{"title":"On the Use of Consumer Tweets to Assess the Risk of Misstated Revenue in Consumer-Facing Industries: Evidence from Analytical Procedures","authors":"Andrea M. Rozario, M. Vasarhelyi, T. Wang","doi":"10.2308/ajpt-2020-078","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2308/ajpt-2020-078","url":null,"abstract":"We examine whether consumer-generated tweets about purchases (interest) and sentiment are useful in assessing the risk of misstated revenue in the planning stage of the audit, as reflected in improvements to analytical procedures, for firms in consumer-facing industries. We obtain consumer-generated tweeting activities from 2012 to 2017 for 76 companies in 20 consumer-facing industries from a data provider. We find that relative to a benchmark model, Twitter consumer interest, but not consumer sentiment, improves the prediction and error detection ability of analytical procedures for most firms in consumer-facing industries. Our findings are robust to different model settings. In additional tests, we observe that the effect of Twitter consumer interest is more pronounced in smaller industries and that it remains useful in analytical procedures when compared to firms’ advertising and employee headcount. Together, our results suggest that this new source of information improves auditors’ assessments of the risk of misstated revenue.","PeriodicalId":330359,"journal":{"name":"Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory","volume":"28 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134122872","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}
Ashleigh Bakke, Thomas R. Kubick, Michael S. Wilkins
{"title":"Deferred Tax Asset Valuation Allowances and Auditors' Going Concern Evaluations","authors":"Ashleigh Bakke, Thomas R. Kubick, Michael S. Wilkins","doi":"10.2308/ajpt-2020-063","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2308/ajpt-2020-063","url":null,"abstract":"The valuation allowance for deferred tax assets is an audited disclosure that reflects management’s expectations regarding the future profitability of a company. Building on prior literature that establishes this disclosure as an indicator of future distress, we examine whether the valuation allowance is associated with auditors’ going concern evaluations. We find evidence that the existence and magnitude of the valuation allowance, as well as changes in the allowance, are positively associated with the likelihood that a company receives a first-time going concern opinion. We also find some evidence that valuation allowances are associated with reduced Type I and Type II going concern opinion misclassifications. Our results suggest that the information related to management’s plans and expectations that is reflected in the valuation allowance is incrementally relevant to auditors in their assessment of a company’s likelihood of failure.","PeriodicalId":330359,"journal":{"name":"Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory","volume":"8 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128907994","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}
{"title":"Stressed About Money: The Effect of Employee Financial Pressure on Financial Reporting Outcomes","authors":"Babak Mammadov, Avishek Bhandari","doi":"10.2308/ajpt-19-045","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2308/ajpt-19-045","url":null,"abstract":"This study investigates the effect of employee financial stress on financial reporting outcomes. Anxiety related to stress results in emotional exhaustion and reduced job performance. The conservation of resources theory predicts that anxiety caused by financial stress decreases employees’ work quality because anxiety drains individuals’ physical, cognitive, and psychological resources. Motivated by the conservation of resources theory, we expect and find that employee financial stress negatively affects financial reporting outcomes. Consistent with this prediction, we determine that employee financial stress is positively associated with material internal control weaknesses and restatements. The results are statistically and economically significant, and the results continue to hold after using alternative measures of employee financial stress and financial reporting quality. We conduct additional analyses to address endogeneity issues, and the inferences remain the same.","PeriodicalId":330359,"journal":{"name":"Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory","volume":"29 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130529629","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}
{"title":"The contagion reputational effects of failed individual audit partners: Evidence from an audit client market","authors":"F. Gul, C. Lim, Kun Wang, Yanping Xu","doi":"10.2308/ajpt-19-128","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2308/ajpt-19-128","url":null,"abstract":"Prior research using individual auditor data shows that the stock market punishes the clients of failed auditors but not those of non-failed auditors in the same tainted office (e.g., Li et al. 2017). In this study, using audit client market share, we find similar results, but more importantly, we document that the non-failed partners’ client market shares decrease when they lack a track record to infer their audit quality credentials and when they reveal connections through teamwork experience with failed audit partners. In other words, non-failed auditors in the same tainted office suffer contagion loss if there are no mitigating circumstances, such as a good track record or dissociation with failed auditors. These findings are novel in the literature and contribute to the empirical evidence for contagion effects in an individual partner reputational environment.","PeriodicalId":330359,"journal":{"name":"Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory","volume":"229 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115923831","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}
{"title":"Auditor-Client Interactions – An Exploration of Power Dynamics During Audit Evidence Collection","authors":"Melissa Carlisle, Christine Gimbar, J. Jenkins","doi":"10.2308/ajpt-2020-130","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2308/ajpt-2020-130","url":null,"abstract":"Accounting research finds that staff auditors, who increasingly interact with high-level client management, maintain positions of lower power in auditor-client interactions. We conduct semi-structured interviews with 22 practicing associate- and senior-level auditors to investigate staff auditor-client interactions and their outcomes. Our results shed light on a deep-rooted power dynamic between staff-level auditors and their clients, whereby clients maintain the upper hand during the evidence collection process. We also document auditors’ concern for their clients’ perception of them and the audit team. Finally, we observe that auditors often struggle to fulfill their professional responsibilities while also ingratiating themselves to the client. These forces often lead to audit quality threatening behaviors such as client avoidance and “ghost ticking.” Our results suggest that ongoing power disparities between staff auditors and their clients may impair staff auditors’ operational independence.","PeriodicalId":330359,"journal":{"name":"Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122290157","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}
G. Krishnamoorthy, L. Bruynseels, Sander De Groote, A. Wright, Mathijs van Peteghem
{"title":"The Accounting Financial Expertise of the Audit Committee Chair And Oversight Effectiveness","authors":"G. Krishnamoorthy, L. Bruynseels, Sander De Groote, A. Wright, Mathijs van Peteghem","doi":"10.2308/ajpt-19-088","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2308/ajpt-19-088","url":null,"abstract":"Prior research finds the presence of accounting financial expertise (AFE) on the audit committee (AC) enhances financial reporting quality. The current study provides a broad examination of the effect of the AFE residing in the AC chair on the monitoring of financial reporting quality and the audit process. Based on a sample of over 13,840 observations from U.S. public companies, we find that AFE of the AC chair is associated with lower levels of earnings management and enhanced monitoring of the audit process. When augmented by AC members with AFE, AC chair AFE is also negatively associated with reduced misstatement risk. This finding suggests appointing an AFE to the AC may not in itself be sufficient to fully enhance oversight quality, unless the committee also has a chair who possesses AFE. Finally, chair AFE is also found to enhance the likelihood of reporting material control weaknesses and goodwill impairments.","PeriodicalId":330359,"journal":{"name":"Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory","volume":"12 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124861401","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}
{"title":"Are Referred-to Auditors Associated with Lower Audit Quality and Efficiency?","authors":"Jayanth K. Krishnan, Mengtian Li","doi":"10.2308/ajpt-18-141","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2308/ajpt-18-141","url":null,"abstract":"Inadequate supervision by lead auditors of “other” (component) auditors contributing to audit engagements has been a recent regulatory concern. However, uniquely in the US, the lead auditor is required to conduct only minimal supervision of the other auditor and refer to the other auditor in its audit report, when it divides responsibility with the latter. Our sample of “referred-to” (RT) firm-years is divided, about equally, between audits of consolidated subsidiaries and equity-method investees. We document two findings. First, supervision challenges drive the use of RT auditors for consolidated subsidiaries while the component’s materiality drives the use of RT auditors in both settings. Second, there is some evidence that RT auditors in both settings are associated with lower audit quality and efficiency compared with control samples, and this negative effect is stronger for consolidated subsidiaries. Our research is relevant to the PCAOB’s proposed changes in auditing standards for other auditors.","PeriodicalId":330359,"journal":{"name":"Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory","volume":"36 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-03-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127182228","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}