Search results

This study tests the effect of accounting standards precision on financial restatements and the influence of accounting standards precision on different types of restatements (including errors and irregularities). What is more, the heterogeneity between accounting standards precision and financial restatements is verified in this paper. In the further analyses, the authors also examine the mediating roles and moderating roles on the correlation between accounting standards precision and financial restatements.

The focus is placed on an unbalanced panel of 18,766 samples over the period of 2007–2017.

The authors find that firms' restatements decrease when standards are more principles-based (low accounting standards precision). Especially, irregularities significantly decrease when firms' standards are more principles-based. What's more, the negative relationship between principles-based standards and restatements is more significant in “big four” accounting firms. Moreover, from the mediating effect results, the authors find that low accounting standards precision decreases a firm's financial reporting complexity and increases equity restriction, which in turn can help decreasing its financial misreporting. From the moderating effect results, the authors find that the higher the TOP1 and the more analysts following the firm, the higher the benefit of accounting standards precision to misstatements.

The results of this study provide a theoretical reference for accounting standard setters and are helpful to inform investors and regulators about the influence of Chinese accounting standards on restatements.

This paper aims to examine whether sanctioning adoption of IFRS for US firms would produce accounting information of the same quality as those produced under US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). This is a timely research since the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC; 2014) has asked for further review.

This study uses restatements of financial statements made by a sample of foreign firms listed on US stock exchanges using International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in comparison to a control sample of US firms using US GAAP during the period of 2001to 2010. Statistical analysis of the frequency, sources and magnitude of the restatements and market revaluations to the announcement of the restatements are examined. Cross-country differences are also examined.

The results indicate that IFRS firms have a lower rate of restatements than US GAAP firms but with no significant differences in terms of sources of restatements and the impact on net income or shareholders’ equity. The market revaluations to restatement announcements show no significant differences between the two accounting regimes. Cross-sectional analyses indicate IFRS firms are on average from countries characterized by weak rule of law, ineffective corruption controls and lower efforts to promote private sector advancement.

The sample size in the paper is relatively small. To increase validity of the inferences from the Results, this issue should be readdressed with larger sample.

Results are important to accounting practitioners and policymakers.

Results are contributing in clarifying the SEC’s concerns of adopting the IFRS by US-based firms; thus, saving the investors the additional efforts and costs in comparing financial statements prepared under different accounting regimes.

This research is the first to use restatements as accounting quality criteria. The results suggest that adoption of IFRS by US-based firms would not produce accounting information that is significantly different in quality from those generated under US GAAP. This result should be of interest to the SEC in clarifying its concerns.

The purpose of this paper is to establish a direct link between securitizations and accrual-based earnings management by investigating whether financial statements in the periods of securitizations are more likely to be restated at a later time. In addition, this study examines whether the association between securitization and accounting restatements is more pronounced in the pre-financial crisis period and for banks with less independent or industry-specialized auditors.

This study covers a sample of bank holding companies with restatement information between 2001 and 2012. Using the incidence of material accounting restatements as a proxy for accrual earnings management, this study investigates whether securitizations are likely used as a tool for accrual earnings management. A logistic model is applied with standard errors clustered at the firm-year level. Various robustness tests are conducted to rule out the possibilities that the results are driven by unintentional reporting errors or endogeneity of the securitization decisions.

The empirical results reveal a positive and significant association between banks’ securitization activities and the likelihood of having accounting restatements. Moreover, this positive association is more pronounced in the pre-financial crisis period and for banks with less independent or industry-specialized auditors.

The findings suggest that managers take advantage of discretions on accounting rules for securitizations to manage earnings. This evidence provides multi-dimension implications for standard setters and practitioners, as well as investors.

This is one of the very first papers to document evidence that accrual earnings management is involved in securitization.

We investigate whether municipal financial manager turnover is associated with accounting restatements. This analysis is motivated by the notion that suspect financial reporting could limit the ability of stakeholders to assess the use of public resources (GASB, 2006). The evidence suggests that municipalities disclosing accounting restatements are more likely to see changes in the top financial manager position than a control sample of non-restatement municipalities. Overall, our findings are consistent with associations between financial reporting quality and the labor market for municipal financial managers, and imply that governments should consider adding the prevalence of accounting failures as an input in the evaluation of top financial managers.

This paper reviews academic literature related to the consequences that outside directors and boards may face in the wake of earnings restatements and suggests directions for future research. We examine loss of board seats; recruitment of new directors; proxy recommendations and shareholder support; pre-emptive director departures; director wealth effects; director reputation, litigation, and sanction risks; international evidence; and legal proposals for reform. The overall picture that emerges from the literature is that directors’ primary risk in the wake of earnings restatements is loss of board seats, in part through adverse proxy advisor recommendations and reduced shareholder support. Directors typically face little risk of legal liability or SEC sanctions, and some directors pre-emptively leave a problem company’s board and reduce their loss of interlocked board seats. Some legal scholars have called for director liability to be increased so as to promote more vigilant board oversight. Companies often focus on increasing the independence of the board in the wake of a restatement in an effort to repair organizational reputation. While researchers have revealed a host of important findings to date, much more can be learned about the effects of restatements on outside directors and boards.

The present study seeks to shed further light on the effectiveness of Basu (1997) and Khan and Watts' (2009) differential timeliness metrics in detecting predictable differences in conservatism following corrections of restated earnings.

Using cross-sectional and time-series analyses for companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange during 2009–2013, the results indicate lower conservatism for restating firms as compared to their counterparts during prerestatement period.

Using cross-sectional and time-series analyses for companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange during 2009–2013, the results indicate lower conservatism for restating firms as compared to their counterparts during prerestatement period. In contrast, our findings are indicative of higher conservatism among these restating firms during the years of restatements. Moreover, the time-series approach captures a higher conservatism for the restating firms during restatement years than prerestatement periods. Overall, these results provide insight into the usefulness of the metrics used in the restatement setting.

Similar to recent papers, the present study seeks to shed further light on the ability of Basu-based coupled with Khan–Watts-based measures of conservatism to detect situations in which companies' earnings are known to be significantly restated.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of financial restatements by US companies to help students, professors, and practitioners gain a better understanding of restatements. Data from restatement activity that occurred between January 1, 1997 and June 30, 2002 is presented and relevant literature is cited to discus the players involved in restatements, the causes of restatements and their impacts.

A sample of 919 restatement announcements compiled by the General Accounting Office (GAO) that occurred between January 1, 1997 and June 30, 2002 is analyzed. The data and the relevant literature are used to examine the roles of companies, auditing firms, and the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the financial reporting process and show how they are involved in prompting restatements. Literature is also reviewed on the root causes of restatements and their impact.

The misstatements that lead to earnings restatements are driven by a variety of forces, the most often studied and discussed being deceptive accounting practices by managers. The results of these restatements include a decline in the market value of the firm, an increase in the cost of capital, a loss of reputation for the firm and managers and an overall loss of confidence from investors. Key players in restatements by US companies are the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the restating firms' auditors and the management of the restating firms. Restatements prompted by the SEC tend to be larger than those prompted by other entities. They also tend to involve firms with high profitability before the restatement. The Sarbanes‐Oxley act is the latest significant piece of legislation that impacts financial reporting by firms.

Data on US restatements occurring between January 1, 1997 and June 30, 2002 are presented. Restatements are a continuing, global, phenomenon so studies involving restatements by firms in various countries and from more recent periods would be useful.

This paper provides a useful overview of restatement activity in the USA for any individual looking to become more familiar with the topic. Ideas for future research are presented.

This paper fills a hole in the literature by providing data and citing relevant literature to provide an overview of accounting restatement activity in the USA.

This study reviews and discusses the accounting literature that analyzes the role of auditors and enforcers in the context of fraud.

This literature review includes both qualitative and quantitative studies, based on the idea that the findings from different research paradigms can shed light on the complex interactions between different financial reporting controls. The authors use a mixed-methods research synthesis and select 64 accounting journal articles to analyze the main proxies for fraud, the stages of the fraud process under investigation and the roles played by auditors and enforcers.

The study highlights heterogeneity with respect to the terms and concepts used to capture the fraud phenomenon, a fragmentation in terms of the measures used in quantitative studies and a low level of detail in the fraud analysis. The review also shows a limited number of case studies and a lack of focus on the interaction and interplay between enforcers and auditors.

This study outlines directions for future accounting research on fraud.

The analysis underscores the need for the academic community, policymakers and practitioners to work together to prevent the destructive economic and social consequences of fraud in an increasingly complex and interconnected environment.

This study differs from previous literature reviews that focus on a single monitoring mechanism or deal with fraud in a broadly manner by discussing how the accounting literature addresses the roles and the complex interplay between enforcers and auditors in the context of accounting fraud.

The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of corporate governance on financial restatements in China, with a view to providing reference to strengthen the corporate governance and improve the quality of financial information.

The authors investigate associations between financial restatements and corporate governance via a sample of 1,147 listed companies from the period of 2002 to 2006, which includes 880 annual accounting restatements by 465 companies. Logistic model is used to regress restatement dummy variable on not only the equity and board structure, but also the quality of independent auditors. The restatements in this paper are caused by performance‐related accounting errors.

It was found that accounting misstatements related to performance could be prevented or restrained by strong internal governance, such as a board of higher percentage of outside directors and an audit committee that could oversee the accounting and financial reporting process on behalf of all shareholders, and outside governance, such as a big stockholder and a strong outside auditor from the Big4 accounting firms. However, the matched test shows the effect of audit committee on controlling restatements is endogenous, which relies on the effects of other governance factors.

In China, studies on the impact of corporate governance on financial restatements are few and the existing empirical researches show the selected samples are small, which constitute small part of the revision of accounting errors. In this paper, the data are more accurate and comprehensive than previous research and matched sample method was used to alleviate the impact of endogeneity of some explanatory variables. So, the conclusions are more reliable than in the past.

The purpose of this paper is to examine chief financial officer (CFO) qualification improvement associated with restatements and restatement characteristics (restatement materiality). The study is motivated by recent high-profile financial scandals and increasing instances of restatements which focus public attention on the role of CFOs in maintaining the integrity and quality of corporate financial reporting.

The study employs data composed of 80 restating firms matched with 80 non-restating firms with hand-collected CFO turnover information in the periods of 2003-2010. The research questions are tested in the logistic regression models.

The results provide some support that restating firms are more likely to hire new CFOs with greater accounting knowledge and overall CFO qualification (both accounting knowledge and CFO work experience) than non-restating firms. Furthermore, the authors also find that the number of restating years has a positive effect on CFO qualification improvement.

Although the authors fail to find strong evidence for the hypotheses (perhaps due to the small sample size) the authors provide the first evidence on the relation between CFO qualification improvement and restatement. Further research can examine the relation in the pre-SOX period, and investigate whether any of the firms experiencing CFO turnover have experienced any financial statement restatements in subsequent years.

The results extend the understanding of companies’ strategies for regaining reporting credibility in the wake of restatements. Restatements of erroneous accounting numbers (primarily earnings) have led to significant losses for investors, contributed to a series of corporate governance reforms and legislative changes including SOX 2002, and prompted efforts to identify the remedies restating firms take to improve reporting quality and restore credibility.