Internal audit function, board quality and financial reporting quality: evidence from Malaysia

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to test the impact of the internal audit function (IAF), an increasingly common internal governance mechanism, on a firm's financial reporting quality. Specifically, this paper investigates the association between the quality of the IAF and abnormal accruals (as a proxy for financial reporting quality) and whether the board of directors play a role in moderating the relationship. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses a unique dataset of survey responses and archival data. Regression analysis was used to test their hypotheses. Findings Although their initial findings show an unexpected positive relationship between internal audit quality and abnormal accruals, this relationship is contingent on whether firms outsource their internal audit activities and/or whether they are politically linked. In estimations excluding outsourcing and political connections observations, this paper shows that the association between internal audit quality and abnormal accruals is negative and in particular internal audit organisational independence, financial focus audit activities and investment are associated with lower income-increasing (opportunistic) abnormal accruals. Next, when this paper interact board quality with internal audit quality, this paper finds although the lower ordered variables board quality and internal audit quality coefficients are negatively related to abnormal accruals, the interaction variable between these two variables is positively associated with abnormal accruals, indicating the possibility of a substitution relationship between board quality and internal audit quality. Research limitations/implications Their findings show that certain internal audit attributes play an important role in the financial reporting process and thus these findings are expected to inform the Institute of Internal Auditors and other regulatory bodies on the role of internal audit (being an important internal governance mechanism) in financial reporting, which in turn can assist in market/regulatory reforms/changes and inform the revised Malaysian Code of Corporate Governance. Originality/value This paper extends prior internal auditing literature by examining the relationship between internal audit quality and financial reporting quality in the context of a developing country, namely Malaysia, and whether the board of directors moderate the examined association

The business case for gender and culture diversity on corporate boards

Our findings show that Culture (rather than Gender) Diversity matters and in particular it lowers abnormal accruals indicating enhanced financial reporting quality.\ud \ud The results can be interpreted that culturally diverse boards improves decision making and monitoring. One potential reason for this result is that these boards are more creative and have a broader range of inputs from different perspectives. Minorities on these boards are also concern over their reputation and thus takes on their role seriously

Institutional investors in Australia: do they play a homogenous monitoring role?

This paper examines whether the presence of institutional investors in Australian publicly listed firms has an impact on firm performance. Our findings provide evidence that institutional investors are not a homogenous group of investors and that it is important to distinguish them by investment objective and their monitoring ability to exert influence. Results show that while institutional investors taken as a homogenous group appear to play an important governance role in terms of future firm performance, our analyses of the three broad typologies of institutional investors and by their respective sub-categories reveal differing conclusions. While pressure-resistant institutional investors (i.e., independent and having only investment relationship) significantly improve the short-term performance of Australian listed firms, they do not show any long-term monitoring ability. The impact of pressure-sensitive institutional investors is less clear, which is consistent with the view that these investors have some existing and potential business ties with the investee firms. More interestingly, we find that "faceless" investors via nominee and trustee institutions play an important monitoring role in creating a long-term firm value. Results have policy implications on the monitoring abilities of institutional investors in Australia

Audit quality : earnings management in the context of the Asian crisis

This study assumes that evidence regarding audit quality can be derived from the level of earnings management reflected in reported abnormal or discretionary accruals. Given this assumption, audit quality is examined in the context of the 1997 Asian financial crisis using data from Malaysia. Examining audit quality in its association with earnings management across differential macroeconomic periods provides insights that may be otherwise masked. The period of the crisis is partitioned between pre-crisis (1994-1996), crisis (1997-1998) and post-crisis (1999). Using a robust approach to the measurement of abnormal accruals, the association of Big 5/non-Big 5 and Industry Specialist/Industry non-specialist auditors with both the levels of, and change in levels of, abnormal accruals is investigated across and within the crisis sub-periods from 1994-1999. Audit quality is found to be associated with abnormal accruals, and differentially so across macroeconomic period with greater constraint evident post-crisis. <br /

Audit quality, earnings management and institutional incentives

Abstract not available

Audit quality, earnings management and institutional incentives

Abstract not available

Goal-efficacy framework : an examination of domestic and international accounting students\u27 academic performance

This study considers the psychological influences on academic performance using a goal-efficacy framework. Data were gathered using a survey questionnaire (N = 375). The paper is motivated by a repeated high failure rate for a second-year core accounting unit and anecdotal evidence that international students perform poorly in comparison with domestic students. The results demonstrate the role of self-regulated learning strategy as a mediating variable for goal orientation and academic performance. While the analyses suggest no significant differences between domestic and international students with respect to the main psychological variables and academic performance, further analyses reveal that four specific factors of the main psychological variables are significantly different between domestic and international students. &copy; 2013 AFAANZ

Stock Performance Comparison between Green Innovation Sharia Companies and Green Innovation Non-Sharia Companies: Evidence from Indonesia Stock Exchange

This Research is about comparison between sharia companies and non-sharia companies in the stock market. Several previous studies have shown that in the stock market, the stock performance of sharia companies is better to that of non-sharia companies. Then this research increases the qualification of the companies to become companies that have implemented green innovation technology. This qualification is applied to companies listed in the Sri-Kehati index on the Indonesia Stock Exchange. Through bivariate and multivariate analysis, the results showed that the stock performance of non-sharia companies was better than those of sharia companies. Bivariate analysis show that the positive gradient of non-sharia trendline (168.37) is bigger than sharia trendline (11.633). The coefficient of determination between non-sharia stocks and Sri-Kehati index (86.41%) is bigger than between sharia stocks and Sri-Kehati index (26.46%). Multivariate analysis obtained a multiple linear regression equation of 1 2 yˆ =117.187 + 0.0081x1 + 0.014397 x2. This equation shows that the variable coefficient of the value of sharia stocks is smaller than the coefficient of the variable value of non-sharia stocks. These facts are based on research on Sri-Kehati index data from 2016 to 2019. The results of this study indicate that investors prefer to invest in shares in non-sharia companies than in sharia companies. The results also indicate that increasing the qualifications of a sharia company to become a company that applies green innovation technology will not necessarily increase its share value. Is upgrading the qualification of a sharia company to a sharia company that applies green innovation technology a mistake? Meanwhile, Indonesia is a country with the largest Muslim population in the world