tailieunhanh - Principles-Based versus Rules-Based Accounting Standards:The Influence of Standard Precision and Audit Committee Strength on Financial Reporting Decisions

One concern about the voluntary offset market as it continues to grow is the possibility that suppliers may sell the same reductions to multiple buyers, because there is no central authority to track their transactions. Related to this, questions can arise in some instances about who “owns” emission reductions and who in fact has the right to sell them. In some cases, multiple parties may conceivably lay claim to the same reduction. For example, both the manufacturer and the installer of energy efficient lightbulbs might want to claim the emission reductions caused by the lightbulbs – as might the owners. | American Accounting Association DOI THE ACCOUNTING REVIEW Vol. 86 No. 3 2011 pp. 747-767 Principles-Based versus Rules-Based Accounting Standards The Influence of Standard Precision and Audit Committee Strength on Financial Reporting Decisions Christopher P. Agoglia University of Massachusetts Amherst Timothy S. Doupnik University of South Carolina George T. Tsakumis Drexel University ABSTRACT Recent accounting scandals have resulted in regulatory initiatives designed to strengthen audit committee oversight of corporate financial reporting and have led to a concern that . GAAP has become too rules-based. We examine issues related to these initiatives using two experiments. CFOs in our experiments exhibit more agreement and are less likely to report aggressively under a less precise more principles-based standard than under a more precise more rules-based standard. Our results also indicate that CFOs applying a more precise standard are less likely to report aggressively in the presence of a strong audit committee than a weak audit committee. We find no effect of audit committee strength when the standard is less precise. Finally we find support for a three-path mediating model examining mechanisms driving the effect of standard precision on aggressive reporting decisions. These results should be of interest to . policymakers as they continue to contemplate a shift to more principles-based accounting standards . IFRS . Keywords standard precision rules-based standards principles-based standards audit committee IFRS. Data Availability Contact the authors. We thank Wendy Bailey Cathy Beaudoin Bill Dilla Rick Hatfield Scott Jackson Tamara Lambert Justin Leiby Steve Perreault Roger Silvers Hun-Tong Tan Brad Tuttle Xiaochuan Zheng Laureen Maines editor Steve Kachelmeier senior editor two anonymous reviewers and participants at the 2009 AAAAnnual Meeting the 2009 AAA International Section Midyear Conference and the 2010 Deloitte University .