فصلنامه مطالعات تجربی حسابداری مالی
پیاپی 53 (بهار 1396)

The importance of human capital (HC) is a broadly accepted concept and human capital financial reporting as the traditional concept of "human resource accounting", has a long history. However, human capital financial reporting is still an unresolved problem in reporting which makes the investigation of human capital reporting quality an important issue. The research provides evidence on the value relevance and information content of "Capital-Based Human Capital Financial Reporting Model". For this purpose, we utilized the value relevance models as an experimental framework. Using cluster sampling, we chose and examined 22 corporations, from 2011 to 2015. We utilized OLS to test our research hypothesis. The results indicated that capital-based model is relevant for measuring and reporting Iranian corporation's HC. After verifying the relevance characteristic using a quasi-experimental method, the information content of the model was examined by applying four-group experimental design with pretest and posttest at a higher level. The results of this experiment performed in controlled conditions and with the help of graduate accounting students of Allameh Tabatabai University revealed that there are no significant difference between experimental and control group's responses, and therefore there is no additional information content.

Auditing quality has special importance for financial statement’s users, managers, and auditors. The aim of this study is to model the relationship among auditing quality factors and investigating the effect of mutual relationship among its related variables. For this purpose, 101 firms listed in Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE) were selected for a period of 11 years (2004 to 2015). The research method is based on the cause and effect model in system dynamics. The data was collected using financial statements and Rahavard Novin databases. The test of normality, unit root test, correlation and hypothesis testing (multiple regression, partial regression, ARCH functions as required) was applied by SPSS version 23 and Eviews version 9. The results showed that Standards Compliance and Professionalism, Audit Fees, Auditor firm Size, Auditor’s Reputation, Number of Paragraphs in Audit Report, Percentage of misrepresentations and noncompliance, Audit Opinion Type, Delay in the Audit Report, Auditor’s Tenure, and Auditor's Expertise and Industry Knowledge have mutual effects on each other. This model is newfound in auditing literature of Iran. It is also a practical and accurate auditing quality model useful for stakeholders in decision making.

Cost stickiness denotes the asymmetric response of costs to sales increases versus sales decreases. In this paper, we also consider the concept of cost anti-stickiness. Cost anti-stickiness happens when the decrease of costs in case of a fall in sales is more than the increase of costs due to an equal rise in sales. This phenomenon happens because of existence of optimistic managers in past years and inefficient stickiness cause of sales volatility against manager’s expectation. This paper examines the cost stickiness and anti-cost stickiness of nonmanufacturing costs in Iranian firms using panel data analysis. The sample includes 229 publicly-traded firms listed in Tehran Stock Exchange. Using data for 2012-2015, the results showed that not only do the nonmanufacturing costs have stickiness behavior but also they have antistickiness behavior that occurs due to the changes in the sales in the previous years.

Usually investors in the real world evaluate the performance of companies using the correlation of company's earnings with each other and/or with industry averages. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effect of the correlation between firm's earnings and announcement timing on firms’ accruals in each industry. The study period was from 2008 to 2013 including 108 year-companies. The results showed a significant negative relationship between discretionary accruals and the relative performance of the companie's earnings. The results also showed that companies with high correlation between their earnings and industry earnings and relatively low performance, possess stronger relationship between discretionary accruals and the relative earnings performance. But the delay in the announcement of the company's earnings is not a factor in determining the possible adjusted discretionary accruals by managers.

Using structural equation modeling approach, this research aims to explore the effect of political costs on financial reporting quality. For this purpose, 66 publicly-listed firms from Tehran Stock Exchange for the period 2006 to 2014 were selected as the final data set. As an independent variable, the observable variables such as capital intensity, concentrate rate, tax ratio, firm size, employee intensity, and risk were used to proxy the political cost. In addition, quality of accruals, disclosure quality, earnings persistence, and accuracy of financial information were used to measure financial reporting quality which is dependent variable and growth opportunities and leverage were considered as control variables. The results indicated that political costs had a negative and meaningful effect on financial reporting quality.

One of the concepts which recently have been discussed a lot by corporate governance regulators and standard setters is related party transaction. Related party transaction due to the complexity in recognition and disclosure are considered to be one the challenges of financial reporting which can influence economic decisions of users. Considering the expansion of related party transactions and the increase of them in companies, it is necessary to create monitoring mechanisms to reduce the financial frauds and to improve the performance. Among these types of monitoring mechanisms, stablishing and performing of proper corporate governance system in companies is one of these mechanisms. The empirical evidences show that corporate governance lessens related party transaction. In this research, the relationship between the mechanisms of corporate governance and related party transactions is investigated. The study sample includes 136 Tehran Stock Exchange listed companies from 1389 to 1393. In order to test the research hypotheses, the multivariable regression model with a data panel was used. The board members independences, boards compensation, stock ownership, change of executive manager, auditor rotation were used as the corporate governance mechanisms. The result of the research indicates that there is a significant and reverse relation between related party transaction and ownership of the institutional stockholders and change of executive manager. There is a reverse relation between related party transaction and autonomy of board of managers’ members but this reverse relation is not significant statistically. There is a direct and significant relation between related party transaction and board of managers’ compensation and there is a direct relation between related party transaction and auditor rotation, which is not significant statistically.

In this study, the effect of audit quality on the forecasting accuracy of future operating cash flows of firms listed in the Tehran Stock Exchange has been investigated. Audit quality has been measured with auditor size, auditor industry specialization and auditor tenure. Similar to some previous researches done in this outline, forecasting accuracy of future operating cash flows have been estimated with using model Barth et al (2001). The results of review firms 97 in the years 2007 to 2014 show that size of audit firm and auditor industry specialization have significant positive relationship at the forecasting accuracy of future operating cash flows, and increase forecasting accuracy. while there is a significant negative relationship between forecasting accuracy of future operating cash flows and auditor tenure. These findings suggest that audit quality can influence the quality of accounting information and therefore effected over forecasting accuracy of future operating cash flows.