Knowledge that Transforms

We investigate whether PCAOB-identified audit deficiencies lead to higher audit fees or turnover likelihood for clients of Big 4 auditors. To examine this, we identify areas of GAAP related to PCAOB deficiencies for each auditor. We then use textual analysis to identify how important the deficiencies are to clients to measure each client's exposure to deficient auditing. We find that this measure positively relates to audit fees and that this association is moderated by client bargaining power. Auditor turnover is also higher when deficiency exposure is high relative to what it would be for peer auditors, but we only observe this relation for smaller clients and do not find it is affected by client bargaining power. Finally, we find that companies switching Big 4 auditors tend to select an auditor resulting in lower deficiency exposure. These results have implications for understanding how PCAOB inspection reports affect the market for audit services. JEL Classifications: M41; M42. Data Availability: We obtain all data from publicly available sources.

We examine the cost-effectiveness, from the shareholders' perspective, of the accounting standards issued by the FASB during 1973–2009. We evaluate (1) the stock market reactions of firms affected by the standards surrounding events that changed the standard's probability of issuance; and (2) whether the market reactions are related, in the cross-section, to agency problems, information asymmetry, proprietary costs, contracting costs, and changes in estimation risk. The average standard is a non-event from the investors' perspective because 104 of the 138 standards examined are associated with no change in shareholder value. Nineteen (15) standards are associated with a decrease (increase) in shareholder value. Surprisingly, 25 standards are associated with an increase in estimation risk. In the cross-section, firms with higher levels of information asymmetry, lower contracting costs, and a decrease in estimation risk experience most positive returns.

Various regulatory governance initiatives have strived for board diversity, as diversity stimulates creativity, encourages discussion, and enlarges the board's knowledge base. However, increased diversity results in superior decision-making only when the board is free from conflicts and acts as a cohesive group. In this paper, we extend existing corporate governance research by introducing faultline theory to the board of directors (Lau and Murnighan 1998). The idea is to show how a board's diversity structure can give rise to the formation of subgroups along faultlines. The resulting subgroup formation may, in turn, reduce board effectiveness. Using a sample of U.S.-listed firms between 2008 and 2012, results suggest that boards with strong faultlines are associated with lower firm performance, lower CEO turnover-performance sensitivity, and higher abnormal CEO compensation. Understanding potential unintended consequences of board diversity could be of interest to regulators and companies that plan to appoint new directors to the board.

We examine whether aggregate cost stickiness predicts future macro-level unemployment rate. We incorporate aggregate cost stickiness into three different classes of forecasting models studied in prior literature, and demonstrate an improvement in forecasting performance for all three models. For example, when adding cost stickiness to an OLS regression that includes a battery of macroeconomic indicators and control variables, we find that a one-standard-deviation-higher cost stickiness in recent quarters is followed by a 0.23 to 0.26 percentage point lower unemployment rate in the current and following quarter. In out-of-sample tests, we find significant reductions in the root mean squared errors upon incorporation of cost stickiness for all three models. Additional tests suggest that professional macro forecasters, particularly those employed in nonfinancial industries, do not fully incorporate the information contained in cost stickiness. Finally, we find a stronger predictive power of cost stickiness toward the end of recessionary periods; we also assess cross-sectional variation of this predictive ability.

This paper examines audit team leader reactions to auditors who speak up about potentially important audit issues. Study 1 is a survey of interacting audit teams and provides evidence of higher performance evaluations for auditors who speak up. Studies 2, 3, and 4 are experiments examining team leader reactions to speaking up, both at the time speaking up occurs (Study 2) and later, during performance evaluation (Studies 2, 3, and 4). Results provide evidence that team leaders react with irritation at the time speaking up occurs, particularly if a team member raises an audit effectiveness issue that could increase audit effort. However, team leaders reward speaking up in performance evaluations, particularly when team members speak up about issues that align with the effectiveness or efficiency focus of the team. While supervisors' performance evaluations exhibit outcome effects, supervisors also reward speaking up, regardless of outcome. Data Availability: Contact the authors.

Our goal is to understand the extent to which cash-flow properties explain accruals. Using the Dechow, Kothari, and Watts (1998) model, we derive a negative relation between accruals and cash-flow changes, and show that the strength of the relation is linked to negative serial correlation in cash-flow changes. Dechow et al. (1998) also suggest that the strength of the relation between accruals and revenue changes relates to operating cycle length. Prior accrual models have not incorporated these theoretical relations. We show that incorporating cash-flow changes, serial correlation in cash-flow changes, and operating cycle length increases explanatory power of all accrual models considered (i.e., Jones 1991; Ball and Shivakumar 2006; McNichols 2002; Jeter and Shivakumar 1999). We find that incorporating these variables in accrual models also improves specification and power, aids detection of earnings management in AAER firms, and produces a nondiscretionary accrual estimate that better predicts future cash flows and earnings. These results suggest the importance of considering the economic role of accruals when predicting accruals.

Using the timeliness of misstatement discovery as a proxy for audit quality, we examine the association between audit firm tenure and audit quality in a setting that alleviates the endogeneity problem endemic to this line of research. We find that longer audit firm tenure leads to less timely discovery and correction of misstatements, which is consistent with a negative effect of long auditor tenure on audit quality. In addition, using the non-voluntary auditor change following the demise of Arthur Andersen in 2002 as a natural experiment, we show that the misstatements of its former clients were discovered faster than those of comparable companies that retained their auditors throughout the misstatement. This finding speaks to the benefit of a fresh look by a new auditor. An extended analysis shows that longer auditor tenure also leads to misstatements of greater magnitudes, and that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act has mitigated, but not eliminated, the negative effect of long auditor tenure. Last, we show that the negative association between auditor tenure and timely discovery of misstatements is mainly present in the first ten years of an audit engagement. Our study has implications for regulators who continue to express concern regarding lengthy auditor-client engagement.

In an environment where employees have the freedom to direct some time away from their day-to-day routine tasks to work on creative endeavors, we examine whether nonbinding targets for the amount of time to spend (input target) and/or the amount of output to produce (output target) on the routine task affects creative task performance. Results of a laboratory experiment demonstrate that providing both an input and an output target on the routine task leads to greater creative task performance relative to providing one or none of these targets. This result is consistent with theory suggesting that individuals need guidance as to how much routine work to complete in order to achieve the cognitive closure necessary for them to think creatively. However, individuals also need guidance that encourages them to limit time on their relatively comfortable routine work and spend time on more open-ended creative endeavors. By setting expectations as to what employees need to achieve on their more routine day-to-day responsibilities, organizations can increase the efficacy of the growing practice of allowing employees to spend a portion of their work week on creative endeavors. Data Availability: Contact the authors.

We examine the role of the chief marketing officer (CMO) in corporate voluntary disclosure of future revenues. Using a sample of S&P 1500 firms for the period from 2003 to 2011, we find that the presence of an influential CMO in top management is positively associated with the likelihood of a firm issuing a management revenue forecast. We also find that firms with an influential CMO provide more accurate revenue forecasts than other firms. These findings extend to long-window change analyses and are robust to the use of a propensity score matched-pair approach. Overall, the results are consistent with the notion that CMO influence in top management appears to play an important role in voluntary revenue disclosures. JEL Classifications: M12; M31; M41. Data Availability: All data are publicly available from sources identified in the paper.