Knowledge that Transforms

We examine whether restricting managers' discretion through GAAP impacts the usefulness of accounting information in debt contracting. Our study informs standard setters and regulators regarding the debt contracting implications of limiting managers' discretion via accounting standards. We predict and find that under more restrictive standards, lenders make more non‐GAAP modifications to GAAP‐based performance measures, suggesting that restrictions of managers' discretion reduce the usefulness of accounting information. We perform two additional analyses to enhance identification. First, in line‐item‐level analysis, we document a positive relation between the exclusion of specific nonrecurring items from contractual definitions of earnings and the number of restrictions in the GAAP standards that apply to each specific item each year. Second, using difference‐in‐differences tests around standard changes, we find that the propensity to exclude items varies positively with changes in the restrictiveness of related standards. Moreover, we predict and find that restrictive standards are also positively associated with loan spreads but significantly less so when lenders adjust GAAP numbers in loan contracts. Overall, this study improves our understanding of how attributes of accounting standards impact the usefulness of accounting information.

In this study, we examine auditors' claims of professional disempowerment and strategic responses to Canadian Public Accountability Board (CPAB) inspections. Our research is based primarily on 27 semistructured interviews with audit partners (23) and managers (4) of large accounting firms. Drawing on key insights from institutional theory, we show that the tensions between inspectors and auditors reflect an intraprofessional tug‐of‐war between two competing but legitimate logics of professionalism. More specifically, our findings indicate that CPAB inspections have given rise to a mechanical logic of audit professionalism that is driven by the efforts of inspectors to promote a generalizable theoretical ideal of auditing that revolves around best practices and attention to technical minutiae. This mechanical logic competes with a clinical logic of audit professionalism that is driven by the efforts of audit partners and managers to promote a more relativistic, applied form of expert knowledge. To manage this dynamic of intra‐institutional complexity, quality experts (QEs) have emerged in firms' organizational structures as ambidextrous third parties—that is, professionals who master both logics and are capable of bridging the institutional divide by influencing the relationships between inspectors and auditors through a variety of brokering strategies. By considering inspectors as insiders rather than outsiders to the profession, we argue that auditors' claims of professional disempowerment should be interpreted carefully and critically. We also suggest that the professional autonomy and judgment of engagement partners and managers has been displaced significantly within firm boundaries into the hands of QEs. Our analysis offers a richer conceptualization of institutional ambidexterity by examining it as a relational process of social influence rather than as a set of individual characteristics.

We investigate whether hedge funds (HFs) undertake activism in the corporate bond market. Although there is a growing empirical literature investigating HF activism in the equity market, we know little about the role of HF activists in the corporate bond market. The empirical setting is the active enforcement of bondholders' rights during 2003–2007, triggered by issuers' violation of a standard bond covenant requiring timely financial reporting. Using HF holding data of convertible bonds in Form 13F filings, we identify HF interventions. The patterns of HF ownership suggest that HFs actively purchased convertible bonds to increase their ownership before the issuance of default notices. Relative to other interventions, HF interventions are more likely to target companies with higher levels of cash holdings but less likely to target companies with a greater amount of private debt outstanding. Furthermore, we find that HF interventions are associated with elevated bond trading frequency before late filing notifications and issuances of default notices, as well as a wealth transfer from stockholders and non‐intervening bondholders to intervening bondholders. Taken together, the empirical evidence demonstrates that HFs take actions to force the issuance of default notices in response to delay in financial reporting, suggesting that the primary objective of HF activism in this setting is to extract short‐term profit from bond issuers.

This study examines the usefulness of analysts' book value forecasts and the economic factors driving analysts' issuance of these forecasts. Guided by the real‐options‐based valuation model (ROM) of Zhang (2000), we explicitly link book value forecasts to the need for such information in valuation. We first establish that analysts' book value forecasts are superior to forecasts that are mechanically imputed from analysts' own earnings forecasts and those from random walk models and are incrementally informative beyond analysts' earnings, cash flow, and dividend forecasts. We then employ the ROM to explore the distinct information embedded in book value forecasts and analysts' decisions to issue these forecasts. Consistent with our expectations, we find that (i) book value forecasts convey growth information that is significantly correlated with ex ante indicators of real options, while analysts' earnings forecasts do not display this property; and (ii) analysts issue more book value forecasts when either growth options or, to a lesser extent, abandonment options are an important part of firm value. Our study sheds light on how analysts' book value forecasts are useful and under what circumstances analysts provide such information to meet investors' needs.

Collusion between managers who share private information represents a significant control concern for firms. Prior research suggests that mutual monitoring contracts that incentivize honest reporting do not prevent all collusion, making it important to understand how elements of the control environment may facilitate collusion, as well as how control choices—and collusion itself—affect subsequent behavior within the firm. Results of two experiments show that the frequency of collusion between managers in a repeated‐interaction setting is greatest when one can view the other's reports before making their own (“open internal reporting”) and slack obtained from misreporting is shared with a non‐reporting employee (“shared interest”). Moreover, although open (versus closed) internal reporting increases collusion in a single‐shot setting with or without a residual claimant to managers' budget reports being present, neither openness alone nor shared interest alone increases collusion in a repeated‐interaction setting. Results further suggest that collusion improves managers' perceptions of autonomy and group identification, resulting in greater cooperation on a subsequent task and potentially reducing the costs of some collusion to the extent such cooperation benefits the firm. Finally, open internal reporting worsens managers' perceptions of autonomy and group identification which, for managers who did not previously engage in collusion, leads to less cooperation on a subsequent task. In total, these results highlight to firms that the costs of collusion in repeated‐interaction settings frequently found in practice may be greatest when the common control choices of open internal reporting and shared interest are made in tandem, and that open internal reporting may carry another unintended cost in the form of lower cooperation on other tasks.

Prior research suggests that even for the same decision task there will be variation in decision outcomes across decision makers due to idiosyncrasies in their styles. This variation brings up a fundamental challenge in the realm of regulations, where consistency of application is of great importance. This study examines whether the idiosyncrasies of individual employees of the SEC contribute to inconsistent regulatory outcomes. Using a sample of SEC comment letters, we show that SEC reviewers' idiosyncratic style plays a significant role in explaining the cross‐sectional variation in filing review outcomes, even after holding firm and disclosure attributes constant. In addition, the likelihood of restatement during the review process varies systemically with the reviewers' review style. These findings suggest that reviewer style influences shareholders and other stakeholders via its impact on the costs in resolving comment letter issues and the quality of corporate disclosure. They also have public policy implications for the way financial reporting rules and regulations are applied.

We examine how the threat of exit by non‐blockholders (investors with ownership <5%) relates to firms' income smoothing. Unlike informed blockholders, non‐blockholders lack private information and therefore rely more on reported accounting numbers to evaluate firm performance. To isolate the exit threat, we use the unique setting in Japan where strong firm‐centric social norms and lack of insider access lead non‐blockholding foreign institutions to influence management primarily through the threat of exit. We predict and find that foreign non‐blockholders' exit threat is positively associated with the extent of income smoothing. This effect is more pronounced for firms less embedded in Japan's stakeholder‐based system, firms with greater stock liquidity, and firms with higher US institutional ownership. In addition, smoothing associated with such an exit threat, on average, is informative. Our findings suggest that Japanese firms under non‐blockholders' exit threat increase income smoothing to reduce perceived uncertainty and that such smoothing generally meets non‐blockholders' information needs.

Although recent evidence suggests that individual audit partners explain a substantial portion of the variation in audit quality proxies, much less is known about what determines an audit partner's quality. Psychology and behavioral economics theories hold that an individual's experiences can have enduring impacts on subsequent behavior. We examine whether auditors' direct exposure to Arthur Andersen's collapse has a long‐term impact on the quality of their audits. Our evidence implies that audit partners who directly experienced Andersen's demise impose stricter monitoring evident in their clients exhibiting a lower propensity for misstatements and small profits, and paying higher audit fees. Importantly, these findings reconcile with research in finance and economics implying that firsthand experiences matter more to subsequent behavior than general economic conditions or secondhand or thirdhand experiences. Collectively, the results shed light on one facet of how partners' audit quality evolves over time. Our findings suggest that major failures associated with the audit firm in which an auditor works can ultimately result in these affected individuals later delivering higher audit quality, which should benefit audit committees in partner selection decisions and audit firms in designing partner assignment policies.

As part of its goal to monitor and enhance the quality of information available to investors, the SEC reviews companies' filings to ensure compliance with applicable financial reporting and disclosure requirements. Increased public interest and the substantial costs for both the SEC in reviewing and the companies in responding have led to a rapidly growing body of accounting literature that examines the filing review process. We survey and comment on 80 published and unpublished academic research papers in this literature and identify significant gaps that future research should address. We also summarize the institutional features of the filing review process, aiming to inform future academic studies. Our survey should be of interest to both academics and market participants evaluating the effectiveness and efficiency of the filing review process.

This article explores how valuers construct value opinions. Although some implications of outsourcing valuation to valuers for accounting purposes have been highlighted in the literature, we add a valuer perspective complementing the accountant's standpoint in order to obtain a fuller picture of these ramifications. Drawing on 62 interviews, we study the role of judgment in valuation and find that judgment is largely tied with the sensemaking of valuers. By examining the valuation activities of art and real estate valuers, we show that these specialized valuers follow a similar valuation process which allows them to grasp how to go on with valuation . This four‐phase process starts and ends by situating the opinion in its specific valuation context and is centered on iterations between researching, analyzing, and relativizing comparable data that may be adjusted to connect with a sense of what the value should be. Overall, judgment is shown to be enacted based on a practical sense of conducting valuation that includes a “gut feeling” of what represents a plausible value. This study suggests that the valuer's input should be recognized as situated, sense‐contingent, and vulnerable to the underlying politics and risks tied to providing an opinion. Our results also point to stark differences between how valuers approach the use of judgment compared to how judgment is typically exercised by accounting specialists.