MD&A Disclosure Tone and Audit Pricing

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zenghui Liu
2013 ◽  
pp. 35-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giovanna Michelon

The aim of this paper is to study if and how impression management varies during different phases of the legitimation process, in particular during the legitimacy building and legitimacy repairing phases (Suchman, 1995). We aim at understanding whether and how the disclosure tone adopted by a company in the two different moments is diverse and thus functional to the intrinsic objective of the each phase. The empirical analysis focuses on the case of British Petroleum Plc. We investigated the impression management practices undertaken by the company both during the preparation of the rebranding operation, i.e. a situation in which the company is trying to build legitimacy; and during the happenings of two legitimacy crises, like the explosion of the refinery in Texas City and the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The evidence appears in line with the theoretical prediction of legitimacy theory. Results show that while the company tends to privilege image enhancement techniques during the legitimacy-building phase, it uses more obfuscation techniques when managing a legitimacy-repairing process. Moreover, the analysis suggests that the company makes more extensive use of impression management techniques in the disclosures addressed to shareholders, investors and other market operators than in the disclosures addressed to the wide range of other stakeholders.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John L. Campbell ◽  
Hye Seung Lee ◽  
Hsin-min Lu ◽  
Logan B. Steele
Keyword(s):  

2016 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 325-339 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachana Kalelkar ◽  
Sarfraz Khan

SYNOPSIS Accounting scholars theorize that audit price is a function of a client's audit and business risk. Existing research finds that the functional expertise of Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) in finance improves financial reporting quality (Matsunaga, Wang, and Yeung 2013), increases profitability, and reduces the likelihood of firm failure (Custodio and Metzger 2014). These factors suggest that auditors' engagement risk decreases when incumbent CEOs possess financial expertise, raising the likelihood that auditors will charge these firms lower fees. In this study, we examine whether CEOs' work experience in accounting- and finance-related jobs affects audit fees. Using a panel of U.S. firms between 2004 and 2013, we find that firms that have a financial expert CEO pay lower audit fees. Our results are robust to various specifications, including firm-fixed effect model and specifications that control for other CEO- and Chief Financial Officer (CFO)-specific and audit committee characteristics. Our findings thus add to the literature on the advantages and disadvantages of a functional background of top managers and how this background can create value for a firm through savings in audit fees.


1999 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allen T. Craswell ◽  
Jere R. Francis

Two competing theories of initial engagement audit pricing are examined empirically. DeAngelo's (1981a) model predicts initial engagement discounts in all settings, while Dye's (1991) model specifically predicts discounting will not occur in settings where audit fees are publicly disclosed. Unlike the United States and most countries, audit fees are publicly disclosed in Australia. Our study examines initial engagement pricing in Australia during a time period when comparable U.S. studies report discounts of 25 percent (Ettredge and Greenberg 1990; Simon and Francis 1988). The Australian evidence finds initial engagement discounting only for upgrades from non-Big 8 to Big 8 auditors. Discounting for upgrades to Big 8 auditors is consistent with economic theories of discount pricing by sellers of higher-priced, higher-quality experience goods as an inducement to purchase when uncertainty about product quality is resolved through buying (experiencing) the goods. The evidence in our study is generally consistent with Dye's (1991) conclusion that public disclosure of audit fees precludes initial engagement discounting and the potential independence problems arising from such discounting.


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