Topic：Does Social Trust Matter in Financial Reporting?: Evidence from Audit Pricing
Time：March 7, 2014（Friday）9:00-10：30
Venue：Room 501, Jiageng Bld 2
Presenter：Tony Kang, Arthur Andersen & Co. Alumni Centennial Professor of Accounting, Oklahoma State University
Chair：Tony Ruan, assistant professor of finance, IFAS
Abstract：
We study whether social trust matters in financial reporting by focusing on auditor perception of accounting quality. Our proxies for social trust are two socioeconomic corporate environmental factors that are likely to influence auditor perception of accounting quality - social capital at the community-level and a firm’s commitment to diversity initiatives at the corporate-level. If greater social capital is viewed as facilitating information sharing within the firm, it can reduce auditor perception of both control and detection risks of financial reporting. Since firm diversity has a potential to impair trust among stakeholders, it can increase auditors’ perception of control risk. Our results show that auditors charge lower fees to firms headquartered in areas with higher social capital. We also find that, unlike other conventional dimensions of corporate social responsibility, firm diversity is positively associated with audit fees. Overall, our results suggest that socioeconomic characteristics of the firm matter to external auditors.
Presenter Introduction：
Dr. Kang got his Ph.D. in Accounting, M.B.A. in Management, and B.B.A. in International Business and Trade from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, McGill University, and Korea University respectively. His research interest is Accounting Issues in Global Capital Markets. He’s published papers injournals like The Accounting Review. Furthermore, he won awards such as Lee Radebaugh Notable Contribution to International Accounting Research Award from American Accounting Association.
Paper：