فصلنامه مطالعات تجربی حسابداری مالی
پیاپی 37 (بهار 1392)

During the past two decades, public sector accounting and reporting system encountered significant reforms. The aim of these reforms was removing bureaucratic system barriers which prevent efficient use of scarce resources. Extended reforms and changes in public sector of developed and even developing countries have persuaded many scholars to investigate them. These studies have shown that mentioned reforms often stem from a set of factors and drivers observed in the countries encountering these reforms. The present study discusses the literature regarding these reforms, and identifies influencing factors and drivers in reforms of Iran’s public sector financial and operational accountability system from the viewpoint of Iranian experts. Accordingly, using Delphi method through a survey of 142 Iranian experts, the key factors and drivers of reforms in Iran's public sector financial and operational accountability system have been identified. In the end, the status of these factors and drivers in the current condition of Iran is evaluated.

In Recent corporate scandals, one of the recurring areas of concern is related party transactions. Concern about related party transactions has increased as a result of at least two high profile bankruptcies: Enron and Adelphia. The key reason of their collapse has been attributable at least in part to extensive purposefully use of undisclosed or “under-disclosed” transactions. In this research, the adequacy of disclosure of related party transactions is investigated by means of a checklist prepared according to Iranian accounting standard No.12.Research is performed over the years of 2006 to 2010 among Tehran stock exchange listed companies. According to accounting standard No.12, 14 disclosure requirements are set out and divided into two groups: 5 items are classified as general disclosure items and others are classified as other disclosure items. Then, mean disclosure is calculated and compared with the 50-percent level of disclosure included in Doing Business Reports.The results show that companies disclose 46 percent of general disclosure items and 58 percent to 62 percent of other disclosure items. Finally, the disclosure level of each disclosure requirement is determined. The results suggest deficiency in compliance with accounting standard No.12.

In this study the relationship between accounting depreciation and economic depreciation has been studied. If the equality of accounting depreciation and economic depreciation is demonstrated, it is expected to be a negative and statistically significant relationship between accounting depreciation and current cash flows. But if there is conservatism in reporting depreciation, the relationship between accounting depreciation and future cash flows is expected to be negative. The reason is that before the economic depreciation of assets occurs; accounting depreciation in financial reports is recognized. Usually companies adopt a more conservative approach, to be able to report better performance in the future. For this research, the multiple regression model and information of companies listed in Tehran Stock Exchange during the period 2001-2010 were used. Results showed that there is no significant relationship between current cash flows and accounting depreciation. It can be argued that accounting depreciation and economic depreciation don’t change proportionately. But the relationship between accounting depreciation and future cash flows is negative and significant. Therefore it can be concluded that there is a conservative approach in reporting depreciation. And finally, in spite of the aforementioned expectations, there is Negative correlation between conservative reporting of depreciation and future growth opportunities.

This study investigates relation between accruals quality and auditor selection in the listed firms of Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE) during a five-year period from 2007 to 2011. Using correlation method and logistic regression technique, the results of this study indicate that client size, management change and accruals quality impact on selection of the big audit firms. The results of this research also revealed that selection of the big audit firms has no relation with financial leverage, profitability and net loss. Research evidence also reveals that audit privatization and competition in audit market increase auditor rotation in the study sample. Also, when accruals quality is low, the probability of the big audit firm's selection is high.

The primary objective of this study is to show that board structure affects the value relevance of earnings. The role of board structure is to reduce the conflicts of interests between shareholders and managers. Four attributes of board structure includes Board size, CEO membership, Duality and Board independence are considered in this study. These attributes are used in this study to assess the impact of board structure on information content of accounting earnings. Information dynamics models, such as the Ohlson (1995) model provide a testable pricing equation that also identifies the role non-accounting information (i.e. corporate governance) plays in determining firm value. Based on Ohlson’s (1995) model, the change in value model, as developed by Easton and Harris (1991), is modified to include the proposed interaction between board structure and earnings management. In order to hypothesis testing, the pooled GLS regression is employed as the primary technique to estimate the coefficients. These coefficients are then examined using the Wald test to find out whether the earnings response coefficients after incorporating indictors of earnings reliability are significantly different from the earnings response coefficients irrespective of any propositions. The sample was drawn from listed companies in Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE) for the years 1383 to 1387. The final sample contained 675 firm-year observations. The results reveal that board structure have no effect on information content of accounting earnings.

The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between diversification strategy and cash holding with abnormal return of TSE listed companies. For this purpose, three hypotheses were developed to investigate the relationship between diversification strategy and cash holding with abnormal return of companies and the sample data were extracted from financial statement of listed Companies during the period 2004 to 2008. Results revealed that there is a negative and significant relationship between abnormal returns and diversification strategy, but relationship between abnormal returns and cash holding was not statistically significant. The results also revealed that diversification strategy has positive and significant impact on the relation between abnormal returns and cash balance.

Prior researches suggest that auditor specialization and auditor tenure increase audit quality and consequently improve quality of disclosed information and decrease information asymmetry. So the purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between a company’s bid-ask spread, as a proxy of information asymmetry, and auditor tenure and specialization from 2002 to 2010 in the companies listed in Tehran Stock Exchange. Using regression analysis, the findings revealed that there is a negative and statistically significant relationship between auditor tenure and auditor specialization with information asymmetry. In other words auditor specialization and high auditor tenure decrease information asymmetry. In addition separating auditor tenure into short, medium and long periods confirmed the results too. Also the results show that the relationship between auditor tenure and information asymmetry is not influenced by selection of specialists or non-specialists.