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Da Sparkassen einen öffentlichen Auftrag erfüllen müssen, der ihr Bestehen gesetzlich legitimiert, zeichnet sich ihr Corporate-Governance-System durch Besonderheiten aus. Diese Besonderheiten wirken sich nicht nur auf die Vorstandstätigkeit, sondern auch auf die Tätigkeit der Kontrollorgane aus, welche eine nachhaltige Erfüllung des öffentlichen Auftrags prüfen und gewährleisten sollen. Nach einer Vorstellung des Corporate-Governance-Systems beschäftigt sich der Beitrag daher mit der Frage, ob und wie allgemeine Herausforderungen, die durch das System bedingt sind, sowie besondere Herausforderungen, die sich aus der langanhaltenden Niedrigzinspolitik ergeben, die Effektivität der Kontrollen beeinflussen. Since savings banks must fulfill a public contract that legitimizes their existence by law, a number of special features characterizes their corporate governance system. These features affect not only the activities of the management board, but also the activities of the surveillance institutions, which have to review and ensure the sustainable fulfillment of the public contract. After a presentation of the corporate governance system, the article therefore deals with the question of whether and how general challenges resulting from the corporate governance system as well as special challenges resulting from the long-term low interest rate policy influence the effectiveness of the controls

We investigate how the design of audit processes influences employees’ reporting decisions. We focus specifically on detective employee audits for which several employees are randomly selected after a defined period to audit their ex-post behavior. We investigate two design features of the audit process, namely, employee anonymity and process transparency, and analyze their impact on misreporting. Overall, we find that both components influence the extent of individuals’ misreporting. A nonanonymous audit decreases performance misreporting more than an audit in which the employee remains anonymous. Furthermore, the high incidence of performance misreporting in the case of anonymous audits can be decreased when the process transparency is low. Thus, our study informs accountants about how the two design features of employee anonymity and transparency of the audit process can be used to constrain performance misreporting to increase the efficiency of audits

This study investigates how tone at the top, implemented by top management, and tone at the bottom, in an employee’s immediate work environment, determine noncompliance. We focus on the disallowed actions of employees that improve their own and, in turn, the company’s performance, referred to as performance-improving noncompliant behavior (PINC behavior). We conduct a survey of German sales employees to investigate specifically how, on the one hand, (1) corporate rules and (2) performance pressure, both implemented by top management, and, on the other hand, (3) others’ PINC expectations and (4) others’ PINC behavior, both arising from the employee’s immediate work environment, influence PINC behavior. When considered in isolation, we find that corporate rules, as top management’s main instrument to guide employee behavior, decrease employee PINC behavior. However, this effect is negatively influenced by the employees’ immediate work environment when employees are expected to engage in PINC or when others engage in PINC. In contrast, even though top management places great performance pressure on employees, that by itself does not increase PINC behavior. Overall, our study informs practitioners and researchers about whether and how the four determinants increase or decrease employees’ PINC behavior, which is important to comprehend triggers and to counteract such misconduct.

Supplemental material, Online_appendix for Acquirers’ Cultural Background and the Use of Earnouts by Corinna Ewelt-Knauer, Johannes Gefken, Thorsten Knauer and David Wiedemann in Journal of Accounting, Auditing & Finance