institucionais, tais como os fundos de pensão, são entidades que administram recursos de numerosos grupos de pessoas, e que, por isso, tendem a gerir grandes carteiras de investimento e a ter incentivos para se tornar bem informados. Por isso, espera-se que eles sejam bons representantes da classe de investidores sofisticados, ou bem informados, e que o aumento de sua presença no mercado de capitais melhore a velocidade do ajuste do preço, contribuindo para evitar ineficiências do mercado, como, por exemplo, a anomalia dos accruals (Sloan, 1996), que é um atraso na revisão dos preços diante da informação sobre a magnitude dos accruals do lucro. Assim, o objetivo deste estudo é analisar, em diversos países, o impacto da participação de investidores institucionais sobre a anomalia dos accruals. São formuladas quatro hipóteses: (i) a proporção de informações sobre o desempenho futuro da empresa refletida no preço de sua ação é positivamente relacionada com o percentual de participação societária dos investidores institucionais; (ii) quanto maior for o percentual da participação societária de investidores institucionais, maior será a qualidade do lucro; (iii) quanto maior for a value relevance do lucro, maior será a anomalia dos accruals; e (iv) quanto maior for a participação societária dos investidores institucionais, menor será a anomalia dos accruals. Para se atingir os objetivos, a bibliografia sobre investidores institucionais, investidores sofisticados e anomalia dos accruals é analisada e cotejada com a literatura sobre value relevance e qualidade do lucro, em especial com o de Dechow e Dichev (2002). A pesquisa empírica utiliza dados de empresas não financeiras listadas nas bolsas de valores da Alemanha, do Brasil, da Espanha, dos Estados Unidos, da França, da Holanda, da Itália, do Reino Unido e da Suíça, e cobre o período de 2004 a 2013. A amostra contempla entre 2.314 e 4.076 empresas, totalizando entre 15.902 e 20.174 observações, a depender do modelo estimado. São realizadas regressões com dados em painel, uma abordagem de equações aparentemente não relacionadas (Seemingly Unrelated Regression - SUR) e a aplicação do teste de Mishkin (1983). Constata-se que nos Estados Unidos e na Itália os investidores institucionais são mais bem informados que os demais, e que na Alemanha, nos Estados Unidos, na França e no Reino Unido eles exercem um papel de monitoramento, pressionando por lucros de qualidade superior. Não se constata, porém, relação positiva entre value relevance do lucro e anomalia dos accruals, nem entre participação de investidores institucionais e esta anomalia. O estudo enriquece a discussão sobre o mercado ser eficiente a longo prazo, mas apresentar anomalias no curto prazo; enfatiza a importância de o investidor ser capaz de converter informações em previsão e avaliação; discute o vínculo entre o papel de monitoramento dos investidores institucionais e a qualidade do lucro; e avalia a relação entre a atuação destes investidores e o prices lead earnings.

Nonlinear dynamics in discretionary accruals: An analysis of bank loan-loss provisions

Several studies have analyzed discretionary accruals to address earnings-smoothing behaviors in the banking industry. We argue that the characteristic link between accruals and earnings may be nonlinear, since both the incentives to manipulate income and the practical way to do so depend partially on the relative size of earnings. Given a sample of 15,268 US banks over the period 1996–2011, the main results in this paper suggest that, depending on the size of earnings, bank managers tend to engage in earnings-decreasing strategies when earnings are negative (“big-bath”), use earnings-increasing strategies when earnings are positive, and use provisions as a smoothing device when earnings are positive and substantial (“cookie-jar” accounting). This evidence, which cannot be explained by the earnings-smoothing hypothesis, is consistent with the compensation theory. Neglecting nonlinear patterns in the econometric modeling of these accruals may lead to misleading conclusions regarding the characteristic strategies used in earnings management.

Implications of FIN 46 for Accruals Quality and Investment Efficiency

The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) issued Interpretation No. 46 (FIN 46), Consolidation of Variable Interest Entities – An Interpretation of ARB No. 51, in January 2003 and revised it in December 2003, with the objective to improve the transparency of financial information. Under FIN 46, companies are required to consolidate variable interest entities (VIEs) on financial statements if they are the primary beneficiaries of the VIEs. This dissertation empirically examines whether the implementation of this new financial reporting guidance affects firms’ accruals quality and investment efficiency. A manually collected sample comprised of firms affected by FIN 46 and firms disclosing no material impact from FIN 46 is used in the empirical analyses.The first part of the dissertation investigates the effects of FIN 46 on accruals quality. By using different accrual quality measures in prior studies, this study found that firms affected by FIN 46 experienced a decrease in accrual quality compared to firms reporting no material impact from FIN 46. Among the firms affected by FIN 46, firms consolidating VIEs were compared with firms terminating or restructuring VIEs. The accruals quality of firms consolidating VIEs was found to be lower than that of firms terminating or restructuring VIEs. These results are consistent in tests using alternative control samples.The second part of this dissertation examines the effects of FIN 46 on investment efficiency. Mixed results were found from using two different proxies used in prior literature. Using the investment-cash flow sensitivity to proxy for investment efficiency, firms affected by FIN 46 experienced a decrease in investment efficiency compared to firms reporting no material impact. It was also found that higher investment-cash flow sensitivity for firms consolidating VIEs during post-FIN 46 periods compared to both the no-impact firms and the matched pair control sample. Contrasting results were found when the deviation from expected investment is used as another proxy for investment efficiency. Empirical analyses show that FIN 46 firms experienced improved investment efficiency measured by the deviation from expected investment after their adoption of FIN 46. This study also provides explanations for the opposite results from the two different proxies.

The role of the audit committee and institutional investors in constraining earnings management : evidence from Chinese firms listed in Hong Kong

Using data from 2004 to 2008, we find that an audit committee is an important monitoring mechanism as audit committee independence, expertise and size are associated with reduced levels of abnormal accruals, our measure of earnings management. This study also attempts to discern when the monitoring role of the audit committee is more salient for the firm. We find that ownership concentration and the presence of government officials on the audit committee are important determinants of the negative association between audit committee characteristics and earnings management. In contrast, we find no significant associations between the audit committee and abnormal accruals for Chinese firms listed only on the Chinese domestic Stock Exchanges. The paper contributes to the corporate governance literature in a transitional economy. Identifying the role of audit committees of firms listed on markets other than the domicile market demonstrates the importance of considering the institutional setting in governance research.

Can an effective audit committee help to mitigate earnings management in Chinese firms listed in Hong Kong?

This paper attempts to determine whether the adoption of recommended corporate governance practices by Chinese firms is associated with less earnings management proxied by abnormal accruals. We examine the role of the audit committee and ownership concentration in preventing earnings management using Chinese firms listed in Hong Kong. The results of this preliminary analysis show that the frequency of audit committee meetings is associated with reduced levels of abnormal accruals, our measure of earnings management. We conclude that audit committee activity is an important factor in constraining the propensity of managers to engage in earnings management. In contrast, we find that the size of the audit committee is associated with increased levels of abnormal accruals and suggest that increasing the size of the audit committee creates information asymmetry between the audit committee and management that reduces the monitoring capacity of the audit committee. We do not find any association between audit committee independence, financial and industry experience, or ownership concentration and abnormal accruals.

Corporate governance mechanisms and earnings management in transitional countries – evidence from Chinese listed firms

The objective of this thesis is to investigate whether the corporate governance practices adopted by Chinese listed firms are associated with the quality of earnings information. Based on a review of agency and institutional theory, this study develops hypotheses that predict the monitoring effectiveness of the board and the audit committee. Using a combination of univariate and multivariate analyses, the association between corporate governance mechanisms and earnings management are tested from 2004 to 2008. Through analysing the empirical results, a number of findings are summarised as below. First, board independence is weakened by the introduction of government officials as independent directors on the boards. Government officials acting as independent directors, claim that they meet the definition of independent director set by the regulation. However, they have some connection with the State, which is the controlling shareholder in listed SOEs affiliated companies. Consequently, the effect of the independent director’s expertise in constraining earnings management is mitigated as demonstrated by an insignificant association between board expertise and earnings management. An alternative explanation for the inefficiency of board independence may point to the pre-selection of independent directors by the powerful CEO. It is argued that a CEO can manipulate the board composition and choose the "desirable" independent directors to monitor themselves. Second, a number of internal mechanisms, such as board size, board activities, and the separation of the roles of the CEO and chair are found to be significantly associated with discretionary accruals. This result suggests that there are advantages in having a large and active board in the Chinese setting. This can offset the disadvantages associated with large boards, such as increased bureaucracy, and hence, increase the constraining effects of a large and resourceful board. Third, factor analysis identifies two factors: CEO power and board power. CEO power is the factor which consists of CEO duality and turnover, and board power is composed of board size and board activity. The results of CEO power show that if a Chinese listed company has CEO duality and turnover at the same time, it is more likely to have a high level of earnings management. The significant and negative relationship between board power and accruals indicate that large boards with frequent meetings can be associated with low level of earnings management. Overall, the factor analysis suggests that certain governance mechanisms complement each other to become more efficient monitors of opportunistic earnings management. A combination of board characteristics can increase the negative association with earnings management. Fourth, the insignificant results between audit committees and earnings management in Chinese listed firms suggests that the Chinese regulator should strengthen the audit committee functions. This thesis calls for listed firms to disclose more information on audit committee composition and activities, which can facilitate future research on the Chinese audit committee’s monitoring role. Fifth, the interactive results between State ownership and board characteristics show that dominant State ownership has a moderating effect on board monitoring power as the State totally controls 42% of the issued shares. The high percentage of State ownership makes it difficult for the non-controlling institutional shareholders to challenge the State’s dominant status. As a result, the association between non-controlling institutional ownership and earnings management is insignificant in most situations. Lastly, firms audited by the international Big4 have lower abnormal accruals than firms audited by domestic Chinese audit firms. In addition, the inverse U-shape relationship between audit tenure and earnings quality demonstrates the changing effects of audit quality after a certain period of appointment. Furthermore, this thesis finds that listing in Hong Kong Stock Exchanges can be an alternative governance mechanism to discipline Chinese firms to follow strict Hong Kong listing requirements. Management of Hong Kong listed companies are exposed to the scrutiny of international investors and Hong Kong regulators. This in turn reduces their chances of conducting self-interested earnings manipulation. This study is designed to fill the gap in governance literature in China that is related to earnings management. Previous research on corporate governance mechanisms and earnings management in China is not conclusive. The current research builds on previous literature and provides some meaningful implications for practitioners, regulators, academic, and international investors who have investment interests in a transitional country. The findings of this study contribute to corporate governance and earnings management literature in the context of the transitional economy of China. The use of alternative measures for earnings management yields similar results compared with the accruals models and produces additional findings.