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We examine the effect of high-quality information technology (IT) on management's capital investment decisions. Evaluating capital investment decisions with contemporary investment efficiency and long-term measures of investment effectiveness, we document a positive relation between high-quality IT and capital investment decision quality. In particular, we find high-quality IT is associated with more optimal levels of investment as well as fewer future fixed asset write-downs. We also disaggregate investment efficiency and find the relation with IT quality holds for investment decisions related to capital expenditures and acquisitions, but not research and development expenditures. Overall, our results suggest managers equipped with better internal information from higher-quality IT are able to make superior capital investment decisions. Our study contributes to the literature by providing evidence of a significant determinant of capital investment decision quality and documenting a specific mechanism that mediates the indirect effect of IT quality on future performance. JEL Classifications: D83; E22; G31; M15; M41. Data Availability: We thank InformationWeek for providing annual rankings that were previously published. All other data are publicly available from regulatory filings; we obtained data from the Compustat, Execucomp, and I/B/E/S databases.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA) reduces U.S. multinational companies’ (MNC) internal capital market frictions related to repatriation costs by decreasing costs to access internal capital (i.e., foreign cash). This study examines MNCs’ responses to the TCJA and finds spending and investment behavior are dependent upon liquidity, investment opportunities, and borrowing costs. Domestic capital expenditures increased for MNCs with low domestic liquidity and high domestic investment opportunities. These firms also increased share repurchases. In contrast, MNCs with low domestic liquidity and low domestic investment opportunities increased dividends. MNCs with low domestic investment opportunities and high cost of debt reduced their outstanding debt. We also investigate responses to global intangible low-taxed income (GILTI) incentives and find that MNCs with more foreign cash and a greater likelihood of being affected by the GILTI regime increase their foreign but not domestic capital expenditures - a potential unintended consequence of TCJA.

SYNOPSIS Prior studies document both an improvement (Gunny 2010) and deterioration (Bhojraj, Hribar, Picconi, and McInnis 2009) in the future operating performance of firms engaging in real earnings management (REM) to meet earnings benchmarks. These results suggest that some firms use REM to signal their favorable prospects, whereas others use REM opportunistically. We hypothesize that firms with less robust information environments, more costly REM, and fewer incentives to meet short-term earnings benchmarks are more likely to engage in REM to signal future performance. Consistent with expectations, we find the positive relation between REM and future profitability is limited to firms that have less robust information environments (measured with stock return volatility, bid/ask spread, and analysts following), more costly REM (measured with market share and financial health), and fewer incentives to meet short-term earnings benchmarks (measured with market-to-book ratio, transient investors, and seasoned equity offering). In supplementary analysis, we note that Bhojraj et al. (2009) restrict their sample to relatively large firms, whereas Gunny's (2010) sample includes both large and small firms. Our analysis indicates that the difference in sample composition explains the differing results. We find that small firms use REM to signal positive future performance, but large firms do not. JEL Classifications: M40; M41.

Financial Accounting Standards Board Interpretation No. 48 (FIN 48, FASB 2006) allows discretion regarding the income statement classification of interest and penalty expenses for unrecognized tax benefits (UTBs). We investigate whether tax avoidance, management compensation, and debt agreements affect the expense classification election and whether this discretion has implications for financial statement users. We find firms that engage in tax avoidance activities, measured by effective tax rates (ETRs) and involvement in tax disputes, are more likely to include interest and penalties in tax expense. We also find that interest and penalties are more likely to be classified as tax expense when CEO compensation is more sensitive to pre-tax income. Finally, we find that UTB interest and penalty expense classification is associated with analysts' ETR forecast accuracy, which suggests there is a potential unintended consequence related to decision usefulness of FIN 48 reporting due to expense classification discretion.

SUMMARY This article summarizes “The Association between Characteristics of Audit Committee Accounting Experts, Audit Committee Chairs, and Financial Reporting Timeliness” (Abernathy, Beyer, Masli, and Stefaniak 2014), which investigates the association between audit committee members' accounting expertise and financial reporting timeliness. While we find a positive relation between audit committee accounting expertise and financial reporting timeliness, interestingly, we also find that accounting expertise gained from public accounting experience is associated with more timely financial reporting than accounting expertise gained from CFO experience. We discuss implications of these findings for auditors, companies, and regulators.

We investigate the association between audit committee (AC) members' financial expertise and financial reporting timeliness, and extend the discussion by investigating how the source of accounting expertise (e.g., public accounting or CFO) differentially influences financial reporting timeliness. We predict and find that AC accounting financial expertise is associated with timelier accounting information. Further, we find that accounting expertise gained from public accounting experience is associated with timelier financial reporting; however, accounting expertise gained from CFO experience is not. We also find that AC chairs (ACCs) with accounting expertise from public accounting experience are significantly associated with timelier financial reporting while ACCs with CFO-sourced accounting expertise are not. Our results are important for two reasons. First, our results suggest that AC accounting financial expertise contributes to AC effectiveness by improving the timeliness of financial information. Second, our findings highlight how personal characteristics of accounting financial experts influence contributions toward AC effectiveness.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a concise career guide for current and potential doctoral students in accounting and, in the process, help them gain a greater awareness of what it means to be an accounting professor. The guide can also be used by accounting faculty in doctoral programs as a starting point in mentoring their doctoral students. We begin with foundational guidance to help doctoral students better understand the “big picture” surrounding the academic accounting environment. We then provide specific research guidance and publishing guidance to help improve the probability of publication success. Actions are suggested that doctoral students and new faculty can take to help jump-start their academic careers. We finish with guidance regarding some important acronyms of special interest to doctoral students in accounting.