دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی تجربه و تخصص کمیته حسابرسی و افشاکاری های آینده: مطالعه شرکت های آمریکایی - امرالد 2018

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to examine how the accounting expertise of audit committee members is associated with the disclosure of forward-looking information. Design/methodology/approach – Manual content analysis is used to analyze forward-looking information disclosed in annual reports as well as gather data about the accounting expertise of directors. Regression analysis is performed to study the association between the disclosure variables and the accounting expertise of audit committee members. Findings – The results show that the accounting expertise of audit committee members is associated with forward-looking disclosure practices, particularly with information of a financial and strategic nature. Practical implications – The evidence has direct implications for companies in the selection of directors, as stakeholders may demand nomination committees to appoint audit committees with the accounting experts. They may also request regulatory actions regarding the structure of the audit committee, as these add to the evidence on the benefits of selecting such experts. Social implications – The evidence on the role of accounting expertise could also help the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to narrow the definition of financial expertise to specifically consider accounting expertise, as is already happening in the EU context. Originality/value – This paper extends prior research on corporate governance and voluntary disclosure by showing the association between the company having at least one accounting expert in the audit committee and the level of disclosure of value-relevant information.

6. Concluding remarks

This paper provides a new empirical evidence about the effect of accounting expertise on the disclosure of value-relevant information using a disclosure index of forward-looking information. Our study extends the literature on corporate governance and disclosure by analyzing the potential association between forward-looking information disclosure and specific directors’ characteristics, such as accounting expertise.

The results suggest that accounting experts influence managers in improving the disclosure of forward-looking information. The use of two years of data, 2007 and 2016, confirms that these results hold for an extended period of analysis. These findings have direct implications for the selection of board and audit committee members as the disclosure of forward-looking information is a mechanism to reduce information asymmetries in capital markets. From a resource-dependence view, accounting experts bring specific and valuable resources to a firm and contribute to disclosure strategies. Accounting experts have an important role in overseeing the accounting and reporting process and they are more likely to be aware of the financial reporting quality and the disclosure quality. In particular, the presence of accounting experts in the audit committee is associated with the disclosure of forward-looking information of a strategic and financial nature, which is oriented to investors and expected to lead to an improvement in financial analysts’ estimates. The insights obtained contribute to extend prior research in corporate governance and voluntary disclosure in two important ways. First, we specifically consider the association between the accounting expertise of audit committee members and the disclosure of forward-looking information, while previous studies use a broader definition of expertise (financial expertise). Second, we add to the literature the design of a specific forward-looking disclosure index which considers three categories (activity, strategy and financial) in the measurement of disclosure.