Cristina Bailey and Matias Sokolowski
This study contributes to a growing body of literature on the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) by examining how lender incentives affected prioritization of large borrowers. In…
Abstract
Purpose
This study contributes to a growing body of literature on the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) by examining how lender incentives affected prioritization of large borrowers. In addition, this study separately examines incentives for commercial banks and credit unions during the program.
Design/methodology/approach
Using 2020 PPP loan data, the authors create a proxy for lender loan prioritization by comparing the skewness statistics of large and small loan distributions. A regression model is used to examine lender reporting incentives and loan prioritization.
Findings
Results show that larger borrowers were prioritized in receiving PPP loans earlier. Lenders with financial reporting concerns and commercial banks favored large borrowers to a greater extent.
Practical implications
This study may inform social planners and regulators about the benefits and costs of delegating emergency funding loan decisions to financial institutions.
Originality/value
The authors believe this paper is the first to examine financial institution reporting incentives in relationship to PPP lending practices. It adds novelty by examining lender incentives, while prior research has focused heavily on the economic consequences of the program and how borrower–lender relationships affected loan practices during the program.
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Jonathan Nash and Cristina Bailey
This study aims to provide evidence on how the issuance of a nonreliance restatement affects non-restating clients of the same audit office.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to provide evidence on how the issuance of a nonreliance restatement affects non-restating clients of the same audit office.
Design/methodology/approach
To test the effect of restatement issuance on office-level quality, this study runs regressions using both input- and output-based measures of audit quality.
Findings
This study finds that in the years where one or more clients of an audit office issue a restatement, audit effort is lower for non-restating clients of the same office. When two or more clients issue a restatement, other clients are charged lower audit fees, file later and are more likely to experience an audit failure.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the literature on office-level audit quality and provides an explanation for the longitudinal correlation of office-level audit failures.
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Cristina Bailey, Richard G. Brody, Gaurav Gupta and Jonathan Nash
This study aims to examine the objectivity of accounting professionals based in India.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine the objectivity of accounting professionals based in India.
Design/methodology/approach
To examine the objectivity of accountants based in India, this study performs an experiment using a well-established instrument from prior literature. The authors asked accounting professionals based in India to act as either the seller or buyer in a hypothetical acquisition scenario. Participants were asked to evaluate the obsolescence of an apparel company’s inventory, assessing both the probability of inventory obsolescence and the likelihood they would propose an inventory write-down.
Findings
The results indicate external auditors and tax professionals were able to remain objective, reflected in the consistency of their assessments across the buyer and seller conditions. Internal auditors were less objective, evaluating inventory obsolescence as more likely when their client was considering buying a subsidiary than when their client was considering selling a subsidiary. Internal auditors were also more likely to recommend an inventory write-down adjustment when hired by the buyer than when hired by the seller.
Originality/value
This study informs regulators and accounting professionals. Offshoring has “prompt(ed) questions regarding the factors that affect the quality of work in India” (Dickey et al., 2022, p. 680). While the authors do not prescribe specific actions, this study provides evidence on the decision-making process of accounting professionals based in India that regulators might use to craft policy. Furthermore, this study responds to calls for additional evidence on the decision-making process of accounting professionals based in India (Spilker et al., 2016; Mohapatra et al., 2015), and for evidence on the objectivity of internal auditors (Burt and Libby, 2021; Stewart and Subramaniam, 2010).
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Cristina Bailey, Richard Brody and Matias Sokolowski
Despite lessons learned from prior disaster relief funding programs, billions of dollars in fraudulent loans were issued by the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) during the…
Abstract
Purpose
Despite lessons learned from prior disaster relief funding programs, billions of dollars in fraudulent loans were issued by the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) during the COVID-19 pandemic in the USA. The misuse of funds prevented business owners and their employees who are in true financial need from accessing program funds. The purpose of this paper is to identify techniques perpetrators used to obtain funds from the program illegally since its inception in March 2020 and concludes with suggestions on internal controls to reduce fraud occurrences in future relief packages.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors analyze 106 loan fraud cases reported by the US Department of Justice and compiled by the Project on Government Oversight to examine methods individuals used to illegally obtain funds from the program. The authors complement the data with lender characteristics from Call Reports and Business Insights. They further compare the fraud sample to the entire population of PPP loans, which is available on the US Small Business Administration website. The authors report descriptive statistics, correlations and multivariate regressions.
Findings
The authors find that most fraud cases falsify tax data to access program loans and inflate payroll numbers to obtain larger loan amounts. Applicants who sought large amounts applied using multiple companies and across multiple lenders, consistent with the use of multiple loans to avoid the scrutiny of a single large loan with a single lender. The authors find that cases with larger amounts relied on less regulated lenders, such as lending companies, rather than more regulated lenders.
Originality/value
The PPP is part of the largest ever US stimulus in which the private sector allocated funds. This study provides novel evidence of how fraudsters adapted to the program's rules to defraud the government.
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Dulce Nascimento do Ó, Ana Rita Goes, João Filipe Raposo and Isabel Loureiro
Diabetes is a chronic and challenging disease and requires personal daily self-management decisions and skills. For that, it is necessary that patients have sufficient information…
Abstract
Diabetes is a chronic and challenging disease and requires personal daily self-management decisions and skills. For that, it is necessary that patients have sufficient information and health literacy to make the right choices and decisions in their self-care. Sequentially, health literacy has great relevance and influence in the daily lives of people with diabetes, since it encompasses the necessary skills to manage disease and health. Health literacy can be a relevant factor to consider when tackling diabetes self-management. Thus, for the prevention and treatment of diabetes, it is essential to promote individual health literacy. The quality of communication and patient-centred communication style seems to be a key aspect for the health literacy.
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David Alexander, Hélène de Brébisson, Cristina Circa, Eva Eberhartinger, Roberta Fasiello, Markus Grottke and Joanna Krasodomska
Accounting practices vary not only across firms, but also across countries, reflecting the respective legal and cultural background. Attempts at harmonization therefore continue…
Abstract
Purpose
Accounting practices vary not only across firms, but also across countries, reflecting the respective legal and cultural background. Attempts at harmonization therefore continue to be rebuffed. The purpose of this paper is to argue that different wordings in national laws, and different interpretations of similar wordings in national laws, can be explained by taking recourse to the philosophy of language, referring particularly to Searle and Wittgenstein.
Design/methodology/approach
The example of the substance over form principle, investigated in seven countries, is particularly suitable for this analysis. It is known in all accounting jurisdictions, but still has very different roots in different European countries, with European and international influences conflicting, which is reflected in the different wording of the principle from one country to the next, and the different socially constructed realities associated with those wordings.
Findings
This paper shows that, beyond accounting practices, the legal and cultural background of a country affects the wording of national law itself. The broad conclusion is that different socially constructed realities might tend to resist any attempt at harmonized socially constructed words.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to the debate surrounding the possible homogenization of accounting regulations, illustrating the theory of the social construction of both “reality” and “language” on the specific application of one common principle to various Member State environments.
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Jaqueline Pels, Cristina Mele and Maria Spano
Prior research acknowledges the lack of theorizing of markets within marketing. This paper aims to capture the emerging themes linked to different conceptualizations of the market…
Abstract
Purpose
Prior research acknowledges the lack of theorizing of markets within marketing. This paper aims to capture the emerging themes linked to different conceptualizations of the market and provide a language system for theorizing the market.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper conducts a bibliometric analysis of 177 articles and 22 keywords and adopts Mele et al.’s (2015) market conceptualization to interpret the results.
Findings
The bibliometric analysis detects five thematic clusters: market driving, market exchange, market shaping, market practices and macro-marketing. Based on their degrees of relevance and development, these are arranged into two groups. The analysis of these two language systems shows a shift toward a more comprehensive conversation on how the market is conceptualized. The authors synthesize this shift under the expression “from market driving to market shaping.”
Research limitations/implications
The comparison of the two language systems allows the argument that market is a complex concept and that to understand it necessitates a rich set of terms.
Practical implications
The different ways of conceptualizing the market mean that managers face a choice when analyzing their market situations (what language system to use). This choice will be consequential for their subsequent actions.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the identification of two rival language systems and narratives: market driving and market shaping.
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Situational leadership has been noted as one of the most recognizable leadership concepts (Northouse, 2007). Teaching the model to a college student audience may become more of…
Abstract
Situational leadership has been noted as one of the most recognizable leadership concepts (Northouse, 2007). Teaching the model to a college student audience may become more of monotony than a learning experience. Using popular media technology to teach situational leadership can appeal to more learning styles than the typical lecture, and make the study of leadership more exciting. Grey’s Anatomy (2007) is a popular drama television series that shows the directing, coaching, supporting, and delegating styles of situational leadership. Using media clips from this series, students can relate to the dramatic relationships and daily demands of the student intern characters. They also learn more about situational leadership through living in the “leadership moment” of the scenes.
Adriana Tiron-Tudor, Cristina Silvia Nistor and Cristina Alexandrina Stefanescu
The purpose of this paper is to approach, both theoretically and empirically, public sector reporting at European Union (EU) level. It contributes to the accounting harmonisation…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to approach, both theoretically and empirically, public sector reporting at European Union (EU) level. It contributes to the accounting harmonisation literature by revealing the actual status of governmental reporting at the national level.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper carried out an exploratory data analysis of the harmonisation of statistical, budgetary and financial reporting at the EU level. A mapping visualisation offers a comprehensive overview of the current state of connections between these reporting systems.
Findings
The results reveal the complexity of governments’ reporting systems homogeneity, although all stakeholders recognise the struggle for the principles of performance and transparency in the public sector. Thus, these are following the EU Commission’s study, which concludes that there is significant heterogeneity in the accounting and reporting practices applied transversely throughout all Member States.
Research limitations/implications
The relevance of the study is comprehensive, from the economic environment to the practitioners, from the international regulatory bodies to the national ones, all can assess and quantify the significance of the past, present and future changes, considering their needs. The limitations of the research regard the documentation background because uniformly accessing some information presented by the EU Member States is relatively tricky. Future research might focus on the effects of these changes as they occur.
Originality/value
The study contributes to the scientific literature in the public sector through a comprehensive, well-supported and statistically grounded analysis performed at EU level, able to provide reliable results and to support valuable future recommendations towards harmonised reporting. Moreover, it supports and encourages all national and international efforts for improving the comparability of financial, budgetary and aggregated statistical reports.
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Peng Sun, Cristina Andersson, Xicheng Wei, Zhaonian Cheng, Dongkai Shangguan and Johan Liu
To determine the Coffin‐Manson (CM) equation constants for fatigue life estimation of Sn‐8Zn‐3Bi solder joints, since Sn‐8Zn‐3Bi solder has a melting temperature of around 199°C…
Abstract
Purpose
To determine the Coffin‐Manson (CM) equation constants for fatigue life estimation of Sn‐8Zn‐3Bi solder joints, since Sn‐8Zn‐3Bi solder has a melting temperature of around 199°C which is close to that of the conventional Sn‐Pb solder which has previously been used in the electronics assembly industry.
Design/methodology/approach
Three dimensional finite element (FE) simulation analysis was used for comparison with the experimentally measured data and to determine the CM constants. Low cycle fatigue tests and FE simulations were carried out for these lead‐free solder joints, and eutectic Sn‐37Pb solder was used as a reference.
Findings
The CM equation for Sn‐8Zn‐3Bi solder joints was fitted to the lifetimes measured and the shear strains simulated. The constants were determined to be 0.0294 for C, the proportional constant, and for the fatigue exponent, β, −2.833.
Originality/value
The CM equation can now be used to predict the reliability of Sn‐8Zn‐3Bi solder joints in electronics assembly and the knowledge base for the properties of the Sn‐Zn solder system has been increased.