Zrinka Lovretin Golubić, Ena Pecina, Zrinka Orlović
{"title":"Exploring Herding in Capital Structure Choices: Insights From Developed European Economies","authors":"Zrinka Lovretin Golubić, Ena Pecina, Zrinka Orlović","doi":"10.1002/jcaf.22789","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/jcaf.22789","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This paper investigates the potential influence of herd behavior on companies' capital structure choices. While existing capital structure theories often overlook psychological and social factors, this study explores the role of herding, an area under-examined in the literature. The analysis is conducted on publicly listed companies across multiple developed European markets, including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Switzerland, over the period from 2000 to 2023. Using the cross-sectional absolute deviation (CSAD) methodology, the results reveal that herd behavior is more pronounced in specific countries and sectors. The United Kingdom exhibits the most prominent herding, particularly in materials, industrials, consumer discretionary, communication services, and information technology sectors, often centered around industry mean capital structures. Switzerland shows herding in health care and industrials, possibly driven by demographic and technological shifts, while France sees herding in the health care sector. Sectors like energy and consumer staples demonstrate resistance to herding, likely due to their need for stable, individualized capital structures. Additionally, the degree of financial leverage influences herding, with firms in sectors like consumer discretionary and communication services aligning with industry benchmarks to avoid negative market perceptions. These findings enhance understanding of behavioral factors impacting capital structure decisions and offer implications for both academic research and practical policy.</p>","PeriodicalId":44561,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Accounting and Finance","volume":"36 3","pages":"378-393"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/jcaf.22789","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144635462","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Challenges and Opportunities: Integrating AI Into Accounting Systems","authors":"Nida Türegün","doi":"10.1002/jcaf.22788","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/jcaf.22788","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>This study investigates the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into accounting systems, identifying key challenges, and potential opportunities. The objective is to provide a critical assessment of the impact that AI has on modern accounting practices and systems. Methodologically, the research involves a review and analysis of secondary data, including official company portals, comprehensive industry analyses, product documentation, and insightful whitepapers of 10 major companies pioneering AI adoption. The study reveals challenges such as the compatibility of AI with existing accounting infrastructures and the need for workforce reskilling to adapt to AI-driven processes. Conversely, the study highlights opportunities such as enhanced operational efficiency, improved accuracy, and the facilitation of strategic decision-making through predictive analytics. The research underscores the necessity for strategic planning and the development of adaptable systems to leverage AI technologies effectively in accounting.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":44561,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Accounting and Finance","volume":"36 4","pages":"25-36"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145242976","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":"Workplace Safety and Real Earnings Management","authors":"Hamid Sakaki, Lisa Frank","doi":"10.1002/jcaf.22795","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/jcaf.22795","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Using work-related injury data from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), we document that firms with higher workers’ injuries and illnesses tend to manage earnings through real activities manipulation. Rather than the relative cost from switching one method to another, short-term performance pressure by transient institutional investors, who trade based on current earning news, explains our results. Further analyses show that if firms have a higher CEO risk incentive, managers of those firms are more likely to smooth their earnings by reporting inflated production and contracted discretionary expenses. Overall, our findings suggest that poor workplace safety leads to incentives for managers’ opportunistic financial reporting behavior.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":44561,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Accounting and Finance","volume":"36 4","pages":"9-24"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-03-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145243105","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 Fundamental Justification of the Bubble-Like Gen AI Stock Valuations","authors":"Karlo Tokic, Luka Tokic","doi":"10.1002/jcaf.22792","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/jcaf.22792","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44561,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Accounting and Finance","volume":"36 3","pages":"11-13"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2025-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144635452","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":"Impact of Top Management Characteristics on Firm's Labor Investment Efficiency","authors":"Amirali Moeini Chaghervand, Indrarini Laksmana","doi":"10.1002/jcaf.22785","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/jcaf.22785","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>This study examines the effect of top management team (TMT) characteristics on labor investment efficiency. Specifically, we focus on TMT within-firm experience, tenure diversity, and the pay for performance sensitivity (PPS) dispersion as three potential factors affecting the team's group dynamics leading to labor investment decisions. Using a sample of US firms from 2000 to 2019, we show that TMTs with a greater percentage of within-firm experience, a high level of tenure diversity, and higher PPS dispersion make more efficient labor investments. Splitting the sample into over- and under-investment subsamples, we find that TMT within-firm experience reduces underinvestment in labor while tenure diversity and PPS dispersion reduce overinvestment in labor. Our study provides practical implications for corporate boards in assessing TMT's hiring and promotion, making investment decisions, and determining top executive compensations.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":44561,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Accounting and Finance","volume":"36 3","pages":"328-348"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2025-02-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144635456","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":"Tax Avoidance by Non-Zombie Firms: Evidence From Japan Following the Lehman Shock","authors":"Takehide Ishiguro","doi":"10.1002/jcaf.22787","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/jcaf.22787","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Non-zombie firms have an incentive to raise funds because zombie firms are prioritized for management resource allocation to prevent them from going bankrupt. Moreover, preferential loans to zombie firms are likely to hinder non-zombie firms from raising external funds through debt. Therefore, non-zombie firms attempt to increase internal financing through tax avoidance. This study examines whether non-zombie firms avoid taxes, focusing on firms listed in the First Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange (now TSE Prime) from 2008 to 2019. The results confirm that non-zombie firms engage in tax avoidance. Given that zombie firms deter non-zombie firms from seeking external financing, it is imperative that such firms be regulated and at the same time, the issues of zombie firms be addressed to mitigate tax avoidance behavior by non-zombie firms. These findings indicate the need to consider the influence of other firms, such as zombie firms, in controlling tax avoidance.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":44561,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Accounting and Finance","volume":"36 3","pages":"320-327"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2025-02-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144635548","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}
Antonio García-Amate, Laura Molero-González, Alicia Ramírez-Orellana, Juan Evangelista Trinidad-Segovia
{"title":"Dividend Puzzle: Global Evidence in Oil & Gas","authors":"Antonio García-Amate, Laura Molero-González, Alicia Ramírez-Orellana, Juan Evangelista Trinidad-Segovia","doi":"10.1002/jcaf.22786","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/jcaf.22786","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>This study examines factors influencing dividend policy in the Oil & Gas (O&G) industry, specifically exploring differences among sectors. Altogether 203 O&G independent companies were studied during the period 2000–2022. Through a data panel, the statistical methods used cover Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), random effect, logit, and probit. The analysis by sectors, as well as the consideration of market shocks, provide more information. The results show that Brent oil price significantly impacts dividend policy. Moreover, it can be seen how market shock favors the dividend payout. Variables such as leverage, liquidity, or profitability are also significant factors. Companies that are in different sectors differ in their dividend policy and its factors. With a global sample, a long period, and variables not previously tested in the literature, this paper tries to provide novel conclusions that allow us to know in greater depth the dividend policy of the O&G industry. Understanding dividend policy is essential for investors and executives to make investment decisions. The results suggest that O&G independent companies should be studied separately. This opens the door to future research venues.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":44561,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Accounting and Finance","volume":"36 3","pages":"299-319"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2025-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144635675","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":"Informative Value of Non-Financial Reports: Analyzing the Impact of Disclosure Format and Auditing","authors":"Simon Hirsch, Veronika Heichl","doi":"10.1002/jcaf.22784","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/jcaf.22784","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Since the Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD) came into force in 2017, large, listed companies in the European Union (EU) are obliged to disclose non-financial reports annually. Accordingly, Member States transposed the Directive into national law with country-specific rules. Thus far, quantifying the informational content has proven to be difficult. Therefore, we applied an innovative text-mining approach to assess the informative value of non-financial reports and its influential determinants, the so-called Sustainable Fingerprint. This method measures how precisely environmental, social, and governance (ESG) topics and time references are disclosed in non-financial reports. The aim of our paper is to analyze the informative value of non-financial reports from companies in the main stock indices of France, Germany, Italy, and Sweden after the national NFRD implementation. Our results show that incorporating the non-financial report in the annual report and the audit committee expertise (ACE) are positively related to the informative value, whereas external assurance has no significant impact.</p>","PeriodicalId":44561,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Accounting and Finance","volume":"36 3","pages":"275-298"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2025-01-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/jcaf.22784","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144635664","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ilhan Dalci, Omar Fikrat Fateh Tarzibash, Hasan Ozyapici
{"title":"Contracting Incentives, XBRL Adoption, and Accounting Conservatism: Empirical Evidence in a European Context","authors":"Ilhan Dalci, Omar Fikrat Fateh Tarzibash, Hasan Ozyapici","doi":"10.1002/jcaf.22779","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/jcaf.22779","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>This study aims to explore how XBRL adoption affects conditional conservatism and moderates the financial leverage and conditional conservatism relationship. Using the financial data between 2000 and 2022 for 332 listed firms in Belgium, Spain, and Denmark, the empirical results, first, demonstrate that financial leverage positively influences conditional conservatism. The results also reveal that XBRL adoption has a negative impact on conditional conservatism and negatively moderates the positive effect of financial leverage on conditional conservatism. The results overall imply that XBRL adoption reduces the impact of contracting incentives on conditional conservatism. In this regard, the results suggest that XBRL adoption substitutes for the contractual role of conditional conservatism. The results contribute to the ongoing discussion regarding the influence of technological developments on financial reporting systems, and they are expected to have important implications for managers, potential investors, creditors, and regulators.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":44561,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Accounting and Finance","volume":"36 3","pages":"254-274"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2025-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144634984","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":"Private Information in Mergers and Acquisitions: Non-Deal Roadshows, Value Creation, and Financing Choices","authors":"Dylan A. Howell","doi":"10.1002/jcaf.22782","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/jcaf.22782","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This study explores the relationship between non-deal roadshows (NDRs), the medium of exchange used in mergers and acquisitions (M&As) and the value created by these significant corporate events. NDRs can reduce asymmetric information, which is a significant driver of merger announcement returns, the choice of merger financing, and the acquisition bid premium. I show that NDR activity is important in explaining the cross-sectional variation of the excess returns around M&As and the acquisition bid premium. NDRs are also significant to understanding the medium of exchange, and their relevance is more pronounced when the firms involved have higher levels of asymmetric information and uncertainty. My findings suggest that NDRs convey relevant information about acquiring and target firms in M&A transactions. This paper identifies and measures distinct firm-specific outcomes of NDR activity that had yet to be studied.</p>","PeriodicalId":44561,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Accounting and Finance","volume":"36 3","pages":"221-253"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2025-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/jcaf.22782","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144634986","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}