THE IRANIAN ACCOUNTING AND AUDITING REVIEW
Year:2019 | Volume:26 | Issue:1 |Papers Count:8

Objective: This study examines the effect of inter-industry bankruptcy contagion on earnings informativeness of surviving firms between 2011 – 2015. Methods: In this regard, we test the informativeness of 123 companies listed in the Tehran stock Exchange among 19 industries by abnormal return – unexpected earning regression. Results: Statistical results demonstrate that a firm probability of bankruptcy is negatively associated with informativeness of good news earnings, whereas it has no negative effect on in formativeness of bad news earning. Furthermore, until one bankrupt company exists, earnings in formativeness reduction of good news is more than when a number of bankrupt companies exist. Conclusion: The result shows that bankruptcy contagion through inter-industry reduces the earnings informativeness of surviving firms. Based on conservatism and Asymmetric profit sustainability, in these companies earning response coefficient is asymmetric for good news compared to bad news.

Objective: The wave of scandals and collapses of large financial institutions and firms in the world leads to create new corporate governance rules, and one of the most important ones is the necessity of an audit committee in the corporate governance structure. On the other hand, the impact of companies on society has also become a global concern and companies face increased pressure from stakeholders to have a broader view of their goals and activities in terms of social and environmental dimensions. In the same vein, this issue has been considered as corporate social responsibility in most studies in Iran and other countries. However, there are concerns about the quantity and quality of disclosure of corporate social responsibility. Accordingly, it is necessary that committees such as the audit committee be effective in reducing these concerns as a monitoring mechanism of corporate governance mechanisms, and can serve as a tool of monitoring and improving disclosure of corporate social responsibility. Accordingly, the main purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of the Audit Committee Characteristics on disclosure of corporate social responsibility. Methods: For this purpose, 133 listed companies at the Tehran Stock Exchange during 2013 to 2017 were selected as the sample and multiple regression equations of integrated data method. In addition, a checklist of 17 components and 60 criteria, including three social, economic, and environmental dimensions of social responsibility has been used to measure the disclosure level of social responsibility. Results: Findings of the research show that the characteristics of the audit committee including independence, size, financial expertise, and gender diversity of the members of the audit committee have a positive and significant impact on the disclosure of corporate social responsibility. Conclusion: Effective audit committee, according to the obtained results, as an effective mechanism, causes improving the credibility of financial and non-financial reporting such as social responsibility disclosure. That is, effective audit committee can improve the level of voluntary disclosure of information like social responsibility disclosure through monitoring the reporting process.

Objective: Due to the different levels of corporate governance quality in different companies, it is expected that the quality of external and internal corporate governance in different companies will have a different effect on the reduction of agency problems and information asymmetry. This research investigates the role of corporate governance quality on the relationship between cash holdings and firm values when information asymmetry exists. Methods: In this research, the quality of corporate governance has been measured from both internal and external dimensions. Also, to measure information asymmetry, that has a moderator role, three different criteria have been used. The data set includes 106 listed companies of the Tehran stock Exchange within the period 2007 to 2016. Multiple regression models are utilized to test the hypothesis. Results: In the presence of information asymmetry, the higher (lower) quality of corporate governance would have a significant and positive (negative) effect on the relationship between cash holdings and firm values. These results were confirmed not only by considering the separated internal and external dimensions of corporate governance but also by integrating both dimensions. Conclusion: In the presence of information asymmetry, strong corporate governance mechanisms will prevent the agency costs and firm value will increase.

Objective: The phenomenon of investment cash-flow sensitivity is strongly affected by information asymmetry and agency conflict. The use of auditors to reduce such problems is therefore necessary because auditors make greater efforts to reduce the audit risks associated with the investment cash-flow sensitivity, which improves the audit quality, facilitates external financing, and reduces the investment cash-flow sensitivity. Methods: To achieve the study objectives, a total of 112 firms listed in the Tehran Stock Exchange for the period of 2009-2016 were selected, and the study hypotheses were assessed using multivariate regression analysis with fixed effects. Results: The results confirmed that the firms listed in the Tehran Stock Exchange are sensitive to investment cash-flow, and ordinary normal audit fees have a reducing effect on the level of investment cash-flow sensitivity, while higher abnormal audit fees increase the severity of investment cash-flow sensitivity. Conclusion: It is expected that auditors reduce the audit risk associated with investment cash-flow sensitivity by making extra efforts, and demand higher fees for their efforts. Therefore, by increasing the credibility of financial statements, the problem of information asymmetry and agency conflict will be reduced, and firms can easily use external financing. It is also possible that because of their financial dependence on the client, auditors will be reluctant to make the extra efforts to reduce the audit risk associated with investment cash-flow sensitivity. This intensifies information asymmetry and the agency conflict, and because of the poor audit quality, external financing will be costlier than internal financing, and investment cash-flow sensitivity will increase.

Objective: To measure audit quality as a mental concept, different proxies have been implemented by archival research in auditing. Each one of these proxies measures different dimensions of audit quality concept and suffered from more to less errors. The present study focuses on the dilemma of audit quality measuring in Iran. To large extent, audit quality proxies dependent to research’ s institutional setting. In Iran, demand for audit services is mainly based on legal enforcements and litigation risk is also weak. Methods: In addition to the discussion about audit environment in Iran and descriptive analyses in this relation, this study based on output-and input-based proxies of audit quality reviews, discusses, analysis and compares measurement errors of these proxies in Iran and international era. Results: In light with the discussion, suggestions are presented to no use of some the proxies and to implement some alternative and localized measures. Conclusion: The analyses of this study also indicate that using several localized proxies with less measurement errors, paying attention to omitted correlated variables bias and using sophisticated research design to disentangle audit quality from financial reporting quality, are more likely to increase the credibility of the findings of archival studies in this area.

Objective: The purpose of this study is to analyze the content of the articles of quarterly journal of the Iranian accounting and auditing review series in order to explain its effects on the accounting literature of Iran. Sub objectives of this research include the study of the topic orientation of the articles, the pattern of participation of writers individually and collectively, the gender and educational level of the authors, the most prolific writers and universities, organizations and research institutes, as well as the type and method of research used and the percentage of use of Persian and English resources. Methods: The present research is a descriptive study that analyzes the content of 548 articles published in 88 issues of the booklet of this journal between 1371 and 1396. Results: Findings show that 86. 94% of the authors of the articles were male; Most articles (49. 82%) were the result of two people cooperation and also assistant professors with 35. 31% had the largest share in the publishing of articles; Among the authors after 1379, the direction of the articles of this quarterly has been accompanied by a significant change in approach, Mohammad Namazi from University of Shiraz with 1. 80%, Iraj Noravesh from University of Tehran with 1. 76% and Gholamreza Karami from University of Tehran with 1. 37%, has been the most prolific article writer in this journal. Most of the articles (60. 22%) were archival in terms of the research method; most of the sources used in the articles were in terms of language, English resources (74. 22%); and also the most thematic orientation (59. 13%) is related to financial accounting. Conclusion: The process of production and publication of articles has improved in Iran, and very new subject areas have been considered and a great variety has been created in the methodology of accounting and auditing research. Meanwhile, the more specialized publication of articles has been improved in this quarterly journal.

Objective: The purpose of this research is to investigate the relationship between Firm-Specific Discretionary Accruals and Stock Future Abnormal Returns on Tehran Stock Exchange. Methods: This study carries out according to the information available in listed Companies in the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE), during 2011 to 2016, on a selected sample consisting of 190 companies. To test the research hypothesis, OLS regression has) been used. Results: The results show that there is a negative and significant relationship between Firm-Specific Discretionary Accruals and Stock Future Abnormal Returns. Conclusion: Investors should distinguish between the stability of profit components (cash and accrual) when valuing companies. The disregard of this difference has made investors optimistic about the future performance of companies when the Firm-Specific Discretionary Accruals is high, and pessimistic about the future of companies when Firm-Specific Discretionary Accruals is low. Therefore, if such unskilled investors were affected on stock price, we would expect high prices for companies with high Firm-Specific Discretionary Accruals and low prices for companies with low Firm-Specific Discretionary Accruals. In fact, companies are valued incorrectly and irrationally and since the stability of Firm-Specific Discretionary Accruals is low, in future periods, they will receive less than expected returns (negative abnormal returns) and companies with low Firm-Specific Discretionary Accruals will earn more than expected returns (positive abnormal returns).