Voluntary Audit Committees, Network Centrality and Accrual Estimation Errors
: Antti Fredriksson, Jari Kankaanpää
Publisher: Association of Business Schools Finland
: 2018
: Nordic Journal of Business
: 66
: 4
: 207
: 234
: 2342-9011
: http://njb.fi/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/1_Fredriksson_Kankaanpaa.pdf(external)
: https://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/30663075(external)
Drawing on the theoretical foundations of both agency theory and social structure, we study the network of a firm’s board members and auditor, defined as monitoring network, and the voluntary adoption of an audit committee as well as determine whether they make inferences on a firm’s volatility of accrual estimation errors. We theorise that a central position in the monitoring network enables the exchange of relevant accounting information affecting a firm’s decision control and ultimately the quality of accounting accruals. A firm’s voluntary adoption of an audit committee has a distinct information intermediary role in this process. We show that auditor connectedness and a firm’s network centrality are associated with a firm’s volatility of accrual estimation errors. These relations are affected by the voluntarily adoption of an audit committee, and auditor connectedness with the accrual quality is influenced by a firm’s network centrality.