Accountability and legitimacy of non‐profit organisations: Challenging the current status quo and identifying avenues for future research

Issues of accountability, legitimacy and trust have remained at the forefront of debate surrounding non‐profit organisations and their activities. The purpose of this study is to review the literature on non‐profit accountability from the lens of organisational legitimacy. Specifically, we ask what we can learn from the literature on non‐profit organisation (NPO) accountability and consider what further work needs to be done to strengthen NPO legitimacy. We attempt to go beyond mere gap‐spotting and seek to challenge the current status quo within this body of literature

Did Corporate Governance Compliance Have an Impact on Auditor Selection and Quality? Evidence From FTSE 350

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.This paper examines the possible effects of corporate governance (GC) on audit quality (AQ) among the FTSE 350 companies. Using a sample of 180 companies from 2012 to 2017 (i.e., 1080 firm-year observations) a binary logistic model has been employed to investigate the CG-AQ nexus. This analysis was supported by conducting a probit logistic model as a sensitivity analysis. Our findings are associative of a heterogeneous impact of CG on AQ post the implementation of the 2012 CG reforms in the UK. For example, although institutional ownership and management ownership are positively associated with auditor selection and AQ, board independence, non-executive directors and audit committee are not attributed to AQ in the UK. This implies that corporate compliance with good CG practices has a limited impact on the decision to select a Big4 auditor in the UK. Despite the limitations of our study, we hope it can motivate further investigations in this area

When does audit committee busyness influence earnings management in the UK? Evidence on the role of the financial crisis and company size

We investigate the impact of audit committee busyness on earnings management in FTSE350 companies between 2007 and 2013, a period that includes the global financial crisis and its immediate aftermath. Using a range of busyness measures and examining the impact on both accruals and real earnings management, we find that the busyness of audit committee members has a negative impact on earnings quality, which suggests that members with more board seats are less effective monitors of managers’ desire to manipulate earnings. Our findings are more pronounced in FTSE250 than in FTSE100 firms. We also find that the detrimental impact of busy audit committees is more pronounced during the financial crisis and, in the case of real earnings management, is not observed afterwards. Our findings raise important questions for corporate governance regulators, who have not previously sought to address audit committee busyness and its potential impact on audit committee effectiveness. Our results also emphasize the need for researchers to appreciate the wider economic circumstances in which studies are undertaken, the lack of homogeneity between larger and smaller listed firms, and the importance of jurisdiction in governance-related studies