Purpose This paper aims to examine the relation between voluntary disclosure (VD) in audit committee reports and banks’ earnings management. It investigates whether such disclosure reflects an attempt by audit committees to engage in impression management. Design/methodology/approach The study considers top US bank holding companies from 2006 to 2015. The authors develop a scoring grid to measure VD in audit committee reports. The scoring grid is based on recommendations from 10 industry and governance organizations’ reports that analyzed audit committee disclosures. Multivariate regression analyzes are used in this paper. Findings Descriptive statistics reveal that the level of VD in audit committee reports did not increase significantly from 2006 to 2015. Multivariate analyzes indicate that whenever banks’ level of earnings management is high, audit committees increase the extent of their VDs in their reports. The authors infer from this finding that audit committees are using VDs as a vehicle for impression management. Originality/value This paper sheds light onto the motives behind audit committees’ VDs. The evidence, which is consistent with impression management by audit committees in their report, also provides further background to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s recent initiative to enhance VDs in the audit committee report.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to evaluate the tempering effect of the presence of a female chief financial officer (CFO) on potentially dominant chief executive officer (CEO) behavior expressed through the overvaluing of acquisition premiums.Design/methodology/approachThis study used Securities Data Corporation (SDC) database data over an eight-year period to analyze the relationships between CEO dominance and the acquisition premiums paid in an acquisition deal. The study also analyzes the effect of CFO gender in curbing CEO dominance in the acquisition deals. The authors employ clustered standard errors ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analysis along with robustness testing, which supports the validity of our conclusions.FindingsThe authors expect and find that as CEO dominance rises, so does the acquisition premium; however, the presence of a female CFO in such situations significantly reduces the overpayment of the acquisition premium.Practical implicationsThe study findings advocate for organizational change in the form of an increased presence of female CFOs within business organizations.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the accounting literature by timely exploiting a rising trend in which female executives are expected to become more prolific. The authors’ research indicates that their entrenchment into business organizations, thereby promoting gender diversity, produces beneficial outcomes for those organizations. It also capitalizes on the specific attributes of the CEO–CFO relationship, which lends itself to particular effectiveness in the hands of female CFOs.

Voluntary disclosure in the audit committee report is expected to provide additional information about the activities undertaken to protect investors. The Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) ultimate aim in initially promulgating audit committee disclosure requirements was to reduce firms' cost of equity. However, prior research finds that voluntary disclosure in the audit committee report is akin to impression management. In 2015, the SEC issued a concept release encouraging audit committees to provide additional voluntary disclosures in their reports beyond mandatory requirements. In that context, this paper analyses the effect of the audit committee voluntary disclosure on the cost of equity, with financial analysts playing a mediating role. The sample comprises the top US bank holding companies from 2006 to 2015. We manually code the voluntary disclosure in audit committee reports using a scoring grid. Results show that audit committee voluntary disclosure increases the cost of equity. In addition, the association between voluntary disclosure and the cost of equity is mediated by financial analysts. Hence, we infer that the impression management undertone of voluntary disclosures affects financial analysts' coverage and forecasting properties, which in turn lead to an increase in the cost of equity. The paper's empirical evidence highlights the effects of impression management disclosure by analysing corporate governance voluntary disclosures, cost of equity and financial analysts and brings the issue to the attention of banking regulators, SEC and investors.

This study examines the association between audit committee voluntary disclosures related to external auditor oversight and audit quality of the top US bank holding companies for a period of 10 years. Using manual coding of the voluntary disclosures that target audit committee oversight of the external auditor, we find that audit committees with a higher level of voluntary disclosures delineating activities of external auditor oversight tend to have a higher audit quality. These results are consistent with the view that audit committees play a major role in overseeing the external audit process as was emphasized by the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act. In the case of negligence or wrongdoing, audit committees can be sued for breaching due care; thus, voluntary disclosure is a reliable indicator of the audit committee effectiveness and oversight of the audit process. Using voluntary disclosures in the audit committee report, this research provides useful information to shareholders to evaluate the effectiveness of audit committees in monitoring the external audit process while answering previous calls to investigate the audit committee oversight process (and corresponding effect on audit quality) and not just focusing on audit committee characteristics such as size, expertise, experience, meeting frequency, and audit fees.

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the determinants and consequences of using disclaimer language in the banks’ audit committee (AC) reports. This study aims to analyze the factors tempting AC members of banks to disclose disclaimer language in the AC reports and the effect of such language on the cost of equity. Design/methodology/approach The data cover the period from 2006 to 2015 and considers the top US bank holding companies. Voluntary disclosure in the AC report is manually coded by using a scoring grid. Multivariate regression analysis is mainly used in the study. Findings The findings suggest that the ACs are using the disclaimer language to protect themselves when disclosing a high level of voluntary information that describes their oversight activities or to reduce their liability exposure due to lower financial reporting quality. The findings also reveal that investors are requiring a higher return on their investments whenever ACs use disclaimer language in their reports. Originality/value The AC report provides useful information to shareholders who evaluate the AC’s performance and accordingly vote for or against AC members on annual basis. The paper sheds lights on the motives and consequences of disclaimer language in the ACs report. Thus, the study benefits shareholders by providing empirical evidence in regard to the usage of disclaimer language. Also, the findings benefit industry, corporate governance organizations, standard setters and regulators that analyze AC disclosures and issue recommendations or new standards for improving those disclosures.

Purpose This study aims to examine whether a company’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) transparency (reflected in two separate dimensions of social transparency and environmental transparency) affects a company’s dependence on expensive trade credit (TC) financing. Design/methodology/approach The authors use a panel of S&P 500 index companies between 2012 and 2019 and ordinary least squares estimators. Transparency ratings represented by Bloomberg scores capture both the quantity and quality of verified CSR practice information. Findings CSR transparency (CSRT) is negatively associated with a firm’s dependence on expensive TC financing. This study’s results continue to hold after a battery of robustness tests like substitute proxies for TC, use of two-stage least squares regression, industry-adjusted dependent variable, generalized linear model and bootstrapping approach. This association is stronger among companies with higher information asymmetry (IASY) and lower quality regarding governance and financial reporting. Further investigation indicates that potential channels through which CSRT mitigates a company’s reliance on TC financing are the cost of debt (CoD) and stock liquidity. This study’s findings suggest that transparent companies have a lower CoD and higher stock liquidity. This helps these companies to be more financially flexible and eventually less dependent on expensive TC financing. Originality/value By combining two separate research lines of TC and CSR, this study adds to both works of literature as it is the first (to the best of the authors’ knowledge) to present evidence of the effect of CSRT proxied by Bloomberg scores on a company’s reliance on TC (a real economic decision and financial policy). Additionally, this study documents the moderating effects of financial reporting quality, IASY and corporate governance on the relationship between CSRT and TC financing. In conclusion, this study provides empirical evidence regarding the potential mechanisms of CoD and stock liquidity, through which CSRT influences a company’s reliance on TC financing.