This paper uses broad brush strokes to paint an historical and contemporary perspective on socialization through mentoring in the U.S. public accounting profession. The accounting profession needs the socialization mechanism of mentor-protégé relationships to groom future leaders, to create a...

This study examines the effects of audit partner tenure and audit partner changes on internal control reporting quality for large U.S. not-for-profit (NFP) organizations. Regulators contend that audit partners lose their objectivity over successive audits, reducing audit quality. A large body of...

The financial crisis of 2008 had a profound effect on the US banking industry, causing financial distress and the failure of a large number of banks. In this paper, we investigate whether or not banking institutions smoothed their reported earnings upward through the utilization of loan loss...

For some privately-held firms, the costs of providing high-quality accrual-based financial statements may outweigh the benefits of accommodating the demands of their stakeholders who may rely more on cash flows or have direct access to management. For other private firms, greater stakeholder...

This paper empirically examines the influence of ownership on strategic cost management (SCM) and related performance consequences in the health care industry. The concept of SCM is proposed as a two-dimensional strategy construct: revenue enhancement and cost reduction. Revenue enhancement...

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the market for audit services for publicly traded companies operating in the US for-profit (FP) healthcare sector. Complex national and local healthcare laws and regulations suggest the importance of assessing fee effects of joint national-level and city...

In 2009, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) required all public companies and mutual funds to report their financial information to the SEC using a markup language called eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL). The purpose of this requirement was to improve the accessibility...

The seeds for the 2007-09 financial collapse were sewn over many years and nurtured by ill-advised governmental housing policy, the presence of pervasive fraud both large and small and the widespread failure of personal integrity. A chronology of bad choices made by individuals and the...

Efficient capital markets and public confidence require honest actors. This is even more important in today's global marketplace. Unfair business practices such as bribery of foreign officials and maintaining and reporting of inaccurate books and records create an unlevel playing field for...

The 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers reopened wounds many thought were healed by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) in 2002. The Lehman litigation finally ended in late 2013 with audit firm Ernst & Young paying $99 million to investors who claimed the firm misled them with generally accepted...