This dissertation investigates auditor independence by examining the effects of various factors on independence, both in fact and as perceived by several distinct groups. The first study examines the effects of auditing students cognitive moral development and client risk on students judgments...

Environmental remediation liabilities are generated primarily as a result of past actions by a firm. The most important of these liabilities for domestic U.S. firms are related to Superfund sites as designated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). These liabilities are important for...

This dissertation investigates the effects of changes in the accounting environment on the capital markets. Included are three manuscripts, each of which, make an important contribution to the accounting literature. The first two manuscripts investigate the impact and importance of analystsâ...

Activity-Based Costing is presented in accounting text books as a costing system that can be used to make valuable managerial decisions. Accounting journals regularly report the successful implementations and benefits of activity-based costing systems for particular businesses. Little...

The purpose of this research is to examine whether accounting methods for business combinations (purchase and pooling-of-interests accounting) have a different effect on firmsâ market value of equity in the combination year and thereafter. In particular, after the accounting method is no longer...

The purpose of this research is to examine whether managers of troubled firms engage in income-increasing earnings management for capital market purposes to maintain a listing on the NASDAQ National Market. Troubled firms are defined as those firms whose share price has fallen below the...

The need to develop appropriate computer training techniques has led to an explosion of research in information systems. One of the most recent studies was conducted by Compeau and Higgins (1995) in which two training methods were examined in the context of Social Cognitive Learning Theory...

This dissertation explores three current issues relevant to the accounting and business communities by empirically examining the effect these issues have on the bond credit market. The first study examines the effect earnings predictability has on both the initial bond rating and the initial...

Despite countless efforts to elucidate market participantsâ understanding of the implications of earnings quality, empirical accounting research has rendered two distinct perspectives. The first perspective considers market participants naïve users of accounting information who fail to grasp...

This study considers the ability of the audit team to configurally process information, that is, to piece together information cues held by individual team members and recognize the underlying pattern in the information. It also examines how the hierarchical structure of the audit team impacts...