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1 – 10 of 46Abdelhakim Ben Ali and Jamel Chouaibi
This study aims to investigate whether integrating environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices mediates the relationship between executive incentive compensation and the…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate whether integrating environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices mediates the relationship between executive incentive compensation and the financial performance of Islamic and conventional banks in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
Design/methodology/approach
This study used multiple regression models to analyze the effectiveness of ESG practices as a mediating variable in explaining the relationship between executive incentive compensation and banks’ financial performance between 2015 and 2021. The sample consisted of 57 Islamic and conventional banks operating in the MENA region, and the data were collected from the Thomson Reuters database (Data Stream).
Findings
This research paper showed the positive and significant mediating effect of the ESG practice on Banks’ financial performance. Thus, banks’ financial and stock market profitability is influenced by ESG information disclosure. This finding shows that taking ESG into account improves the relationship between executive incentive compensation and banks’ financial performance.
Practical implications
The results may interest academic researchers, regulators and policymakers and would support stakeholders and decision-makers who wish to discover how executive incentive compensation affects financial performance in banks.
Originality/value
This study contributes to previous literature by studying the mediating effect of ESG practices on the relationship between executive incentive compensation and banks’ financial performance. Indeed, the originality of this research paper is justified by the scarcity of studies and, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, constitutes one of the first attempts to examine this relationship via a mediating variable, i.e. ESG.
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I examine patterns of making or deferring strategic repatriations that firms can use to either meet analysts' forecasts or defer to maintain future reported earnings flexibility…
Abstract
I examine patterns of making or deferring strategic repatriations that firms can use to either meet analysts' forecasts or defer to maintain future reported earnings flexibility. First, I examine the extent to which firms repatriate earnings from high foreign tax subsidiaries to decrease US tax expense, resulting in increased net income and lower cash taxes. Using federal tax return information, I find evidence that firms strategically repatriate these earnings to meet or beat current analysts' forecasts. Next, I find evidence that firms that are able to obtain current year tax reductions defer these repatriations in an attempt to build cookie-jar reserves. Lastly, I find that firms do not disclose high foreign tax repatriations (HTRs), even when required by SEC rules. This study contributes to the earnings management, tax avoidance, and disclosure literature by examining a discretionary tax planning strategy.
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Serdar Turedi and Asligul Erkan-Barlow
The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of managerial myopia on information technology (IT) investment. Specifically, it aims to investigate the influence of chief…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of managerial myopia on information technology (IT) investment. Specifically, it aims to investigate the influence of chief information officer (CIO) compensation on IT investment and the moderating role of the board monitoring strength on this relationship.
Design/methodology/approach
The study examines a sample of 194 firms listed on US stock exchanges with a CIO position in 2019. The authors employ hierarchical regression analysis to test the hypothesis.
Findings
The results show that CIO compensation negatively influences IT investment. Further, even though vigilant board monitoring does not necessarily reduce such opportunistic behaviors, weak board monitoring creates an environment for such actions.
Research limitations/implications
First, the cross-sectional data can limit the results' generalizability. Second, the sampling frame is not perfectly random as it consists of firms that have CIO compensation information in the ExecuComp for 2019. Third, we include only two measures of board monitoring strength.
Practical implications
Board of directors should wisely select compensation packages' components since equity incentives potentially exacerbate managerial myopia. Moreover, firms may regulate CIOs' investment behaviors through board-level IT governance.
Originality/value
This study is one of the few studies that utilize CIO sensitivity to measure CIO compensation. Moreover, by examining the factors affecting IT investment behavior, this study sheds light on CIO incentives' impact on IT investment behaviors. Finally, to the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to investigate board monitoring's role in the relationship between CIO sensitivity and IT investment intensity.
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Souhir Neifar and Silke Huesing
This paper aims to examine the effect of contractual factors and noncontractual factors on tax avoidance (TA).
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the effect of contractual factors and noncontractual factors on tax avoidance (TA).
Design/methodology/approach
The sample comprises 400 firm-year observations of 67 companies listed on the HDAX during the period 2008–2017. The generalized least square panel regression is applied.
Findings
The study results confirm a significant effect of long-term chief executive officer (CEO) compensation incentives and CEO attributes on TA. Findings exhibit a significant impact of foreign CEO on TA, whereas an insider CEO mitigates TA. The results hold for several robustness tests, with lag effective tax rate as dependent variable and with splitting foreign CEO into European and non-European origin.
Research limitations/implications
First, the sample is limited to 400 firm-year observations and to the German context. For shareholders, the study provides first evidence on relationships between the geographical and internal versus external labor market for CEOs and TA. For researchers, the findings underline the importance of integrating behavioral approaches like place attachment theory and the rooting theory in the theory of TA.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine the impact of both contractual determinants and behavioral determinants on TA in the German context as an emerged economy with a dualistic corporate governance. This study contributes to the existing literature regarding the scientific debates about the impact of CEOs and CEO attributes on TA. It also analyses the balance between the place attachment theory and the rooting theory in the face of the compensation outcomes of agency theory.
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Yuan George Shan, Indrit Troshani, Jimin Wang and Lu Zhang
This study investigates the convergence-of-interest and entrenchment effects on the relationship between managerial ownership and financial distress using evidence from the…
Abstract
Purpose
This study investigates the convergence-of-interest and entrenchment effects on the relationship between managerial ownership and financial distress using evidence from the Chinese stock market. It also analyzes whether the relationship is mediated by research and development (R&D) investment.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a dataset consisting of 19,059 firm-year observations of Chinese listed companies in the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges between 2010 and 2020, this study employs both piecewise and curvilinear models.
Findings
The results indicate that managerial ownership has a negative association with firm financial distress in both the low (below 12%) and high (above 18%) convergence-of-interest regions of managerial ownership, suggesting that managerial ownership in this region may contribute to improve firm financial status. Meanwhile, managerial ownership has a positive association with firm financial distress in the entrenchment region (12–18%), implying that managerial ownership in the entrenchment region may contribute to impair firm financial status. Furthermore, the results show that R&D investment mediates the association between managerial ownership and financial distress.
Originality/value
This study is the first to provide evidence of a nonlinear relationship between managerial ownership and financial distress, and identify the entrenchment region in the Chinese setting.
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Yanan He, Xindong Zhang, Panpan Hao, Xiaoyong Dai and Haiyan Xue
This paper investigates whether China's R&D tax deduction policy triggers firms to manipulate their R&D expenditures upward.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper investigates whether China's R&D tax deduction policy triggers firms to manipulate their R&D expenditures upward.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper employs the ratio of actual tax savings as a proxy for the benefits of the R&D tax deduction policy based on manually collected and systematically cross-checked data. The relationship between tax benefits and abnormal R&D spending is estimated in a sample of Chinese A-share listed companies for the period 2007–2018.
Findings
The findings suggest that tax deductions lead to positive abnormal R&D spending and that this deviation in R&D spending may be attributed to firms' upward R&D manipulation for tax avoidance. The results also indicate that this behavior is more significant for the period after the policy revision, in non-HNTEs (high and new technology enterprises), and in firms with a high ratio of R&D expenses.
Research limitations/implications
It is difficult to establish a sophisticated and unified model to identify the specific strategy of upward R&D manipulation that firms use to obtain tax benefits.
Practical implications
Managers should take into account upward R&D manipulation when designing governance mechanisms. Policymakers in developing countries may further pursue preferential tax policies that cover every stage of innovation activities gradually; the local provincial governments need to leverage their proximity and flexibility advantages to develop a tax collection and administration system.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the understanding of the complex effect of R&D tax incentives and helps more fully illuminate firms' upward R&D manipulation behavior from the perspective of tax planning strategies, which are underexplored in previous research.
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Ransome Epie Bawack and Jean Robert Kala Kamdjoug
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) consultants have the expertise required to understand the specific contextual needs of an ERP client, implement tailored business processes that…
Abstract
Purpose
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) consultants have the expertise required to understand the specific contextual needs of an ERP client, implement tailored business processes that meet those needs, and ensure that no potential benefit offered by the ERP remains unexplored by the client. However, conflicts between ERP clients and consultants are a significant source of non-benefit realisation, making managing client–consultant agency crucial to ERP post-implementation benefits realisation. This paper aims to elucidate how managing client–consultant agency affects the benefits derived from ERP systems.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses microfinance institutions in 15 sub-Saharan African countries to explore different paths through which managing client–consultant agency leads to benefit realisation in ERP projects. It uses partial least squares structural equation modelling to analyse data from 127 managers and explains the results using insights from agency theory and the information system (IS) success model.
Findings
This paper reveals three routes through which contractual agreements and conflict resolution strategies lead to benefits realisation in ERP projects.
Originality/value
This is the first study that attempts to provide quantitative evidence of how managing the complex relationship between ERP project stakeholders affects ERP project success. It also contributes a novel theoretical model for ERP benefits realisation to complement existing research on ERP agency issues, critical success factors, and benefits realisation.
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To the best of the author’s knowledge, the author conducts the first detailed review on the impact of ownership variables on corporate tax avoidance, based on 69 archival studies…
Abstract
Purpose
To the best of the author’s knowledge, the author conducts the first detailed review on the impact of ownership variables on corporate tax avoidance, based on 69 archival studies over the two last decades.
Design/methodology/approach
Referring to an agency-theoretical framework, the author differentiates between six categories of ownership (institutional, state, family, foreign, managerial and cross-ownership/ownership concentration). The author also includes research on ownership proxies as moderators of other determinants of tax avoidance.
Findings
The review indicates that most research refers to institutional, state and family ownership. Moreover, except for state ownership, no clear tendencies on the impact of included ownership types can be found in line with the author’s agency-theoretical framework.
Research limitations/implications
Regarding research recommendations, among others, the author stresses the urgent need for recognizing heterogeneity within and interactions between ownership proxies. Researchers should also properly address endogeneity concerns by advanced econometric models (e.g. by the difference-in-difference approach).
Practical implications
As international standard setters have implemented massive reform initiatives on both tax avoidance and corporate governance, this literature review underlines the huge interaction between those topics. Firms should carefully analyze their ownership structure and change their tax planning due to owners' individual tax preferences.
Originality/value
This analysis makes useful contributions to prior research by focusing on six categories of ownership and their impact on tax avoidance in (multinational) firms and moderating effects. The author provides a detailed overview about current archival research and likes to guide researchers to focus on ownership heterogeneity and endogeneity concerns.
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Cristina Bailey, Richard G. Brody, Gaurav Gupta and Jonathan Nash
This study aims to examine the objectivity of accounting professionals based in India.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine the objectivity of accounting professionals based in India.
Design/methodology/approach
To examine the objectivity of accountants based in India, this study performs an experiment using a well-established instrument from prior literature. The authors asked accounting professionals based in India to act as either the seller or buyer in a hypothetical acquisition scenario. Participants were asked to evaluate the obsolescence of an apparel company’s inventory, assessing both the probability of inventory obsolescence and the likelihood they would propose an inventory write-down.
Findings
The results indicate external auditors and tax professionals were able to remain objective, reflected in the consistency of their assessments across the buyer and seller conditions. Internal auditors were less objective, evaluating inventory obsolescence as more likely when their client was considering buying a subsidiary than when their client was considering selling a subsidiary. Internal auditors were also more likely to recommend an inventory write-down adjustment when hired by the buyer than when hired by the seller.
Originality/value
This study informs regulators and accounting professionals. Offshoring has “prompt(ed) questions regarding the factors that affect the quality of work in India” (Dickey et al., 2022, p. 680). While the authors do not prescribe specific actions, this study provides evidence on the decision-making process of accounting professionals based in India that regulators might use to craft policy. Furthermore, this study responds to calls for additional evidence on the decision-making process of accounting professionals based in India (Spilker et al., 2016; Mohapatra et al., 2015), and for evidence on the objectivity of internal auditors (Burt and Libby, 2021; Stewart and Subramaniam, 2010).
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Anshu Duhoon and Mohinder Singh
The increased interest among academicians to explore more about tax management behavior is evident in the literature on corporate tax avoidance. This paper aims to illustrate the…
Abstract
Purpose
The increased interest among academicians to explore more about tax management behavior is evident in the literature on corporate tax avoidance. This paper aims to illustrate the multiple aspects that influence the tax avoidance behavior of corporations and its impacts through the systematic review method.
Design/methodology/approach
This study used “Tax Avoidance” OR “Tax Aggressiveness” OR “Tax Planning” as search strings to extract the relevant literature from the Scopus database. This study is a comprehensive analysis of existing literature on corporate tax avoidance behavior. Further, the keyword network analysis has been used to find out the most explored and dry research areas related to corporate tax avoidance behavior using VOSviewer software.
Findings
The study finds that taxation decision is an important managerial decision. Managers adopt tax avoidance tactics to boost postax profits to meet the shareholders’ expectations, particularly of risk-averse shareholders, and sometimes for their benefit also. With this, this study also finds that firms’ characteristics, political connections and corporate social responsibility activities also impact taxation decisions. In addition, the study identifies that tax-avoiding behavior has a contradictory impact on firm value, market growth and corporate transparency disclosure decisions.
Research limitations/implications
The study assists the researchers by providing a brief overview of tax avoidance behavior, for corporates in understanding the implications of tax avoidance, and for policymakers to fix the taxation loopholes and bring necessary tax reforms.
Originality/value
This study adds to the existing literature by providing a thorough overview of theories, determinants and outcomes of corporate tax avoidance behavior.
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