The impact of Covid-19 has had a far reaching effect on higher education institutions. However, few studies report on the relative perceptions of students about face-to-face (F2F) and blended learning (BL) in periods when Covid-19 is/not a consideration. Using a sample of 103/79 undergraduate students, a mixed-method approach is utilized to report qualitative and quantitative evidence regarding student perceptions. The results demonstrate BL is perceived more positively during the Covid-19 pandemic. However, F2F is preferred to BL when Covid is not an issue. F2F learning is perceived more positively to BL because students feel that there are limitations to BL in terms of; interactions with the lecturer; group work; peer engagement; class involvement; and the ability to ask questions about technical information. Moreover, qualitative evidence shows that students perceive F2F to be superior to BL because social elements expected in a F2F environment may not be embedded into netiquette frameworks. From a policymaking standpoint, we encourage embedding social elements into BL to enhance student experience so that student's negative attitudes regarding the transition from F2F delivery to online/BL can be minimized. From a practical standpoint, we provide insights about strategies to embed socials elements into netiquette frameworks.
In this paper, we take advantage of Korea's unique experiment with mandatory audit firm rotation (MAFR) and mandatory audit partner rotation (MAPR) to ascertain their influence on audit quality, proxied by conditional conservatism. Overall, we find that the implementation of MAFR did not have the desired effect. Firms that adopted MAFR demonstrate higher levels of conservatism in previous periods under MAPR (or compared to voluntary adopters). Furthermore, we find that audit tenure increases conservatism levels consistent with the auditor expertise hypothesis. However, whilst evidence suggests MAFR decreases audit quality on the whole, we find that firms that switch from non-Big 4 to Big 4 auditors demonstrate higher conservatism because Big 4 auditors are more likely to demand conservative accounting practices, consistent with Big 4 audit firm knowledge superiority. Overall, the results suggest that MAFR's negative effect on audit quality can be mitigated by Big 4 auditor supervision.
We examine whether firms with higher relative efficiency (operational performance) require additional audit effort (hours) to signal audit quality to demonstrate that their financial reporting systems are robust. Therefore, we use a Korean sample of publicly listed firms because of the Korean audit hour policy which mandates that audit hour information be made available for market participants. We find that client firms with higher relative efficiency have higher audit hours, suggesting that management has an incentive to demand additional audit hours for signalling purposes, and that shareholders, amongst other stakeholders, have an incentive to demand external monitoring to reduce potential agency problems. The results show that relative efficiency is a unique measure of firm performance that can provide insights into a client firm's business and audit risk. We also find evidence suggesting that audit firms do not subject clients to a fee (fee per hour) premium based on relative efficiency, supporting our finding that client firms require audit effort for signalling purposes. Thus, our results have important implications for policymakers about audit effort demand.
This paper examines the relationship between relative efficiency and credit ratings using a sample of Korean listed firms and finds a positive relationship in the subsequent period after adjusting for absolute efficiency. The results suggest that credit rating agencies consider relative efficiency as a variable that influences a firm's ability to survive a business cycle. Interestingly, when we divide our samples into investmentgrade and non-investment-grade firms, we find a different relationship. While we continue to find consistent results for the investment-grade group, we find a negative relationship between relative efficiency and credit ratings for non-investment-grade firms. We suggest "higher" levels of efficiency by non-investment-grade firms can be considered opportunistic or a form of distress, and potentially be the result of ineffective decision making. We conjecture that credit rating agencies have the ability to impose penalties of lower credit ratings on firms that engage in such behavior.
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