16 research outputs found
Self or other: Directorsâ attitudes towards policy initiatives for external board evaluation
Recurrent crises in corporate governance have board practice and created policy pressure to assess the effectiveness of boards. Since the 1990s boards have faced calls to undertake regular, formal evaluation. Since 2010, the UK Corporate Governance Code has urged large corporations to engage outside parties to conduct them at least every three years, a move that other jurisdictions have copied. Despite this policy importance, little research has been conducted into processes or outcomes of board evaluation. This study explores the attitudes of directors on evaluation, whether self-administered or facilitated by others. We find acceptance of the principle but reservations about the value and even honesty in questionnaire-based approaches. We find scepticism about, but also acknowledgement of, the benefits of using outside facilitators, especially for their objectivity and because their interviewing elicits insights into board dynamics. As this practice expands beyond listed companies to non-listed ones, charities, and even governance branches of government, our findings point to a need to professionalise outside facilitation
How Does Performance Management Affect Workers? Beyond Human Resource Management and Its Critique
© 2018 British Academy of Management and John Wiley & Sons Ltd While performance management (PM) is pervasive across contemporary workplaces, extant research into how performance management affects workers is often indirect or scattered across disciplinary silos. This paper reviews and synthesizes this research, identifies key gaps and explores ârecognition theoryâ as a nascent framework that can further develop this important body of knowledge. The paper develops in three main stages. The first stage reviews âmainstreamâ human resource management (HRM) research. While this research analyses workersâ reactions to performance management in some depth, its focus on serving organizational goals marginalizes extra-organizational impacts. The second stage reviews more critical HRM research, which interprets performance management as a disciplinary, coercive or inequitable management device. While this literature adds an important focus on organizational power, there is scope to analyse further how PM affects workersâ well-being. To develop this strand of PM research, the third stage turns to the emerging field of recognition theory independently developed by Axel Honneth and Christophe Dejours. The authors focus especially on recognition theory's exploration of how (in)adequate acknowledgement of workersâ contributions can significantly affect their well-being at the level of self-conception. Although recognition theory is inherently critical, the paper argues that it can advance both mainstream and critical performance management research, and also inform broader inquiry into recognition and identity at work
Does Board Independence Substitute for External Audit Quality? Evidence from an Exogenous Regulatory Shock
Strategic Responses to Changing Climate Change Policies: The Role Played by Carbon Accounting
Effects of Earnings Forecasts and Heightened Professional Skepticism on the Outcomes of Client-Auditor Negotiation
Ethics has been identified as an important factor that potentially affects auditors\u27 professional skepticism. For example, prior research finds that auditors who are more concerned with professional ethics exhibit greater professional skepticism. Further, the literature suggests that professional skepticism may lead the auditor to more vigilantly resist the client\u27s position in financial reporting disputes. These reporting disputes are generally resolved through negotiations between the auditor and client to arrive at the final reported amounts. To date, the role that professional skepticism potentially plays in the negotiation process has been relatively unexplored. The literature prior to the enactment of Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) suggests that auditors are more likely to approve a client position when the matter in dispute is relatively ambiguous and when changing the client\u27s position will result in the client failing to meet analysts\u27 expectations. However, changes resulting from SOX have led auditors to be more vigilant and therefore results found in the pre-SOX environment may not hold in the current environment where auditors are held more accountable for their actions. Results from an experiment with experienced audit managers and partners suggest that in the post-SOX climate, auditors\u27 negotiations do not appear to be substantively influenced by management being able to meet or beat forecasts. Moreover, we find that when auditors exhibit heightened professional skepticism, they are more ethical by being conservative and they stand more resolute than when auditors do not exhibit heightened professional skepticism. Finally, although we do not find a main effect for the influence of earnings forecast, we do find a significant interaction between earnings forecast and heightened professional skepticism. Implications for practice and research are then presented. © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media B.V
Allies in the Break Room: The Effect of Accounting Alumni on Auditor Choice and the Hiring Agenda
The Strength of an Accounting Firmâs Ethical Environment and the Quality of Auditorsâ Judgments
auditor experience, audit judgment, code of conduct, ethical environment, quality controls,