Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explain the origins and evolution of auditing and control by linking the changes in the manner in which the audits were conducted with the changes in the ...institutional function and development of the English East India Company (EIC).
Design/methodology/approach
Using Sunder’s contract theory of a firm as an interpretive framework, this paper introduces to the debate material documenting the evolution of the auditing practice during a period of 40 years using the single case of the EIC.
Findings
Auditing in the EIC evolved from a simple adjudication on allowable expenditures to ex post verification of transactions, and from using volunteers to paid auditors. Initially, the company was organized into a series of separate, terminable stocks, and simple verification by volunteer auditors chosen from among the shareholders was sufficient to secure the latter’s interests. When the increasing number, size, and complexity of transactions by the EIC rendered the adjudication approach insufficient, ex post verification of financial transactions was added. With a clearer separation between ownership and control at the time of the introduction of permanent joint stock, the audit function assumed a more professional form.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the research on the early modern period at a time of the formation and rapid development of the first joint-stock organization. It offers a dynamic picture of the evolution of control and auditing as a response to the growth of business, organizations, and the attendant challenges of governance.
This study contributes to the current debate on competing institutional pressures and logics and performance measurement practices in hybrid universities and examines how shifts in logics have ...affected performance measurement practices at the organizational and individual levels. It draws upon the theoretical lenses of institutional theory and adopts a longitudinal case study methodology based on participant observations and retrospective interviews. The findings show that universities and academic workers are affected by external pressures related to higher education that include government regulations and control of the state (state pressure), the expectations of the professional norms and collegiality of the academic community (academic pressures), and the need to comply with international standards and market mechanisms (market pressures). Academic workers operate in an organizational context in which conflicting conditions from both academic and business logics co-exist. The results indicate that institutional pressures and logics related to the higher education field and organizational context shape the use of universities' performance measurement practices and result in diverse solutions. While previous literature has focused mainly on competing logics and the tensions they may generate, this study shows that, in a university context, potentially conflicting logics may co-exist and create robust combinations.
This study examines the effect of the presence of foreign experts on a company’s board on the important characteristic of high-quality financial reporting: timeliness. We focus on experts with ...foreign experience (EFEs) who are board members, in the context of a dual board model. The sample is drawn from the population of Polish nonfinancial firms listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange during 2010–2015. For analysis, we use the generalised method of moments with fixed effects. After controlling for corporate governance and firm characteristics, we find that the presence of EFEs shortens the time necessary to deliver financial reports. Our findings enrich the knowledge on the monitoring role of EFEs in corporate governance, especially in the context of the insider model of corporate governance and a dual board structure. The findings have significant implications for policy formulation and provide evidence that the presence of EFEs on supervisory boards may lead to increased timeliness of financial reporting, thus increasing financial reporting quality.
Purpose: When the “linguistic turn” is replaced by the “visual turn”, there is a natural need for social scientists to embrace the new reality and incorporate visuals in their research. As a result, ...the importance of visual research, which centers on the use of visual sources, is growing. This paper provides an overview of how visual materials and related methodological approaches can be used in qualitative management and accounting research. Methodology/approach: We begin by reviewing the literature on the research methods, drawing from many disciplines such as sociology, organizational learning, management, and accounting. Next, we analyze three cases – already published papers in accounting – to illustrate how photography can be used in qualitative accounting research. Findings: There is a growing literature on visual research methods. Researchers have used visual materials as primary and secondary data and multiple methodological approaches. Visual methods can also be used in accounting research. Originality/value: This paper provides an overview of emerging methodological approaches that use visual materials and discusses how they can be incorporated into qualitative accounting research. Research limitations: Drawing a simple line between the various approaches presented in this paper is difficult as researchers can use visual material in unique ways throughout the research process. Therefore, the presented methodological categorizations can only help to better understand emerging visual research.
Purpose: The goal of the article is to systematize the literature related to the role of stakeholder engagement in corporate social practices and related disclosures by identifying the main ...theoretical lenses, research methods, and topics undertaken by authors of articles under scrutiny.
Purpose: The article explores changes in the institutional autonomy and accountability resulting from university reforms carried out over a period of 28 years under the influence of the traditional ...public administration and new public management logic. Design/methodology/approach: This qualitative study uses rich empirical material, which includes archival documents as well as 16 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with deans, professors, representatives of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, and HEI experts. For analysis, we used the general inductive approach. Institutional logic has been used as the theoretical framework to analyze changes in resource allocation, autonomy, and accountability of HEIs. Findings: Following the idea of reform as routine, our study shows that the implemented reforms have proven ineffective in comprehensively increasing the autonomy and accountability of HEIs and that they tend to turn into a routine. However, over the past 30 years, a certain increase in autonomy, combined with accountability shifts from input toward output control mechanisms can be observed. An important finding of this research is also the limited understanding of the concept of accountability by the top management of universities and by the ministry’s representatives. Moreover, this illustrates that accountability is understood only as a formal obligation to report to the funding agency and is treated as an integral part of the Polish HE landscape, increasing from reform to reform. Originality/Value: This article explores the evolution of the Polish state funding systems of universities and analyzes the development from a stable traditional funding model – that was in place before the collapse of the communist system – to a complex multi-tier system and to recent attempts at reforming the HE field, aimed at increasing the autonomy and accountability of Polish universities. More efforts should be made by policymakers to create a sustainable balance between autonomy and accountability in the HE field.
Audit Committee Formation: The Case of Poland Puławska, Karolina; Dobija, Dorota; Piotrowska, Katarzyna ...
Central European Management Journal,
06/2021, Letnik:
29, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Purpose: This study investigates the determinants of audit committee (AC) formation in a semi-mandatory setting of a European economy, in which ownership and control are predominantly in the hands of ...families and business groups, and the voluntary practice of forming an AC has not been widely accepted. Methodology: This research uses a sample of Polish nonfinancial firms listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE) in 2008–2015. The study implemented logistic regression to test the role of the supervisory board (SB) and companies’ compositional characteristics in AC creation. Findings: Primary analysis provided evidence of an inverted association between commonly accepted determinants of AC formation – such as the number of independent members on the supervisory board (SB) – and accounting and finance expertise of the SB members. The study also revealed that companies with foreign ownership are more likely to have an AC. Originality: This study indicates an important relationship between the existence of other SB committees as a meaningful determinant of AC formation. This article is valuable for supervisory bodies and regulators as they provide insights into factors that influence audit committee formation.
Based on the notion that a diverse board takes a more balanced perspective and pays greater attention to financial reporting oversight, this paper examines the association between board gender ...diversity and financial reporting quality. Specifically, we study the enablers that allow women to add value to the monitoring activities in the context of limited affirmative actions to promote women on boards. We provide evidence that increased share of women on boards is associated with improved financial reporting quality proxied by reporting timeliness, earnings management, and auditor opinions. We find that in companies that do not have a sufficient number of women on boards, the critical mass effect can be replaced by the “voice” effect, i.e., it is still possible to improve financial reporting quality by having a woman chair the board.
This paper investigates audit committee (AC) practices in relation to the oversight of financial reporting and external auditors. We conducted semi-structured interviews of Polish public interest ...entities to explore AC processes in a different environment from the widely researched Anglo-American model of corporate governance. The results of the study highlight the complexity and contradictory nature of solving governance issues in an environment characterized by a high concentration of ownership. Monitoring is stronger for companies whose dominant shareholder is a foreign investor. Local firms are generally slower to embrace an AC as an effective tool of oversight for financial reporting and external auditors. In general, the processes utilized by ACs are similar to those reported in the literature. The collected evidence does not provide support for a single dominant theory that explains the actual practices of ACs. In fact, multivocality proves to be a more useful approach for explaining various aspects of AC practices.
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