Propensity to use global solutions of creative and aggressive accounting - in the light of accountants’ opinions

Research background: The processes of globalization contributed to the unification of accounting principles through their standardization and harmonization. However, there is rapid and frequent permeation of innovative and complex transactions and as a result, the area and scale of implementation of creative and aggressive accounting practices are increasing. There is also a new issue of forensic audit, whose task is to prevent economic crime by mainly detecting financial crime and fraud. A research field that requires deepening is the analysis of the perception, understanding, and propensity of accountants to adopt creative and aggressive accounting solutions and their attitude toward forensic audit. Purpose of the article: The main purpose is to analyze the degree of knowledge and adoption of internationally known creative and aggressive accounting solutions and to investigate the propensity of people involved in accounting to commit fraud. Methods: The article employed survey methods and techniques (within an accounting students’ group and among accounting professionals) as well as literature analysis, synthesis, and inference. Findings & Value added: The results indicate that the degree of knowledge of creative accounting is the highest among the issues considered. The most important factors influencing the propensity to commit fraud are pressures caused by third parties (in particular superiors), financial benefits, and the fear of losing a job. Knowledge of the issues of forensic audit is low. It is necessary to conduct promotional activities to increase awareness of the issues studied and to shape appropriate ethical attitudes among accounting professionals.

Measuring fraud and earnings management by a case of study: Evidence from an international family business

The aim of this study is to estimate the probability of fraud and earnings management for a specific Spanish family business, Pescanova. In the context of financial statements, the Beneish model is used to detect fraudulent behavior. Our findings reveal that Pescanova presented propensity to commit fraud and carried out aggressive accounting practices before the disclosure of its financial problems. The manipulation index and the probability of manipulation are used as indicators of fraud and earnings management. Results also show that Pescanova made aggressive accounting practices, through the manipulation of Day's sales in receivables indexand Total accruals to total assets. Next, we provided evidence that the Sales Growth index and Leverage index are aligned with the position of technical default shown by the pre-bankruptcy board of Pescanova. Our main contribution is demonstrating the validity of the model for the case of Pescanova. Therefore, the application of the Beneish model might have detected fraudulent behavior, in the years prior to Pescanova's collapse.

The Effects of Auditor Affinity for Client and Perceived Client Pressure on Auditor Proposed Adjustments

ABSTRACT This paper examines how auditors' judgments about accounting policies may differ when experiencing different levels of affinity for client management and facing different levels of pressure from client management. The theory of motivated reasoning is employed to analyze the effects of these two factors that should lead individual auditors to adopt as a directional goal the acceptance of client management's aggressive accounting. Accordingly, we predict and find that auditors experiencing greater client affinity and facing explicit client pressure suggest lower adjustments to clients' aggressive accounting, consistent with motivated reasoning's goal-related predictions. But our study goes further and investigates also how auditors react when motivated reasoning theory's “reasonableness constraint” is potentially violated by auditors who perceive excessive client pressure. We predict and find, consistent with the individual auditor's “reasonable constraint” being triggered in at least some auditors, that perception of client pressure intensity leads those auditors to propose larger adjustments to client accounting. To support our findings, we re-analyze the data from a prior motivated reasoning audit experiment, replicate that study's reported directional goal results employing methods used in this study and, in addition, find similar results to those found in this study for increased client pressure intensity on auditor judgment.

Does Revenue-Expense Matching Relate To Going-Concern Audit Opinion Conditional On Firm’s Financial Distress?

This paper investigates how firms manage the revenue-expense relationship in the presence of a going-concern audit opinion (GCO). Using Korean data, we find that firms with GCOs both delay and accelerate recognition of current expenses for current revenues. We also find that firms in severe financial distress that receive GCOs exhibit conservative accounting, whereas GCO firms in relatively less financial trouble adopt aggressive accounting. Overall, our results imply that firms’ matching extent and behavior provide useful information regarding financial reporting and can explain the earnings management behavior of firms with GCOs.

Are Juries More Likely to Second-Guess Auditors under Imprecise Accounting Standards?

SUMMARY U.S. auditors are concerned that less precise accounting standards will cause more second-guessing of their judgments and thus greater legal liability. We report the results of an experiment that tests the validity of this concern. We manipulate the aggressiveness of the client's reporting decision and the precision of the accounting guidance related to the reporting decision. When the client's reporting is conservative, we observe more second-guessing of auditor judgments under the imprecise standard than the precise standard. However, when the auditor allows aggressive client reporting, we observe less tendency toward second-guessing under the imprecise standard. Indeed, rather than being overly harsh, juries appear to be overly lenient when auditors allow aggressive accounting under an imprecise standard. Our results suggest a need for tools to help jurors evaluate auditor judgments under imprecise standards.

Organizational Form and Accounting Choice: Are Nonprofit or For-Profit Managers More Aggressive?

ABSTRACT Although recent academic studies on nonprofits have documented aggressive accounting behavior, these studies have primarily examined the sector in isolation and have not reached definitive conclusions regarding the relative aggressiveness of the nonprofit and for-profit sectors. Using actuarial assumptions for defined benefit (DB) pension plans as a proxy for discretionary accounting choices, we examine whether nonprofit managers respond through their actuarial choices to incentives to manage DB pension assumptions, and whether differences exist in the aggressiveness of these assumptions for nonprofits and for-profits. We find evidence consistent with nonprofits managing pension assumptions when incentives and less monitoring exist. Comparing our nonprofits to a sample of for-profits, we find evidence consistent with nonprofits utilizing more aggressive pension assumptions and making stronger responses to incentives to manage these assumptions. Our findings are consistent with the premise that nonprofits are more aggressive than for-profits when using actuarial estimates that deflate pension obligations and inflate performance.