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PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine the effect of audit engagement partner's professional experience on audit quality. The authors also investigate the relationship between the audit partner's experience and audit fees in both Big 4 and non-Big 4 accounting firms.Design/methodology/approachSince the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) officially enacted Rule 3211 in 2017, US accounting firms are required to disclose detailed information of engagement partners in Form AP (PCAOB, 2015b). The authors obtained a sample of 2,283 audit partners from Form AP and hand collected their individual professional experience data through Certified Public Accountant (CPA) database, corporate disclosure and social media sites (e.g. Linkedin). Econometric models with fixed effects are used in this study to test our hypotheses. Two-stage least square (2SLS) model is used in the robustness test.FindingsThe authors find that the relationship between audit engagement partner's professional experience and audit quality is concave. It indicates that audit quality is increasing during the early stage of engagement partners' career and then decreases as the partners approaching the late-career phase. Further, the authors find that partner's professional experience is positively associated with audit fees in non-Big 4 accounting firms but not significantly associated with audit fees in Big 4 accounting firms.Practical implicationsThe finding of how auditor experience impacts audit quality can be useful for accounting firms to better plan their staffing in auditing engagements. This study’s results are also helpful for small accounting firms to optimize their pricing strategy.Originality/valueThis study provides new empirical evidence about the relation between auditor professional experience and audit quality. Furthermore, the authors extend the literature of audit fee determinants by testing the joint effects of audit firm-level factors and auditor individual-level professional experience on audit fees.

This study examines the impact of mandatory audit partner's rotation on corporate tax avoidance. Using audit partners’ information disclosed in Form AP, we find that companies generally increase their effective tax rates (ETRs) after audit partner's mandatory rotation, and the increase is specifically driven by companies hiring non‐Big four auditors. This implies that incoming auditors, especially those from non‐Big four accounting firms, are more conservative in tax issues. Further analysis suggests that companies engaging in less tax avoidance before and simultaneously purchasing tax services from their auditors have less increase in ETRs after an audit partner's rotation. The findings of this study assist both audit practitioners and tax regulators to better understand the impact of audit partner rotation on firm's tax behaviors.

We investigate: (1) whether managers in bankrupt firms manipulate earnings through real earnings management (REM); (2) the incentives and tradeoff strategies to engage in REM; (3) how REM influences the subsequent firm performance and bankruptcy probability. We find that bankrupt firms are more likely to manipulate earnings via REM than continuous firms. There is an increasing trend of REM activities in the 5‐year window before bankruptcy. The major incentive for bankrupt firms to engage in REM is the issuance of new debt. Bankrupt firms treat REM and accrual‐based earnings management (AEM) as complementary tools for earnings management. We further find that REM is associated with low future firm performance. The REM score defined in this study can more accurately predict bankruptcy than the Altman Z score by 15%. Overall, the findings in this paper will help investors, regulators, and academics identify REM activities and understand the incentives and consequences of REM.

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PurposeAfter the massive data breach incident in 2017, Equifax voluntarily disclosed non-GAAP earnings that beat earnings targets by eliminating breach-related charges and used non-GAAP metrics to determine its executives' compensations. However, it is unclear whether its non-GAAP earnings exclusions and the use of non-GAAP earnings in compensation plans are justified. The purpose of this study is to examine non-GAAP earnings quality in firms with data breach incidents.Design/methodology/approachThe authors identified data breach firms from incidents reported in Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (privacyrights.org) during the period 2004–2017. The authors separate the victim firms into six groups based on financial status and non-GAAP earnings disclosure. Quarterly manager non-GAAP earnings per share data is retrieved from the database created by Bentley et al. (2018). Ordinary linear regression models are used in this study to test the authors’ hypothesis.FindingsThe authors find that, in general, the informativeness of non-GAAP earnings is higher than that of GAAP earnings in data breach firms. However, non-GAAP earnings quality vary in data breach firms with different financial health status. The quality of non-GAAP earnings in loss firms with data breach is higher than those in profit firms. Loss converters (i.e. data breach firms with negative GAAP earnings but positive non-GAAP earnings) disclose low quality non-GAAP earnings, which is different from the findings in prior studies.Practical implicationsThe findings are particularly useful to analysts who want to make accurate earnings forecasts of data breach firms by incorporating managers' non-GAAP earnings disclosures.Originality/valueThe authors are among the first to comprehensively analyze the quality of non-GAAP earnings in firms with data breaches. The findings in this study address the analysts' concern that data breach firms use non-GAAP earnings metrics to determine executives' compensation after the massive data breach incidents. Next, the authors provide evidence that the financial status of data breach firms affects the quality of non-GAAP earnings.

We examine the relationship between corporate teamwork culture and firms’ voluntary disclosure, specifically management earnings forecast quality. A new measure of corporate teamwork culture is used, which was calculated using a machine learning approach to analyze earnings call transcripts through a novel word embedding model. We find that firms with stronger corporate teamwork culture are more likely to issue earnings forecasts and file 8‐K forms. Further analysis reveals that the corporate teamwork culture score is positively associated with the quality of management earnings forecast. It implies that firms with a stronger teamwork culture issue more accurate earnings forecasts as human harmony cooperation and strong employee responsibility help reduce errors in earnings forecasts. Our new empirical results contribute to the voluntary disclosure and corporate culture literature.

We investigate the influence of chief compliance office (CCO) prominence in the corporate management team on FCPA violation and audit fees. Based on the compliance function leader's position seniority, we find that a CCO's position rank is positively associated with the propensity of FCPA violation. It indicates that promoting CCO in the firm can facilitate more aggressive compliance policies—it is a “compromise” instead of a “control.” We also find that CCO prominence is positively associated with audit fees even without an FCPA violation happening, which implies that auditors could fully perceive the potential risks embedded in the compliance chief's promotion. The results of this study can be of interest to audit practitioners as well as regulators to better monitor the firms with higher FCPA violation risks.