For many years, businesses, government regulators, and the public have expressed concern about the dominance of a few large public accounting firms in the audit market. Recent events have increased concern about the lack of competition in the auditing industry. Using market concentration...

To test hypotheses about earnings management many studies investigate managers’ manipulation of real activities (real earnings management, REM). Tests using measures of abnormal REM hinge critically on the measurement of normal real activities. Yet there is no systematic evidence on the...

Switzerland has introduced similar requirements as they are detetermined in Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. The provisions in the Swiss Code of Obligations, which came effective in 2008, require the directors of Swiss joint stock corporations to assess the risks related to the...

The paper describes the accounting profession role in the framework of corporate and securities regulation as a tool to "control" directors & managers in the interest of investors. It delves in the relevance of auditor's independence, analyzing the crucial issues and moments that may put that...

During the past decade, new regulations have been adopted to improve audit committee effectiveness. Prior research has generally provided evidence in support of these regulations and suggests that a more independent and expert audit committee is more effective. We posit that CEO power reduces or...

We examine whether the effect of mandatory auditor rotation on audit quality depends on the mental frame auditors adopt in evaluating management representations. In practice, auditors can alternately frame their assessments of management representations in terms of their potential dishonesty...

The paper wants to highlight the risk evaluation only for The public procurements carried out through demands of supply. Internal auditors must report the results of their work to the general management and any significant weakness discovered during the audit mission. But, on the other hand, we...

Australian and international public sector organisations have faced, and continue to encounter, a plethora of reforms under the umbrella of 'New Public Management' (Guthrie et aI., forthcoming). Underpinning these reforms have been imperatives of budget surpluses and reduced government debt,...

This paper analyses the benefits of the cluster approach in adopting EMAS (the EC Eco-Management and Audit Scheme) by some companies operating in the territorial area of Lucca. The cluster approach proves to be effective in stimulating and supporting the adoption of EMAS and, more in general, to...

This paper is motivated by the current debate on limiting auditor liability. In a laboratory experiment, the effect of limited versus unlimited liability on behavior under risk and ambiguity is investigated for risks involving small probabilities. The amount of liability is manipulated in such a...