دانلود رایگان مقاله مدیریت افشای مالی در بخش غیرانتفاعی

Abstract

This paper provides a review and synthesis of past research regarding financial disclosure management by nongovernmental nonprofit organizations and suggests directions for future study. The primary purpose of this review is to summarize the evidence on financial disclosure management to help regulators and other stakeholders understand why, how, and to what extent nonprofits engage in this behavior. The paper begins by defining disclosure management in nonprofit organizations and exploring the motiva- tions for why it might occur. Next is a survey of the nongovern- mental nonprofit financial reporting environment: objectives, common practices, and the informational needs of users of nonprofit financial reports. Research exploring the motives, methods, and consequences of disclosure management is summarized. The evidence suggests that nongovernmental nonprofit managers have a variety of incentives to manage reported numbers and that they do in fact alter spending decisions, choose accounting methods, and design cost allocations to achieve certain performance benchmarks. Furthermore, this review sheds light on the consequences of disclosure management and what can or should be done to limit it.  ۲۰۱۳ University of Florida, Fisher School of Accounting. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

7. Summary and suggestions for future research

When all is said and done, what is really known about disclosure management in the nonprofit sector? There are tentative answers to at least a few basic questions. Why would nonprofits engage in earnings management? At the most fundamental level, nonprofit managers may attempt to mislead their board of trustees regarding how well they have fulfilled their stewardship function in order to protect their position or reputation or to increase their compensation. Managers may attempt to mislead donors, rating agencies, grantors, and the general public about how efficiently and effectively they are accomplishing their organization’s philanthropic mission, or about how worthy the organization is, in order to garner more donations or grants. Nonprofit managers may attempt to mislead the IRS regarding their organization’s qualification for tax-exempt status or liability for unrelated business income tax and to mislead state regulatory agencies to justify the right of the organization operate as a nonprofit and to solicit funds in the state. How do nonprofits manage their financial disclosures? The existing literature identifies some management of real transactions—curtailing spending on administrative expenses, for example—and strategic accounting choices related to asset valuation, but for charities the primary means of accomplishing financial disclosure management seems to be the misclassification of costs and the over- or under-allocation of joint costs to programs or fundraising. Nonprofits are most likely to overreport amounts spent on programs or under-report amounts spent on fundraising in order to increase the program ratio (program expenses as a percentage of total expenses) or decrease the fundraising ratio (fundraising expenses as a percentage of donations received). In nonprofit hospitals, there is evidence of the management of discretionary accruals, disclosure management in the reporting of charity care, and managerial choices related to non-operating expenditures and asset dispositions.