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Copyright of Contemporary Accounting Research is the property of Canadian Academic Accounting Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Contemporary Accounting Research is the property of Canadian Academic Accounting Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study examines how inline XBRL (iXBRL) mandatory adoption impacts audit fees. Although iXBRL can make financial reporting information accessible to a wide range of external stakeholders, the presentation format change should have no impact on audit pricing. However, audit firms note that presenting nonaudited XBRL metadata on top of audited financial statements could lead to an expectation gap where external stakeholders believe that the inline tags have been audited despite no procedures being required. We find that iXBRL adoption is associated with higher audit fees. Upon further examination, we find that the increase in audit fees reflects more of a risk premium being placed on iXBRL clients rather than increased audit effort, as audit quality does not necessarily improve following adoption. We provide timely information on how auditors respond to iXBRL adoption. JEL Classifications: M41; M42; O33. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Contemporary Accounting Research is the property of Canadian Academic Accounting Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Contemporary Accounting Research is the property of Canadian Academic Accounting Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

SYNOPSIS: In this study, we examine whether external auditors assess corporate innovation activities when considering a financially distressed client's ability to continue as a going concern. Using patent count, patent market value, and patent citation to measure the firm-level innovation output, we document that higher quantity and quality of innovation activities are associated with a lower likelihood of going concern opinions. The association between innovation and going concern opinions is more pronounced for audit offices with high exposure to corporate innovation and clients operating in R&D-intensive industries. In additional analyses, we confirm that innovation is associated with future business value, as measured by future profitability and intellectual property licensing agreements. We conclude that corporate innovation represents a mitigating factor when auditors consider whether a going concern opinion is appropriate for a financially distressed client. Data Availability: All data are available from public databases identified in the paper. JEL Classifications: M41; M42; O32. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the association between layoffs and chief executive officer (CEO) compensation. Because of the public scrutiny and political pressures associated with both CEO compensation and layoffs, we expect firms to alter CEO compensation by reducing bonus pay and increasing equity-based compensation as the magnitude of the layoff increases. Consistent with the predicted substitution, we find that as layoffs intensify, CEOs' bonus compensation decreases and their equity-based compensation increases. When we consider whether these compensation adjustments vary with CEO power, we find that as the layoff magnitude increases, relative to less powerful CEOs, more powerful CEOs experience smaller reductions in bonus pay, a higher likelihood of receiving a bonus, and comparable increases in equity compensation. Finally, we report evidence that post-layoff market performance of firms led by more powerful CEOs is not superior to that of firms led by less powerful CEOs. Collectively, the results suggest that the preferential compensation arrangements afforded more powerful CEOs is inconsistent with efficient contracting. Instead, the combined results are consistent with the managerial power theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate involuntary chief financial officer (CFO) turnover following earnings restatements, the labor market penalties imposed on former restatement-firm CFOs, and whether these disciplinary consequences have increased following the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX). Our results suggest that relative to a control group of non-restating firms, firms restating earnings have higher rates of involuntary CFO turnover, and that former restatement-firm CFOs face stiff labor market penalties. We generally find that the passage of SOX has not increased involuntary CFO turnover rates following restatements. However, we find that labor market penalties for former CFOs of restatement firms are more severe in the post-SOX period, suggesting that SOX has increased ex post settling-up costs. Our results suggest that the influence of SOX on the labor market has resulted in CFOs being held more accountable for their actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY: We examine whether the readability of financial statement footnotes in the annual report is informative about audit engagement risk. Using various readability measures, we predict and find that firms with less readable footnotes have longer audit report lag, incur higher audit fees, and are more likely to receive a first time modified going concern opinion. We also show that readability of footnotes is associated with a higher likelihood of financial misstatements and future accounting-related litigation. Our results are robust to several measures of readability used in prior literature, as well as different specifications and design choices, revealing that financial statement footnote readability provides incremental information about audit engagement risk that affects auditor-client contracting. Data Availability: Data are obtained from public sources identified in the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]