In order to better promote the development of China's accounting and financialmanagement research, and provide a platform for academic exchange about cutting-edgeresearch of China's accounting and financial management, ContemporaryAccounting Review symposium co-sponsored by Center for Accounting Studies ofXiamen University, the key research base of Humanities, Social Sciences accountingdepartment of Management School of Xiamen University with national key subjectsand Institute for Financial &Accounting Studies, the national "985Project" philosophy and social sciences innovation platform of XiamenUniversity was held on 6 December 2014 at Science and Art Center in XiamenUniversity. Many scholars majored in accounting coming from domestic collegesand universities have attended this conference.
Both associate Dean of the management school of Xiamen University and the expertisemember of Center for Peaceful Development, Cooperation and Innovation Cross-StraitRelationships, Professor Feng Liu, and chief editor of Contemporary Accounting Review,director of the Center for Accounting Studies of Xiamen University and Dean ofInstitute for Financial &Accounting Studies, Professor Xiaohui Qu, attendedthe opening ceremony and delivered a speech. Professor Qu, chief editor ofContemporary Accounting Review, said, " Since the founding of Contemporary Accounting Review in 2008, ithas adhered to the academics, contended for attention of all schools ofthoughts, adopted the management specification and double anonymous peer reviewsystem of international academic journal, and attained a high academicreputation after years of being persistent and enterprising and on December 20,2013 was indexed by CSSCI (2014-2015). Contemporary Accounting Review academicseminar not only collected papers for Contemporary Accounting Review itself,but also provided a platform for academic exchange for the cutting-edge accountingand finance research, cultivating original results on high level and supportingacademic fresh. In order to create this journal a academic forum of goodquality, we sincerely invite scholars at home and abroad to contribute papers, continuingto support the development of this publication, and finally to make it one ofthe leading journals in the field of accounting and finance in China. What ismore, Professor Yuanlue Fu, deputy director of Center for Accounting Studies ofXiamen University, presided over the opening ceremony.
The meeting received a total of 32 candidates, after a review of the experts andthe author agreed to contribute to the publication, a total of 9 papers wereselected for the general assembly.
In the first phase of the paper reporting, "profit fluctuation, profitpersistence and the post-earning-announcement drift", a paper of ZhizhongHuang, an associate professor from Business School of Nanjing University, foundthat the increase of profit volatility does reduce the profit persistence, butwhen the extent of profit volatility is at the two extremes, the accuracy ofprofit predictability will be at the low; especially after the implementationof fair value accounting standards, the fluctuation of profits reduced more, whichlead to more serious post-earning-announcement drift. Dr. Lijuan Mao, fromSchool of Management of Shanghai University, reported her dissertation— “theaudit quality, financial restatement and the change of audit institutions”.With the research sample of listed corporation from 2008 to 2012 in Shanghaiand Shenzhen Stock Exchange, her study found that high quality of independentaudit reduces the probability of financial restatement and severe financialrestatement, and also those listed corporations that have occurred financialrestatement are more likely to change their audit institutions. If there havebeen a serious financial restatement, the probability of the change of auditinstitutions is quite greater. When the financial restatement and severfinancial restatement occurs, the companies audited by high quality accountingfirms are more likely to change their audit institutions than those audited bylow quality accounting firms.
In the second phase of the paper reporting, Jinbo Luo, from Accounting School ofJiangxi University of Finance and Economics, whose dissertation—“fund'sholdings, social trust environment and audit opinion”, found that the companieswhich have fund's holdings will increase the probability of gainingthe unqualified opinion and the impacts are more obvious both in the fund'shigh holding company and state-owned enterprises; social trust environment hasweakened the positive effects of “clear” audit opinion towards companies withthe fund holdings, and the effect is more significant in private enterprisesand enterprises with low fund holdings. Vice Professor, Shuiping Shi, from ManagementSchool of Ji’nan University, report his essay—"the financing decision andaudit demand of family firms under opportunity inequality-- the empirical evidencefrom the family listed corporation”, and found that the opportunity inequalityplays a key role in external audit demand of family firms in some regions. Inthe areas with high degree of financial development, family firms need higherearnings quality to get loans, and accounting information disclosure is alsomore transparent.; the longer debt maturity of the family enterprise, thehigher demand to external audit quality; earnings ability and politicalrelevance also affect the family business audit needs.
In the third phase of the paper reporting, Kejing Chen, from the Dalian Universityof Technology Faculty of Management and Economics, whose dissertation —"the empirical research of the impact factors on work capital and its adjustmentspeed of the listed Corporation”, found that the company characteristics, corporategovernance and macro-environment are quite important factors in the choice ofworking capital management strategy for listing Corporation. There aresignificant regional differences in the adjustment speed of the working capitalof the listing corporation in China. The results of working capital adjustmentof partial listed corporation deviate from the optimal scale of working capital,and the allocation efficiency of working capital is low in our country.
Heng Ma, associate professor from College of Economics and Management, NanjingUniversity of Aeronautics and Astronautics, report his essay—“research onfinancing efficiency based on DEA in Chinese new material industry”, found thatfrom 2011 to 2013, the financing efficiency of Chinese new materials industry changedsignificantly with a continuous decreasing trend; analyzed some problemsexisting in the financing efficiency of new material industry, and table someproposals to solve these problems.
In the fourth phase of the paper reporting, associate professor Zhonghai Yang,from School of Accountancy of Harbin University of Commerce report the paper"research on the relationship between the comparability of financialreporting and equity capital cost" , which indicates that the comparabilityof financial report showed downtrend after the implementation of the newaccounting standards in 2007; because the investors do not pay enough attentionto the accounting information in the process of investment, the comparabilityof financial report do not have a significant impact on the cost of equitycapital. The financial report can be found to be lower than that in 2007. HonghuiZhang, from School of Accountancy of JiangxiUniversity of Finance and Economics, delivered his dissertation "The losscompanies’ negative earnings management: stopping losses or aiming to gainfinancial subsidies?", and found that the listed corporations at loss aremore preferred to perform a kind of negative earnings management behavior; negativeearnings management behavior of the listed loss-marking corporations have an obviousmotivation both aiming to turn losses into gains and gain some financialsubsidies, but compared with the motivation of financial, the former is morestrong; listed loss-making corporations getting financial subsidies are alsohelpful for it to achieve gains. Naqiong Dong, coming from the PekingUniversity HSBC Business School, report her dissertation " The character oflocal independent directors with financial background, executive compensationand turnover ", and found that hiring the local independent directors withfinancial background increases executive compensation both in cash and option,but also reduces the performance sensitivity of executive cash and compensationin option; hiring the local independent directors with financial background didnot affect the executive turnover, butweakened the performance sensitivity of these executives’ turnover.
For every selected paper, this seminar invited well-known experts to conductin-depth reviews, and proposed some amendments, which will be helpful for boththe author and the scholars. After the seminar the authors will be based on theexperts’ proposals to modify their paper and respond to all of experts’ comments,and we will also arrange experts to further review, in order to improve thequality of the paper.
The academic seminar of ContemporaryAccounting Review will be held regularly as the platform for theconstruction, development and improvement of the journal. We eagerly lookforward to continuing to receive the strongly support and enthusiasticparticipation from scholars at home and abroad.