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From 2006 onwards very large Belgian nonprofit organizations (NPOs) are legally required to appoint an external auditor. In this context we investigate whether auditor choice in favor of a sector expert, being a higher quality auditor, is associated with NPOs’ expectations regarding several auditor attributes. We find that NPOs are more likely to choose a sector expert if they attach higher importance to an auditor’s client focus and relationship with management. NPOs are less likely to choose a sector expert if they care more about the practical execution of the audit. We provide recommendations for increasing the appeal of sector expertise as valuable auditor attribute. The resulting quality increase of NPOs’ financial statements and audit reports could benefit various stakeholders.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the association between individual auditor characteristics (gender, experience and sector expertise) and audit opinions in Belgian non-profit organizations (NPOs). The purpose is to identify auditor characteristics that imply a better assurance of financial statement (FS) quality. FS quality is essential to enhance financial accountability toward the resource providers of NPOs and the public at large.

Multinomial regressions are conducted on a data set of Belgian NPOs. Propensity score matching is used to control for potential self-selection bias.

Auditors with sector expertise are found to provide better assurance than their non-sector-expert counterparts. The former are more likely to disclose FS errors and uncertainties in their audit report.

This study contributes to the auditing literature by focusing on an understudied audit market, namely, the non-profit audit market. The number of non-profit studies that investigate determinant of audit quality is very scarce, and none of them explores the determinants of audit opinions. Moreover, these studies ignore individual auditor characteristics as determinants of audit quality. The findings of this study provide meaningful information for several actors in the NP field and for audit firms.

The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of intra‐industry conformity tendencies on dividend policy among a large sample of US firms.

The paper explores mimetic influences on dividend policy. Consistent with prior institutional research, the paper measures mimetic pressures as institutional prevalence or the pervasiveness of a feature of dividend policy within a firm's relevant environment.

The results reveal a significantly positive relationship between the lagged density of firms in the industry that pay a dividend and the probability of a focal firm paying a dividend. Moreover, for firms paying a dividend, results indicate that higher similarity in dividend payout among firms in the same industry induces more conformity between a focal firm and average industry practice. Overall, results are consistent with imitation in dividend policy.

The results support the view that future research on dividend policy should value social and behavioral factors more explicitly in order to arrive at a more overall and consistent explanation of firms' dividend policy. Moreover, the results also illustrate the relevance of alternative theories in explaining dividend policy.

The results show that intra‐industry benchmarking of dividend policy plays a significant role in the USA.

This study documents the relevance of social imitation mechanisms behind dividend payout behavior and therefore adds to the current knowledge of the impact of behavioral processes on dividend policy.

The purpose of this paper is to study audit pricing and the Big4 fee premium in Belgium. While a number of studies have already explored these issues, the Belgian audit market provides an interesting setting to gain an additional insight into the pricing of audit services for many reasons (e.g. audit market concentration in Belgium is much lower than in other countries, the Belgian audit market mainly consists of non‐listed firms, etc.).

Besides the traditional audit fee model, based on seminal work by Simunic, the paper also estimates regression models in which the author allows coefficients to vary across Big4 and non‐Big4 auditors and control for self‐selection (based on a two‐stage procedure).

Using the traditional audit fee model, results suggest that Big4 auditors receive (or are able to charge) a fee premium compared to non‐Big4 auditors. Nevertheless, when the author allows regression coefficients to vary across Big4 and non‐Big4 auditors and control for self‐selection, the aforementioned finding does no longer hold. The results reveal differences in fee structures between Big4 and non‐Big4 auditors and suggest that Big4 auditors consider a richer set of variables when setting their fees.

Since Belgian firms are only required to disclose audit fees as from 2007 onwards, the analyses are based on data for one year only.

An important implication, at least from an academic point of view, is that the results clearly illustrate and corroborate the need to control for self‐selection when modelling audit fees (while this issue has been ignored by recent audit fee studies). The findings also have implications for the (Belgian) auditing profession. For example, the fact that significant differences are observed in audit pricing between the Big4 and non‐Big4 firms may have an impact on the (Belgian) audit services market (e.g. it might influence the competitive nature of the tendering process).

Using a two‐stage procedure, the results corroborate the need to control for self‐selection in modeling audit fees (an issue that has been largely ignored in the audit fee literature). In addition, the results reveal that Big4 and non‐Big4 auditors have different fee structures and that it is therefore important to allow the regression coefficients (and not only the intercept) to vary across both groups. Finally, the findings add to the very scarce evidence on audit pricing for non‐listed firms.

This paper aims to study conformity tendencies in selling, general and administrative (SG&A) expenses reporting of US firms through an institutional lens.

The paper examines intra‐industry conformity in SG&A reporting over a ten‐year period among a sample of US firms. It measures conformity by comparing a firm's SG&A profile (reported SG&A relative to sales) against a reference group of industry model firms.

Results suggest that a firm's conformity to large and successful firms' SG&A profiles is determined by the tendency of other industry members to imitate those reference models. Large audit firms (i.e. the BigN) are shown to provide an effective diffusion channel of shared industry‐based reporting templates. Different modes of trait imitation in SG&A reporting seem to coexist as long as the industry model firms are defined in terms of size and/or profitability.

The paper's results may be of interest to capital market standard‐setters and regulators by showing how regulative ambiguity created by the lack of guidance, feeds social processes that tend to fill the guidance gap.

The paper's results show that intra‐industry benchmarking of SG&A reporting plays a significant role in the USA and that international auditor networks are important in establishing and promoting industry‐based reporting formats.

The paper shows that the behavior of firms at the industry level can be significant predictors of financial reporting practices at firm level and illustrate specific, socially based mechanisms through which the institutional environment affects financial reporting decisions.