Journal of Empirical Research in Accounting
Year:2019 | Volume:8 | Issue:3 (31) |Papers Count:14

The reported earnings quality is particularly important for investors. Investors are willing to estimate their investments' future benefits in order to find their future cash interests and stock value. Generally, a recession may be defined as an interruption in normal operation of financial markets. This research investigates the effects of recession in Iran on the earnings quality of firms listed in Tehran Stock Exchange. If the firm's financial information is related to the recession period, two valued variables of unemployment and economic growth are used and the impact of these variables on earnings quality is measured. In order to measure earnings quality, this study uses the absolute amount of arbitrary accruals. The sample consists of 162 firms listed in Tehran Stock Exchange during the period from 2006 to 2015. To test the hypothesis, multivariate regression analysis method and panel data model are used. Results show that recession makes a drop in earnings quality of firms listed in Tehran Stock Exchange.

Fraud is one of the most important issues arisen in accounting and auditing of financial statements. This research is aimed to detect frauds using the adjusted Beneish model and recognize financial ratios sensitive to fraud. The sample consists of 150 firms listed in Tehran Stock Exchange during the period from 2011 to 2015. This study is descriptive in data gathering and uses regression model in data analysis. Also, this study uses the adjusted Beneish model to recognize Fraudulent firms and separate them from non-Fraudulent firms. Then from financial ratios introduced in the previous researches, 25 ones are selected and after Kolmogorov– Smirnov test, 10 financial ratios with significant difference between fraudulent and non-fraudulent firms are determined. Findings, after execution of the regression model in three stages, show that sales to total assets and equity to total assets ratios are two financial ratios sensitive to frauds. The model has an accuracy rate of 69/1 percent in classifying the total sample; therefore, the model plays an effective role in detecting fraudulent financial statements.

Internal control quality of a firm can be affected by its specific features, auditing quality and corporate surveillance. Establishing an appropriate internal control system in firms will enhance accountability and financial transparency. This study is aimed to investigate the effect of managerial Ability on internal control quality. Thus, the study applies management compensation and managerial efficiency as indexes of managerial ability, and uses internal control system weaknesses in auditing report as an index of the internal control quality. This is an applied research with and causal method. The sample consists of 87 firms listed in Tehran Stock Exchange during the period from 2007 to 2016. To test the hypothesis the Logit regression method has been used considering the nature of the dependent variable. Results indicate that there is no significant relation between management compensation and internal control quality. Also, a negative relation between the managerial efficiency and the internal control system weaknesses indicates that managerial ability can improve the internal control system.

Process of students' major choosing can be affected by several factors some of which are investigated by this study. The aim of this study is to investigate the factors influencing in choosing accounting major in Iranian universities. The research method is descriptive-survey and the sample consists of 180 accounting students selected from Tehran, AllamehTabataba'i, ShahidBeheshti, Shiraz, Ferdowsi Mashhad and Tabriz Islamic Azad Universities using the random sampling. To collect data, a questionnaire is designed with 32 items. Validity of contents and structure of the questionnaire is reviewed by experts and exploratory factor analysis, respectively. Reliability of tools is confirmed through Cronbach's alpha. Data are analyzed using principal components analysis, one-sample T-test, Friedman test and triangular fuzzy numbers. One sample t-test results show that the Guidance Factor (3. 24) and Career Expectation Factor (3. 86) have more than average effect and Perception (2. 75) and Personal Characteristics (2. 86) Factors have less than average effect on choosing accounting major. Also, results from Friedman test as well as triangular fuzzy numbers show that the Career Expectation Factor and Guidance Factor are the most important criteria for choosing accounting major, respectively. Thus, personal characteristics factor and perception factor place in the later ranks, respectively.

Internal control plays an important role in achieving firm goals and making management decisions. This study is aimed to provide an applied model for identifying factors affecting internal controls of firms with enterprise resource planning system. Given the special nature of firms with these systems and their more complex transactions as well as the lack of resources in the field of internal controls that meet the firm requirements, researches in this area is necessary. This study divides the internal control process into six-phases including organizational structure, professional ethics, security, risk, reports and the Organizational strategies. The survey is conducted through experts, and 52 research components from 350 components, are fitted using smart PLS. Results show that, this model not only increases the effectiveness and efficiency of internal control of firms, but also it has the advantages of paving the way for implementation of IT audit, updating the internal control system through identification of weaknesses and making improvements, reducing risks in organizations with enterprise resource planning system and increasing the organizational surveillance.

Firms follow different business strategies. Recent researches introduce two kinds of strategies called “ prospector” and “ defender” strategies. Organizational theory suggests that prospectors probably have weaker internal controls and more audit report delay than defenders. Hence, the main goal of this research is to examine this theory in firms listed in Tehran Stock Exchange. To measure the kind of business strategy, the study employs Rezaee et al. (2013) model and to recognize Material Weaknesses of Internal Controls it uses external audit reports like Munsif et al. (2012). The sample consists of 127 firms during 2012-2015. Findings imply that “ prospector” firms have significantly weaker internal controls in audit report than defender firms. However, prospectors have fewer audits report delay than defenders. Findings of the first and second research hypotheses test confirm organizational theory and indicate that business strategy is a useful indicator for evaluating firms’ internal control strength. However, the findings of the third hypothesis test do not confirm this theory.

Organizational culture the evaluation of which by the board of directors is a very difficult job, is considered as a soft issue in organizations. Internal audit is a unique function within an organization, which with independence and access to individual's information and evidence may ensure the board of directors that there is a strong commitment to good conduct and it actually becomes a daily behavior in the organization and more importantly, actions taken to change culture and behaviors are effective and that the tone at the top is reflected at all levels. This study is aimed to investigate audit capabilities and challenges of organizational culture in Iran and the role of internal auditors in the promotion of organizational culture. This study is a survey research and the research data are collected by means of questionnaire that is designed based on the McKinsey 7s questions. The sample consists of 123 internal auditors. The results show that organizational culture is not considered in internal auditors' reviews. Among the four soft factors (shared values, organization skills, management style, staff members), only shared values and among the three hard factors (organizational strategies, Organizational systems, organizational structure), only organizational systems are examined in the audit process. The results show the necessity and value creation of internal auditing in the field of organizational culture. Therefore, in order to improve the organizational culture, internal auditors should consider not only hard controls but also soft controls in their audits.

According to the capabilities of the Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL), this paper addresses the issue of adopting this new reporting language by employees of Iranian National Tax Administration, as precondition of using it in the organization. This research, at first, examines theoretical and empirical literature and then, based on TAM technology mode, presents a theoretical model and identifies the factors influencing the adoption of this language in reporting. Then, by adopting a qualitative method and analyzing the content of 21 semi-structured interviews, the original theoretical model is amended and the factors influencing the adoption of this language in tax reporting are identified. Ultimately, by gathering and analyzing 70 Fuzzy Delphi questionnaires, this study presents the final conceptual model and evaluates the attitude of the employees of Iranian National Tax Administration around XBRL. The results of this study indicate that Iranian National Tax Administration employees embrace the eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) and, according to them, the main reason of accepting this new technology is its usefulness as a result of its positive impact on the qualitative information characteristics.

Financing and determining the proper structure of capital is one of the most important duties of firms in order to maximize the firm value by minimizing the cost of capital. Several factors, including corporate governance, affect a firm's risk which in turn affects the cost of capital. The audit committee, as one of the most important elements of corporate governance, has a significant role in improving financial reporting and risk management. This study is aimed to investigate the relation between some characteristics of the audit committees and the cost of equity capital in 97 firms listed in Tehran Stock Exchange and OTC of Iran during the period from 2012 to 2017. Results of the research hypotheses test show that there is a significant negative relation between the audit committee size and the cost of equity capital. In other words, firms with more committee members have less cost of equity capital. Findings also show that there is no significant relation between the financial expertise of the audit committee members and the cost of equity capital. In addition, there is a significant negative relation between the firm size and the cost of capital. In other words, top large firms have less cost of equity capital.

Prior studies reveal that earnings manipulation by managers is one of the main concerns of investors in Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE). Extant theoretical and empirical evidence indicate that incentives of managers in relation to earnings manipulation can be different in a listed firm compared to an unlisted firm. There are two conflicting views in this area. "Demand" view suggests that earnings quality of listed firms is superior; however, the prediction of "opportunistic behaviour "view goes against it. Since there is no sufficient evidence in this area and Codal website provides disclosures of annual reports of unlisted firms as subsidiaries of firms listed in TSE, this study examines the possible differences of earnings management of listed firms and their unlisted subsidiaries over the period from 2011 to 2015. Results indicate that there is no significant relation between firm types (unlisted vs. listed) and both earning management through absolute discretionary accruals (based on three different model) and upward earnings management. Findings show that since the annual reports of unlisted firms like listed firms in TSE have been disclosed to the public, the incentives of managers and auditors of unlisted firms are similar to those of listed firms.

Because of no comprehensive research in this area, the aim of this research is identifying all tax compliance factors for the first time, using the OECD tax compliance model (2004). Using explorative studies and regarding the Iranian environmental conditions, this study categorizes the factors into 8 components and 40 indexes; then it analyzes opinions of 61 experts about the indexes effects on tax compliance, by implementation of Fuzzy Delphi Method. The results show that all factors have impact on tax compliance in exception of the taxpayer type, taxpayer’ s revenue type, taxpayer’ s occupation, taxpayer’ s age, taxpayer’ s gender, taxpayer’ s religion, taxpayer’ s race and nationality, ethnicity backgrounds, establishing tax advisers, social norms, and civil organizations.

Fraud is one of the most important issues in financial statements accounting and auditing. The main purpose of the research is to identify the factors influencing the probability of fraud occurrence in financial statements reporting. This study considers earnings quality as a factor effective on identifying a fraud risk and measures it using three indexes of conservatism, earnings smoothing and accruals quality. The probability of fraudulent reporting is measured using the Benish (1999) model. This study examines financial information of 174 firms listed in Tehran Stock Exchange during the period from 2010 to 2015, that is 1044 observations. The research data are analyzed by panel data technique with fixed effects and its hypothesis test is through the multiple regression model. Findings indicate that conservatism has a significant and negative effect on the fraud probability and arbitrary accruals have significant positive effect on the fraud probability. Finally, the research findings could not approve a significant relationship between earning smoothing and fraud probability in financial reporting.

Overconfidence occurs when people consider their abilities more than what they are. Overconfident managers overestimate their abilities in financial decision makings. Managerial overconfidence may affect a firm policies and decisions. This study is aimed to investigate the effects of managerial overconfidence on firm’ s risk-taking and performance. This study uses multivariate regression model and panel data method to test the hypothesis. Independent variable is managerial overconfidence measured by 2 proxies based on investment. Dependent variables are risk-taking (Stock return SD and operating cash flow SD) and performance (ROA, ROE, and Qtobin ratio). The sample includes 150 firms listed in Tehran Stock Exchange during 2011-2015. The results show that managerial overconfidence has no effects on risk-taking and performance.

The study is aimed to investigate the relation of audit market concentration to audit fee and audit quality. The sample consists of 91 firms listed in Tehran Stock Exchange for a period of 10 years from 2004 to 2014. The study uses panel regression model to test the first and third hypotheses and employs Chao and Hausman tests to select among hybrid, fixed effects and random effects models. Also it uses Panel logistic regression model to test the second and fourth hypotheses and applies AIC statistic to choose the appropriate logistic regression model. Results indicate that there is a significant positive relation between audit market concentration and audit fee, while there is no significant relation between audit market concentration and audit quality. In addition, findings indicate that despite of increases in market concentration after approval of Article 99 of the Fifth Development Plan, this approval has no effects on the relation of the audit market concentration to auditor fees and quality audit.