The Costs of Waiving Audit Adjustments CHOUDHARY, PREETI; MERKLEY, KENNETH; SCHIPPER, KATHERINE
Journal of accounting research,
December 2022, Letnik:
60, Številka:
5
Journal Article
Recenzirano
ABSTRACT
We analyze the disposition of auditor‐proposed adjustments to financial statements. Our analyses address concerns, expressed by regulators and others, that auditors and their clients fixate ...on quantitative thresholds and overlook qualitative factors in assessing the materiality of discovered misstatements. Using a large sample of Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB)‐inspected audits, we examine the frequency with which management records versus waives auditor‐proposed adjustments and whether waiving‐proposed adjustments ha consequences for reporting reliability and the audit process. We find waived adjustments are linked to lower financial reporting quality measured by material misstatements, to incentives to meet/beat earnings targets, and to the audit process, as measured by higher next‐period audit effort and fees and higher next‐period proposed adjustments. These effects on the audit process are consistent with auditors responding to the increased risk associated with waived adjustments. In an exploratory analysis, we find that controlling for the amount of proposed adjustments, auditor resignations are negatively associated with waived adjustments.
Summary
Frequent observations of higher mortality in larger trees than in smaller ones during droughts have sparked an increasing interest in size‐dependent drought‐induced mortality. However, the ...underlying physiological mechanisms are not well understood, with height‐associated hydraulic constraints often being implied as the potential mechanism driving increased drought vulnerability. We performed a quantitative synthesis on how key traits that drive plant water and carbon economy change with tree height within species and assessed the implications that the different constraints and compensations may have on the interacting mechanisms (hydraulic failure, carbon starvation and/or biotic‐agent attacks) affecting tree vulnerability to drought. While xylem tension increases with tree height, taller trees present a range of structural and functional adjustments, including more efficient water use and transport and greater water uptake and storage capacity, that mitigate the path‐length‐associated drop in water potential. These adaptations allow taller trees to withstand episodic water stress. Conclusive evidence for height‐dependent increased vulnerability to hydraulic failure and carbon starvation, and their coupling to defence mechanisms and pest and pathogen dynamics, is still lacking. Further research is needed, particularly at the intraspecific level, to ascertain the specific conditions and thresholds above which height hinders tree survival under drought.
In some real-world decision processes, decision makers may prefer to provide their opinions using linguistic expressions instead of a single linguistic term. Particularly, they may hesitate between ...several linguistic terms. In this paper, we deal with the consensus issue in the hesitant linguistic group decision making (GDM) problem. Firstly, a novel distance-based consensus measure is proposed. Then, using this consensus measure we develop an optimization-based consensus model in the hesitant linguistic GDM, which minimizes the number of adjusted simple terms in the consensus building. Furthermore, a two-stage model is displayed to further optimize the solutions to the proposed consensus model, through which we obtain the unique optimal adjustment suggestion to support the consensus reaching process in the hesitant linguistic GDM. Finally, several desirable properties are proposed to justify the proposal, and two examples are used to demonstrate the validity of the models.
Qualitative Data Auerbach, Carl; Silverstein, Louise B
2003, Letnik:
21
eBook
Qualitative Data is meant for the novice researcher who needs guidance on what specifically to do when faced with a sea of information. It takes readers through the qualitative research process, ...beginning with an examination of the basic philosophy of qualitative research, and ending with planning and carrying out a qualitative research study. It provides an explicit, step-by-step procedure that will take the researcher from the raw text of interview data through data analysis and theory construction to the creation of a publishable work.
The volume provides actual examples based on the authors' own work, including two published pieces in the appendix, so that readers can follow examples for each step of the process, from the project's inception to its finished product. The volume also includes an appendix explaining how to implement these data analysis procedures using NVIVO, a qualitative data analysis program.
•Postural preparations differ prior to interactions with another person and with inanimate object.•Co-activation about the ankle joint during early postural adjustments defines success in the ...hand-pushing game.•The results point at the importance of co-activation for postural stability organized at the level of neural commands.
Ensuring stability of the human vertical posture is a complex task requiring both anticipatory and compensatory postural strategies when a standing person performs fast actions and interacts with the environment, which can include other persons. How people adjust their preparatory and compensatory postural adjustments in situations when they interact with an active partner is still poorly understood. In this study we investigated the postural adjustments while two healthy persons played a traditional childhood game. While standing facing each other, they were asked to push with their hands against the hands of the opponent only, and to make the opponent to take a step. We explored strategies when pushing the opponent’s hands generated perturbations to the posture of both players and when one of the players withdrew the arms to neutralize the opponent’s pushing action. Electromyograms were recorded from the leg and trunk muscles and used to quantify early (EPAs), anticipatory (APAs) and compensatory (CPAs) postural adjustments, as well as the co-activation and reciprocal changes in the activity of agonist–antagonist pairs. Results showed higher indices of muscle co-activation during EPAs during the game compared to the control conditions. We found that postural preparation strategies defined whether a participant kept or lost balance during the game. Our results highlight the importance of muscle co-activation, the role of anticipation, and the difference in strategies while interacting with an active partner as compared to interactions with passive objects.
A large literature has assessed the impacts of climate change on agricultural production by estimating reduced‐form models of crop yields conditionally on weather and individual fixed effects. The ...estimates obtained are usually interpreted as the weather impacts on yields once farmers have adapted. Yet, few attempts have documented that farmers do adapt to weather, and none have verified that these adjustments actually impact crop yields. Our objective here is to unpack how weather affects agricultural production by developing a structural model that explicitly accounts for both the plants' biophysical and farmers' behavioral responses to weather. Considering adaptation during the growing season through fertilizer and pesticide applications, our approach allows us to distinguish the “direct” weather effects (i.e., the agronomic impacts of weather changes on plant growth per se) from the “indirect” weather effects via farmers' input choices (i.e., the adaptation impacts). We estimate the underlying structural model using farm‐level data from the Meuse French department, which provides details of fertilizer and pesticide uses by crop. We show that the reduced‐form and structural estimates indicate similar weather impacts on crop yields, for a large range of sensitivity analyses. Our structural estimates indicate that the adaptation effects are sizable and that farmers' adjustments reduce projected damage from climate change. In our illustrative case, farmers' adaptation offsets between one‐quarter to two‐thirds of the negative agronomic impacts of future warming on crop yields. Our analyses exhibit that commonly used reduced‐form models of crop yields inherently capture these within‐season behavioral responses to weather.
•Postural threat modulates anticipatory and compensatory postural adjustments.•The APA are modified under different threats at different joints of lower extremity.•Reciprocal agonist antagonist ...activations predominate during APA phase while co-activation during CPA phase.
Fear of falling increases conscious control of balance and postural threat warrants accurate anticipatory motor commands for keeping a safe body posture. This study examines the anticipatory (APAs) and compensatory (CPAs) postural adjustments generated in response to an external perturbation while individuals are positioned at two different altitudes (2 cm and 80 cm) from the floor level. The main result indicates that due to the perceived emotional threat, different agonist and antagonist muscles synergies (R and C-Indexes) are manifested, particularly during the anticipatory phase. The results suggest that the CNS sends central commands for anticipating postural adjustments by adopting primarily a muscle reciprocal activation instead of a muscle co-activation strategy. Interestingly, the APAs strategies were modified under different postural threats by controlling the agonist–antagonist muscles at different joints of lower extremity. For CPAs the reciprocal activation was less applied compared to muscles co-activation to unsure larger margin for compensatory adjustments as needed and re-establish the postural stability. The results indicate that when facing to a postural threat, the CNS modulates the anticipatory and compensatory phases of postural adjustments to minimize the risk of falling.
Voluntary movement such as lifting a foot in preparation to stepping acts as a self-initiated perturbation that disturbs postural equilibrium. To maintain and restore equilibrium, humans utilize ...early, anticipatory, and compensatory postural adjustments. Despite technological progress in accessible virtual reality (VR) devices, little is known on the usage of VR in control and maintenance of balance while standing.
How does VR modulate early, anticipatory, and compensatory postural adjustments during a dynamic task of leg lifting while avoiding an obstacle?
First, the postural adjustments in a single-leg obstacle avoidance were compared between real and VR settings, where a statistical reanalysis was performed with data subsets that minimize the difference of foot elevation speed. Second, the effect of simple foot elevation was examined to identify the fundamental nature of leg lifting motion as a self-initiated perturbation. Lastly, perceptual distortion in VR was assessed by evaluating how the spatial scale of the virtual scene used in the single-leg obstacle avoidance experiment was recognized by participants.
The VR setting reduced the activities of lower leg muscles on the supporting side not only in the compensatory phase but also in the preparatory early and anticipatory phases. On the other hand, simple foot elevation resulted in a significant increase of muscle activities with lifting height only found in the compensatory phase. Furthermore, it is suggested that the VR induced perceptual distortion in estimating the sizes of the virtual objects.
The findings provide more definitive evidence that VR presentation modulates the components of postural adjustments for maintaining upright stance while being perturbed. One of the potential psychophysical factors is perceptual distortion in VR, and this provides critical information for further development of VR based training system.
•VR alters activities of postural muscles during obstacle avoidance.•Reduced motion speed in VR may have less effect on preparatory postural response.•Perceptual distortion in VR is a potential factor modulating postural adjustments.
•Examines impacts, coping strategies, and adjustments in light of COVID-19.•Selects an international sample of hospitality operations.•Considers insights of the resilience literature and ...theory.•Develops theoretical frameworks emerging from the chosen inductive approach.•Proposes theoretical and practical implications can illuminate future research.
Drawing on the theory of resilience, and on an international sample of 45 predominantly small hospitality businesses, this exploratory study extends knowledge about the key concerns, ways of coping, and the changes and adjustments undertaken by these firms’ owners and managers during the COVID-19 outbreak. The various emergent relationships between the findings and the considered conceptual underpinnings of the literature on resilience, revealed nine theoretical dimensions. These dimensions critically illuminate and extend understanding concerning the actions and alternatives owners-managers resorted to when confronted with an extreme context. For instance, with financial impacts and uncertainty being predominant issues among participants, over one-third indicated actioning alternative measures to create much-needed revenue streams, and preparing for a new post-COVID-19 operational regime, respectively. Furthermore, 60 percent recognised making changes to the day-to-day running of the business to respond to initial impacts, or biding time in anticipation of a changing business and legal environment.