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This study aims to analyse the role of the financial and accounting expertise of the chief executive officer (CEO) on financial reporting quality (FRQ) in an emerging economy.

This study is based on data collected from a large sample of all non-financial companies listed on Vietnamese stock exchanges during the period 2016–2020 with 2,435 observations. FEM-ROBUST standard errors regression model is used to examine the relationship between the financial, accounting expertise of CEOs and FRQ through earnings management by discretionary accruals.

The results show that CEOs with financial and accounting expertise have more influence and intervention on earnings management and thus adversely affect FRQ. This behaviour is explained by the fact that CEOs not only have a firm grasp of financial and accounting policies but also know the tricks to interfere with earnings management. Moreover, in the context of emerging economies, CEOs’ awareness and management level are still limited and legal sanctions are not yet strict, so when they have power in their hands, CEOs immediately find ways to build a reputation to enhance the power and earnings for the CEOs themselves.

The limitation of this study is first of all that the research data are not complete and rich because the companies are prohibited from disclosing information and the cooperation relationship is not close. Next is the new research in only one emerging market – Vietnam – so the generalizability is not high.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine the impact of CEOs’ accounting and finance expertise on FRQ in an emerging economy, contributing to the existing literature regarding the scientific debates about CEOs, CEO characteristics, earnings management and FRQ.

The purpose of this study is to examine whether the presence of an audit committee (AC) members with Chief Executive Officer (CEO) experience (supervisory experts) affects the market value of cash holdings.

To estimate the marginal value of cash holdings, this study uses the model proposed by Faulkender and Wang (2006). The sample is 2,031 firm-year observations in Korea from 2000 through 2015.

The authors find that the presence of supervisory experts on ACs has a negative impact on the value of cash holdings. This result suggests that supervisory experts on ACs weaken monitoring of managerial actions. The authors also find that the negative effect of supervisory experts on the value of cash holdings is mitigated when there are other AC members with accounting expertise.

The findings that AC supervisory expertise impairs the effectiveness of ACs, and thus destroys shareholder value have policy implications because the current regulations in many countries use a broad definition of financial expertise that includes supervisory expertise.

This is the first study that directly examines the effect of AC supervisory expertise on the value of cash holdings. The study also contributes to the literature on the role of ACs in emerging markets by documenting the limitations of corporate governance systems adopted from the Anglo–Saxon model.

The purpose of this paper aims to investigate whether the source of audit committee accounting expertise influences the internal audit function (IAF) effectiveness in the Tunisian setting.

In the analysis, the authors conduct a survey of chief internal auditors from Tunisian listed companies. Then, a multivariate regression analysis is performed in order to analyze the relationship between audit committee financial expertise and IAF effectiveness.

The findings of the present study show that audit committee accounting financial expertise is most likely to be positively associated with the implementation of internal audit report recommendations. The authors also find that only financial expertise gained from accounting education and experience (e.g. an audit committee member with experience as a certified public accountant, auditor, chief financial officer or chief accounting officer) is associated with a stronger implementation of IAF recommendations, but not financial expertise gained from work experience in finance positions.

These results may have implications for regulatory bodies. They can provide a better understanding of the role of the audit committee expertise in monitoring internal audit processes. The major contribution of this study is that the audit committee's oversight role is strengthened if the committee members have accounting and auditing expertise.

The study extends prior literature by providing evidence that the source of audit committee accounting financial expertise enhances internal audit effectiveness beyond the outcomes it has on financial reporting quality. The study also contributes to the ongoing debate in the corporate governance literature concerning the definition of the financial expertise of audit committee members.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate two audit committee characteristics – independence and expertise of the audit committee – and the property‐liability insurers' financial reporting quality, which is proxied by loss reserve error.

The authors' hypotheses are tested using multivariate analysis where the loss reserve error is the dependent variable, and audit committee independence, and four types of audit committee financial expertise (accounting, finance, supervisory, and insurance expertise) are the testing variables.

It is found that accounting, finance, and insurance financial expertise are associated with more accurate loss reserve estimate. In contrast, a supervisory financial expertise and an independence audit committee are not found to be associated with better loss reserve quality.

The sample includes publicly‐held property‐liability insurers. Although the results from publicly‐held insurers could provide a good laboratory for such investigation in all insurers, they might be limited due to different organization structures of public vs private insurers.

The implications of the study are important for the SEC and NAIC. The results suggest that the requirements on the audit committee financial expertise would be necessary, even in highly regulated industry, such as property‐casualty insurance.

The paper contributes to the extant literature by studying audit committee characteristics in the insurance industry. It also contributes to the extant literature on audit committee effectiveness by decomposing the financial expertise into four types of financial expertise (accounting, finance, supervisory, or insurance expertise) and investigates which (if any) of these four types of expertise really drives the improvement of loss reserve quality.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of specific Islamic banks’ (IBs) corporate governance (CG) mechanisms on compliance with the Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions’ (AAOIFI) governance standards (GSs) disclosure requirements.

Using an unweighted governance compliance index, the authors measure the extent of IBs’ compliance with 7 AAOIFI GSs’ disclosure requirements over the period 2009–2015 (372 bank-year observations). In addition, a multivariate regression analysis was used to test the four hypotheses.

This study’s results report substantial non-compliance (the mean of compliance level with AAOIFI’s GSs over the covered years for the entire sampled IBs is 52.1%). The findings reveal that the Shariah Supervisory Board’s (SSB) remuneration, SSB’s members with only industry expertise, SSB’s members with the combined industry expertise and accounting and financial expertise, the existence of internal Shariah Auditing Department and the level of investment accounts holders’ funds are positively associated with the level of compliance with AAOIFI’s GSs.

The existing studies focusing on the determinants of compliance with AAOIFI’s standards are in the early research stage, as to the best of the authors’ knowledge, there is a paucity of empirical research testing this issue. The authors extend these studies by examining all the AAOIFI’s GSs and focusing on the specific IBs’ CG mechanisms. Furthermore, a major contribution of this study is the examination of the relationship between some SSB’s characteristics and compliance level. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first research that has examined the effect of the SSB’s remuneration and expertise on compliance level.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of audit quality on firms’ compliance with IFRS for goodwill impairment testing and disclosure. Differences in the compliance among the clients of Big-4 auditors and between the clients of Big-4 and non-Big-4 auditors are examined. This study also examines the effect of audit committee (AC) members’ accounting and finance backgrounds on firms’ compliance with IFRS for goodwill impairment testing and disclosure.

Different univariate tests, multivariate regressions and fixed effect panel regressions have been used to examine the hypotheses. The sample includes 911 firm-year observations for the period of 2006-2009.

A statistically significant difference in compliance levels has been found between the clients of Big-4 and non-Big-4 auditors. The compliance levels of the clients of Big-4 auditors have also been found to be significantly different. The findings also suggest that AC members’ accounting and finance backgrounds are positively associated with firms’ compliance with IFRS for goodwill impairment testing and disclosure.

The single country context and the single standard context limit the generalizability of the findings.

The findings of this study have important implications for researches in accounting, finance and corporate governance that usually consider Big-4 auditors vs non-Big-4 auditors as a proxy for audit quality. The results also reinforce the importance of developing institutional mechanisms such as high-quality auditing or corporate governance (AC members’ expertise) to encourage firms’ compliance with IFRS.

Firms’ compliance with IFRS for goodwill impairment testing is not essentially the same for the clients of all Big-4 auditors in Australia, suggesting that the quality of services provided by Big-4 auditors significantly differ from one another in enforcing their clients to compliance with IFRS. The lax enforcement on the part of auditors and the regulatory inaction in this regard may point to teething difficulties and systematic deficiencies in the move towards the impairment regime and fair value accounting. The findings also bear an important message for the move towards the harmonization of accounting practices.

De facto use of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) is a particular form of voluntary compliance with International Accounting Standards (IAS). It is practiced when an enterprise uses a number (and not all) of international standards as a complement to overcome the unachieved nature of local generally accepted accounting principles. The purpose of this paper is to analyze, at first, whether the financial expertise of Tunisian audit committee’s members is associated with de facto use of IFRS. Second, it explores to what extent and in what direction this association evolves when the factor auditor’s size is introduced as a moderator variable.

Data spanning a seven-year period (2012–2018) was hand-collected for a sample of 497 firm-year observations. Further, regression analysis was used to test the study’s hypothesis.

Findings show that the proportion of financial experts who sit on the audit committee is positively associated with the de facto use of IFRS. Besides, the association between audit committee members’ financial expertise and the voluntary use of IFRS is more pronounced when the company is audited by at least one BIG 4 audit firm.

The paper’s findings have implications for regulatory bodies and standards setters who are concerned with the functioning of the audit committee, especially when it comes to enhancing the quality of the financial statements. The results also shed light on the role of financial experts on the audit committee and Big 4 auditors to enforce the de facto use of IFRS.

The findings of this study contain an important message for the drift toward national de jure convergence with IAS.

There is a scene in a play by Euripides in which Medea, the central character, persuades Jason, her husband, to be the unwitting participant in her plot for revenge. This scene illustrates a facet of finance and accounting expertise because it shows how narrative, including finance and accounting, provides ontological security; a belief in the security of reality and the predictability of outcomes. The Chorus in the play suggests that Jason is “so sure of destiny”. What makes the scene particularly interesting is that it carries a second meaning, which is absolutely clear to the audience, and which has tragic consequences, of which Jason is “so ignorant”. This possibility of a second meaning suggests dangers in accepting a superficial understanding of any narrative. In turn, this shows the need for a knowledge of the history and characters from which any single scene, or finance and accounting report or calculation, is constructed. Provides quotations from practitioners which illustrate ways in which they see finance and accountancy as narrative and the ways in which they succeed and fail to imbue any accounting scene with characters and history.

This study aims mainly to test the effect of audit committee independence and expertise attributes on corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting, assurance and global reporting initiative (GRI) framework adoption and to investigate how CSR committee existence moderates this main relationship.

The study uses a large global sample that includes all (59,172) firm-year observations having CSR-related data in the Thomson Reuters Eikon database for a period between 2002 and 2019. The empirical analyses are based on random-effects logistic panel regression and Hayes methodology for the moderation analysis.

The study finds that audit committee independence and expertise are significantly associated with CSR reporting, CSR report assurance and GRI framework adoption. Moderation analysis largely supports the existence of a substitution role between audit and CSR committees and implies that audit committees are significant predictors of CSR reporting, assurance and GRI framework adoption mostly in the absence of the CSR committee.

The findings propose audit committee members be extra-vigilant in CSR reporting and assurance practices arising from undertaking substitution roles with the CSR committee. Hence, firms may configure their corporate structure in line with the results such as augmenting the audit committee with independent and expert members if they do not constitute a CSR committee. If firms establish a CSR committee, audit committee members may allocate less time to CSR reporting and assurance and more time to financial reporting quality.

This is the first study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to investigate the direct and indirect effect of audit committees’ attributes not only on CSR disclosure but also on GRI implementation and CSR reporting external assurance, considering the CSR committee’s possible substitutability or complementarity moderating role. This research develops a deeper understanding of audit committees’ non-financial role.

This study aims to examine the link between boards and audit committees and firm performance in Kuwaiti listed firms in the context of recent and extensive corporate governance regulatory reform.

Panel data regression analysis with fixed effects and clustered standard errors of firm performance for 61–97 listed industrial and services firms in Kuwait over a seven-year period. The dependent variables are the returns on assets and equity, the debt-to-equity ratio and leverage and Tobin’s Q and the independent variables comprise board of directors and audit committee characteristics, including size, the number of meetings and the numbers of independent and outside board and expert committee members. Firm size, subsidiary status and cash flow serve as control variables.

Mixed results with respect to the characteristics of the board of directors. Board size and independent and outsider board members positively relate only to Tobin’s Q and insiders only to debt to equity. For audit committee characteristics, committee size, independence and expertise positively relate to the return on equity and committee size and expertise only to Tobin’s Q. Of the five performance measures considered, board and audit committee characteristics together best determine Tobin’s Q.

Data from a single country limits generalisability and control variables necessarily limited in a developing market context. Need for qualitative insights into corporate governance reform as a complement to conventional quantitative analysis. In combining accounting and market information, Tobin’s Q appears best able to recognise the performance benefits of good corporate governance in terms of internal organisational change.

The recent corporate governance code and guidelines reforms exert a mixed impact on firm performance, with audit committees, not boards, of most influence. But recent reforms implied most change to boards of directors. One suggestion is that non-market reform may have been unneeded given existing market pressure on listed firms and firms anticipating regulatory change.

Kuwait’s corporate governance reforms codified corporate governance practices already in place among many of its firms in pursuit of organisational legitimacy, and while invoking substantial change to audit committees, involved minor change to firm performance, at least in the short term. Some firms may also have delisted in expectation of stronger corporate governance requirements. Regardless, these direct and indirect processes both improved the overall quality of listed firm corporate governance and performance in Kuwait.

Seminal analysis of corporate governance reforms in Kuwait, which have rapidly progressed from no corporate governance code and guidelines to an initially voluntary and then compulsory regime. Only known analysis to incorporate both board of directors and audit committee characteristics. Reveals studies of the corporate governance–firm performance relationship may face difficulty in model specification, and empirical significance, given the complexity of corporate governance codes and guidelines, leads in changing firm behaviour and self-selection of firms into and out of regulated markets.