The accounting profession and business community have called for educators to present accounting in more realistic business contexts. Annual reports and 10-Ks provide a wealth of information that brings accounting to life, but use of these reports is typically confined to financial accounting...

We recently conducted a comprehensive survey that analyzes how senior financial executives make decisions related to performance measurement and voluntary disclosure. In particular, we ask CFOs what earnings benchmarks they care about and which factors motivate executives to exercise discretion,...

Auditors face the challenging tasks of attesting that the financial statements are free from material misstatement while simultaneously fostering a functional working relationship with the client. As the financial statements may be considered, in part, a product of negotiations between the...

The association of a country's investor protection regime with the quality of reported earnings is examined for a large sample of firms from 42 countries. Three attributes of earnings are evaluated: the magnitude of the association of a country's investor protection regime with the quality of...

The purpose of the current study is to examine the extent to which audit risk and litigation risk cause auditors to increase reliance on decision aids. These are particularly relevant issues in the era of Sarbanes-Oxley and abundant audit litigation, as decision aids hold the potential to...

We investigate if the SEC's mandated disclosure of fees for audit and nonaudit services affected the market's perception of auditor independence and earnings quality. Following the initial fee disclosures, we find that the market valuation of quarterly earnings surprises (earnings response...

The purposes of the current study are to examine whether audit risk triggers prospective rationality cognition related to how decision aid reliance could be used as a defensive strategy in a court of law should legal action arise in the future, and assess the degree to which defensibility...

Auditors, legislators, and others have recently suggested that audit reporting options be expanded so as to provide better information about expected future events. However, the last action by the Auditing Standards Board (ASB) related to auditor reporting was to reduce the reporting options...

The 1964 Securities Acts Amendments extended the mandatory disclosure requirements that had applied to listed firms since 1934 to large firms traded Over-the-Counter (OTC). We find several pieces of evidence indicating that investors valued these disclosure requirements, two of which are...