Quality Of Accounting Numbers Research Articles

The Role of IFRS on Financial Reporting Quality and Global Convergence: A Conceptual Review

This study examines the role of International Financial Reporting Standards on financial reporting quality and the global convergence. The IFRS adoption is already an issue of global relevance across countries of the world due to the quest for uniformity, reliability and comparability of financial statements of companies. The adoption of IFRS in Europe is an example of accounting quality across-borders with different institutional frameworks and enforcement rules. This allows investigating whether, and to what extent accounting regulation per se can affect the quality of financial reporting and leads to convergence in financial reporting. Specifically, the study review how the change in the recognition and measurement of firms operating accrual item, the loan loss provision, affects income smoothing behaviour and timely loss recognition. The study found that the IFRS convergence reduces the scope for earnings management, is related to more timely loss recognition and leads to more value relevant accounting measures. Thus, the study reviews background and guidance on the change in financial reporting quality following extensive IFRS adoption around the world countries. The study found that a difference in accounting quality is related to country’s overall infrastructure setting. The study also highlights the importance of investor protection for financial reporting quality and the need for regulators to design mechanisms that limit managers' earnings management practice. The study found from different literatures that the adoption of IFRS leads to higher quality of accounting numbers and improve foreign direct investment across countries.

The effectiveness of the matching principle in different financial reporting systems and its impact on the quality of earnings

In the last decade, there has been a renewed interest in the fundamentals of accounting, highlighting a considerable downward trend in the effectiveness of the matching process. Therefore, this study analyses how changes to the financial reporting system (revenue/expense vs. asset/liability) affect the degree of matching and assesses the relationship between the latter and the quality of accounting numbers. Focusing on private firms in the Italian institutional settings, this paper highlights how the switch from a revenue/expense model (as proxied by the Italian GAAP) to an asset/liability approach (as proxied by the IAS/IFRS) has clearly worsened the level of matching between current revenue and expenses. Moreover, this study analyses if quality of the accounting numbers is systematically influenced by the degree of matching effectiveness through a direct correlation and highlights that the degree of matching is positively related to the predictability and persistence of earnings, while having a negative correlation with earnings volatility. This stresses the positive impact of such basic reporting processes on the quality of accounting numbers. These findings are particularly relevant for regulators, standard setters and academics, since they provide further insights for the debate on the accounting harmonisation process and represent an additional call for further research into this topic.

Exploring the Persuasiveness of Accounting Numbers in the Framing of ‘Performance’ – A Micro-Level Analysis of Performance Review Meetings

Based on a micro-level analysis of performance review meetings and drawing on an interactional framing perspective, this paper analyses the role of accounting numbers as ‘framing devices’ in discussions about performance. Analyzing interactions between superiors and subordinates, we examine how and why these two groups of actors mobilize different accounting numbers to make claims about performance and try to persuade the other party. Our interest is with the choice of accounting numbers and how they come to be seen as persuasive. The main theoretical argument developed in this paper is that whether a specific accounting number or indicator comes to be seen as persuasive or not in a particular situation is both a matter of how legitimate the underlying indicator is to the actors involved as well as whether they regard the signal it provides, i.e. the actual outcome on this particular indicator, as salient when compared to the actual outcomes on alternative indicators. Taken together, our findings suggest that persuasiveness is not an ‘objective’ quality of accounting numbers, but a situated achievement that results from interactive alignments between different actors with potentially competing interests.

The relationship between equity ownership concentration and earnings quality: evidence from Brazil

This study investigates the influence of ownership concentration on earnings quality of Brazilian firms. This topic is relevant considering the substantially low number of companies with diffuse ownership structure in Brazil in comparison to US, where most studies about earnings quality have been performed. The Brazilian setting permits us to complement Givoly, Hayn, and Katz (2010) analysis between the potential explanations for the relation between ownership structure and earnings quality based on both the “demand” and “opportunistic behavior” hypothesis. To examine this relationship, we employ two measures as proxies of earnings quality: earnings persistence and asymmetric timeliness (conservatism). Our results are consistent with the “demand” hypothesis and indicate that earnings represent a more consistent indicator of future performance when ownership structure becomes more dispersed. Our results contribute to the literature because it suggests that the quality of accounting numbers have to be assessed considering aspects related to ownership concentration (even when analyzing earnings from public firms). It also contributes to the investment community because it shows that earnings forecast accuracy may be influenced by ownership structure.

Are International Financial Reporting Standards–Based and U.S. GAAP–Based Accounting Amounts Comparable? Evidence From U.S. ADRs

This article examines whether accounting amounts reported under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) by firms cross-listed in the United States (American Depositary Receipts [ADRs]) are comparable with those reported under U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). We compare the two samples on the basis of explanatory power of price, return, and cash flow models, timeliness in reporting, accrual quality, and predictive power of accounting. Value relevance, timeliness, and accrual quality of accounting numbers under U.S. GAAP are not significantly different than those under IFRS. The two systems are comparable in predictive power after 2007. Overall, the evidence does not indicate significant differences in accounting quality between reporting under U.S. GAAP and IFRS. Our findings provide evidence to support the policy of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in allowing foreign firms listing in the United States to use IFRS for their financial reports without reconciliation to U.S. GAAP.

Do Corporate Governance Mechanisms Impact on Earnings Quality? Evidence from IFRS Adoption in European Union

This study examines the impacts of mandatory adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and corporate governance on accounting accruals in the UK and Germany. There has been a long debate on whether mandating a single set of high quality accounting standards, i.e. IFRS, leads to higher quality of accounting earnings. Some treat accounting standards as the sole determinant of accounting quality and find higher quality of accounting numbers in IFRS adoption countries; while others show that reporting incentives dominate accounting standards in determining accounting quality. Using hand-collected corporate governance data in companies’ annual reports throughout the sample period 2001-2013, we operationalize reporting incentives by constructing a score that rates the overall effectiveness of a firm’s corporate governance and highlight the following main findings. First, the magnitude of discretionary accruals in our sample has not changed since the 2005 mandatory IFRS adoption; meanwhile, the volatility of accrual residuals estimated by Dechow and Dichev (2002) model has become larger in IFRS adoption period, suggesting lower quality of IFRS accounting numbers. Second, firms with better corporate governance and therefore less earnings management incentive are associated with higher accounting quality, i.e. smaller sizes of discretionary accruals and lower volatilities of accrual residuals. Our results are in line with Ball et al. (2003), suggesting that incentives act as a deciding factor in improving accounting quality.

Accounting conservatism and the cost of equity capital: UK evidence

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the economic consequences of different dimensions of accounting conservatism: ex ante (balance sheet or unconditional) conservatism and ex post (earnings or conditional) conservatism. It is argued that the two dimensions of conservatism convey different information to the market about the quality of accounting numbers and have different associations with equity investors' required rates of return.Design/methodology/approachThe cost of equity capital estimates are based on the Ohlson and Juettner‐Nauroth model. The paper applies a regression model to examine the relationship between the cost of equity capital and accounting conservatism controlling for other risk factors.FindingsThe findings indicate that ex ante conservatism is associated with higher quality of accounting information and lower costs of equity capital and that ex post conservatism is associated with lower quality of accounting information and higher costs of equity capital.Research limitations/implicationsThe firm‐level conservatism measures may suffer from measurement error. Future studies can be more specific in determining proxies for ex ante and ex post conservatism.Practical implicationsThe results imply that conservative accounting signals information to investors about the quality of a firm's current and future earnings. Investors' required rates of returns may be higher for conservative reporting firms that are more susceptible to opportunistic management discretion.Originality/valueThe paper provides the first UK evidence on the effect of different dimensions of conservatism on equity investors' required rates of return.

The existence and independence of audit committees in France

This paper uses an agency theory framework to investigate the determinants of audit committees in France. Empirical tests address a cross-sectional sample of 285 listed companies for the fiscal year 1997, which is two years after the first Viénot report recommending the creation of audit committees among listed companies. Multivariate analyses show that the existence of an audit committee, and the committee's independence, are both negatively correlated with insider ownership, consistent with the owner-manager agency theory that considers audit committees as devices aimed at strengthening the monitoring system, the quality of financial reporting and the whole corporate governance environment. The existence of an audit committee that complies with corporate governance recommendations (i.e., a minimum of three directors, all of whom are non-executive directors) also positively depends on leverage if the firm has a high-IOS (Investment Opportunity Set). The quality of accounting numbers thus seems important in shareholder-debtholder relationships if lenders are potentially more exposed to default risk and expropriation mechanisms. However, this result might be sensitive to the IOS measurement and classification of high- and low-IOS companies. Finally, the presence of an audit committee is found to be positively correlated with board size, firm size, auditor reputation, and with the diversity of the company's operations.