Executives' "Off-The-Job" Behavior, Corporate Culture, and Financial Reporting Risk / Robert Davidson, Aiyesha Dey, Abbie J. Smith.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Davidson, Robert.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Dey, Aiyesha.

Smith, Abbie J.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w18001.

NBER working paper series no. w18001

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2012.

Summary:

We examine how executives' behavior outside the workplace, as measured by their ownership of luxury goods (low "frugality") and prior legal infractions, is related to financial reporting risk. We predict and find that CEOs and CFOs with a legal record are more likely to perpetrate fraud. In contrast, we do not find a relation between executives' frugality and the propensity to perpetrate fraud. However, as predicted, we find that unfrugal CEOs oversee a relatively loose control environment characterized by relatively high probabilities of other insiders perpetrating fraud and unintentional material reporting errors. Further, cultural changes associated with an increase in fraud risk are more likely during unfrugal (vs. frugal) CEOs' reign, including the appointment of an unfrugal CFO, an increase in executives' equity-based incentives to misreport, and a decline in measures of board monitoring intensity.

Notes:

Print version record

April 2012.