In this chapter I describe important accounting scandals in Germany with respect to their motives, structure of accounting transactions, with related balance sheet and profit and loss items, and the reactions of concerned parties (supervisory board, regulatory agencies, management, auditors, the...

This paper examines the auditor choices of all the IPOs of German firms between 1990 and 1999. The final sample consists of 306 firms. In the IPO context, audit quality can be used as a signal about firm value (information signalling). On the other hand, it can also be used by issuers and...

The publishing conduct of scientists is increasingly becoming the object of science-based ethical considerations. Studies have shown that questionable publishing conduct is not a rare phenomenon in this area. National and international scientific organisations are making recommendations about...

Since the public has vehemently debated financial scandals like Enron or WorldCom numerous articles asked for ethical responsibility from auditors. The financial scandals were also seen as ethical scandals. A Code of Ethics with moral content could be a potential remedy but the crucial question...

This paper examines professional associations’ local responses to global demands of audit standardization. Our longitudinal study from 1998 to 2018 analyses how professional associations of the German audit profession engaged in an intense framing contest over the adoption of external quality...

Managers of multinational companies often favor an aggressive tax avoidance strategy that pushes the legal limits onto the advantage of shareholders and the disadvantage of the spirit of democratically legitimized tax laws. The public and media debate whether such aggressive behavior is immoral....

Based on a unique dataset taken from the internal credit rating database of a large German bank we investigate capital structure determinants of German small and medium sized firms for a period of 2000 to 2014. In this economically favorable period for German small and medium sized firms with...

This study investigates the effect of the error announcement risk on the demand for voluntary interim auditor reviews. Material changes in the German legal environment in 2007 introduced an enforcement system for semi-annual financial reports. The demand for voluntary semi-annual reviews...