Accounting - Research Publications
Permanent URI for this collection
Search Results
1 - 10 of 115
-
ItemWho pays attention to sustainability reports and why? Evidence from Google search activity(Wiley, 2023-09)We introduce country-level Google search activity as a direct measure of the level of stakeholder attention directed towards sustainability reports. We validate this measure by establishing that search activity for sustainability reports is correlated with temporal patterns in firms' supply of these reports. To frame the economic magnitude of this search behaviour, we then show that the level of attention directed towards sustainability reports is very low compared to the level of attention directed towards financial and accounting information. Next, we examine two related research questions. First, we identify who pays attention to sustainability reports. We find, consistent with the environmental Kuznets curve, that attention towards sustainability reports is strongly associated with economic development. Consistent with findings in prior research that suggest citizens in stakeholder-oriented countries have stronger preferences for firms to act prosocially, we also find that search activity for sustainability reports relative to search activity for financial performance metrics is greater in civil law countries than in common law countries. Finally, we then explore the question of why individuals pay attention to sustainability reports and find evidence that suggests sustainability reports are used for two primary purposes: evaluating the societal impacts of firms' actions; and, firm valuation.
-
ItemSuperstar Productivity and Pay: Evidence from the Australian Football League(WILEY, 2022-06)We use game‐level data from the Australian Football League (AFL) to examine superstar workers' productivity and pay. By exploiting teams' injury‐induced line‐up changes between games, we show that, compared with replacement‐level players, superstars increase their teams' likelihood of winning away games by approximately 15 percentage points. While we then show that betting markets appear to appropriately price superstars' marginal productivity, we present back‐of‐the‐envelope calculations that suggest that teams underpay superstar players by at least 30 per cent. We discuss how inaccurate performance evaluations, labour market regulations, long‐term back‐loaded contracts, clubs' attempts to reduce harmful intra‐team pay disparities and on‐field success as a form of payment‐in‐kind may explain our findings.
-
ItemNo Preview AvailableXBRL and the qualitative characteristics of useful financial information(Emerald, 2017-05-02)Purpose: eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) is an internet-based interactive form of reporting language that is expected to enhance the usefulness of financial reporting (Yuan and Wang, 2009). In the UK and the USA, XBRL is mandatory, and in Australia, it is voluntarily adopted. It has been reported that in the not too distant future, XBRL will be the standard format for the preparation and exchange of business reports (Gettler, 2015). Using an experimental approach, this study assesses the usefulness of financial reports with XBRL tagged information compared to PDF format information for non-professional investors. The authors investigate participants’ perceptions of usefulness in relation to the qualitative characteristics of relevance, understandability and comparability. Design/methodology/approach: This paper uses an experimental approach featuring a profit-forecasting task to determine if participants perceive XBRL-tagged information to be more useful compared to PDF-formatted information. Findings: Results reveal that financial information presented with XBRL tagging is significantly more relevant, understandable and comparable to non-professional investors. Originality/value: The authors address a gap in the literature by examining XBRL usefulness in Australia where XBRL adoption will be mandated within the not too distant future. Currently, the voluntary adoption of XBRL by preparers and users is low, possibly, because of a lack of awareness about XBRL and its potential benefits. This study yields significant implications for the accounting regulators in creating more awareness on the benefits of using XBRL and to create an impetus for XBRL adoption.
-
ItemThe Effect of Organizational Climate on Sell-side Analyst Turnover and Performance(Wiley, 2023)This paper investigates whether and how organizational climate (OC) in brokerage firms affects analyst turnover and performance. We find that firms with a lower-rated OC have a higher likelihood of analyst turnover. Also, when analysts leave and switch brokerage firms, they are more likely to move to a firm with a higher-rated OC and will deliver more accurate forecasts after switching firms. However, the performance improvements in better-rated OC firms are significant only for the initial years of the analysts’ employment in the new firms. We also show that OC-related analyst turnover negatively affects the performance of incumbent analysts, especially for those non-All-Star incumbent analysts, while these adverse performance effects are also transitory and last for two years only. Thus, our findings indicate that OC only has a short-lived effect on the behaviour of both leaving and remaining analysts, which challenges the long-held assumption that investments in a positive OC will always be associated with lower employee turnover and higher individual performance. We explain our results as arising from the high levels of labour mobility within the brokerage industry and the transparency of analyst forecasts as a public performance measure.
-
ItemDoes stock market liberalization improve stock price efficiency? Evidence from China(Wiley, 2022-07)In this study, we examine whether liberalization of the stock market improves stock price efficiency using China's market liberalization pilot program as a shock. We find that investible firms exhibit a significant increase in price efficiency, as proxied by stock price non-synchronicity, after stock market liberalization. The results are robust to a series of tests and remain unchanged after we address the issue of endogeneity. We identify two channels through which price efficiency can be improved: better disclosure by firms and the incorporation of more information into stock prices through the trading activities of foreign investors. We also find that investment becomes more sensitive to prices, further indicating that stock prices have become more efficient. Finally, we find that stock price informativeness also increases.
-
ItemNo Preview Available
-
ItemNo Preview AvailableCan knowledge based systems be designed to counteract deskilling effects?(Elsevier BV, 2023-09-01)
-
ItemNo Preview AvailableActivist directors: determinants and consequences(SPRINGER, 2023-01-01)
-
ItemNo Preview AvailableThe ChatGPT Artificial Intelligence Chatbot: How Well Does It Answer Accounting Assessment Questions?(American Accounting Association, 2023-11-01)ABSTRACT ChatGPT, a language-learning model chatbot, has garnered considerable attention for its ability to respond to users’ questions. Using data from 14 countries and 186 institutions, we compare ChatGPT and student performance for 28,085 questions from accounting assessments and textbook test banks. As of January 2023, ChatGPT provides correct answers for 56.5 percent of questions and partially correct answers for an additional 9.4 percent of questions. When considering point values for questions, students significantly outperform ChatGPT with a 76.7 percent average on assessments compared to 47.5 percent for ChatGPT if no partial credit is awarded and 56.5 percent if partial credit is awarded. Still, ChatGPT performs better than the student average for 15.8 percent of assessments when we include partial credit. We provide evidence of how ChatGPT performs on different question types, accounting topics, class levels, open/closed assessments, and test bank questions. We also discuss implications for accounting education and research.
-
ItemEconomic effects of litigation risk on corporate disclosure and innovation(SPRINGER, 2023-01-01)Abstract Empirical studies on the relationship between shareholder litigation and corporate disclosure obtain mixed results. We develop an economic model to capture the endogeneity between disclosure and litigation. Equilibrium disclosure is determined by two countervailing effects of litigation, a deterrence effect and an insurance effect. We derive four key results. (i) Decreasing litigation risk leads to less disclosure of very bad news, due to a weakening of the deterrence effect, but to more disclosure of weakly bad news, due to a weakening of the insurance effect. (ii) Given a sufficiently large information asymmetry, litigation risk dampens (boosts) overall disclosure of bad news for low (high) litigation risk firms. (iii) Capital markets respond more to the disclosure of bad news than of good news if the deterrence effect is strong, which arises if both insiders’ penalties and litigation risk are high. (iv) In an extension, we highlight real effects of litigation on corporate innovation and establish that innovation first decreases and then increases (strictly decreases) with litigation risk if insiders’ penalties are small (large). We reconcile our findings with results from a large set of U.S.-based empirical studies and make several novel predictions.