فصلنامه بررسی های حسابداری و حسابرسی
پیاپی 106 (زمستان 1400)

Wrongdoing consumes a lot of resources in years and harms companies in many ways. Based on other developed countries experiences, improving and developing whistle blowing is one of the effective and best ways of preventing and detecting wrongdoing activities. The whistle blowing describes the action of a worker disclosing (internally or externally) questionable practices, from within an organization, to the parties that can take remedial actions. Internal auditors are the best people that could do this job and the result show itself as silence, leaving the company and reporting. Recent studies show that the rate and role of internal auditors in detecting, and whistle blowing is increased. However, professional entities in the world are not engaged in this topic and their opinion is not clear about the responsibilities and role of internal auditors in whistle blowing concept. Whistle-blowing describes the action of a worker disclosing questionable practices, from within an organization, to the parties that can take remedial actions. Few researches conducted in the world about whistle blowing and internal audits. This is the first study that examined Iranian internal auditors’ tendency toward the whistle blowing.

This research is applied in terms of purpose, and terms of method is among quasi-experimental research and in the field of behavioral research. The purpose of this study is to identify factors that influence internal auditors in Iran to blow the whistle. Six individual-level, independent variables (attitude, injunctive norm, descriptive norm, perceived behavioral control, self-efficacy and awareness of the whistle-blowing protection legislation) are examined for their relationship with the dependent variable (intention to blow the whistle). Moral intensity is examined for its moderating effect on the relationships that exist between the seven independent variables and the dependent variable. In this research we used Scenario-based survey and using Structural Equation and analyses 458 questionnaires for internal auditors between 2019 and 2020 is examined using PLS software.

Results of this study show that there is a significant and strong relation between descriptive norms, self-efficiency, whistle-blowing protection legislation and weak significant relation between attitude, injunctive norms and tendency of internal auditors for the whistle blowing. Also, age, gender, education, employment position, work experience and auditing work experience as moderating variables have a significant relation with internal auditors for the whistle blowing. Finally, results show that moral intensity is a moderator in the research model and affects significantly the relationship between research variables. Finally, a conceptual framework for the tendency of internal auditors to report whistle blowing was developed and presented.

In order to achieve the positive consequences of whistle blowing and increase the effectiveness of the internal audit, it is necessary to consider the factors affecting the tendency to whistle blowing be considered by decision makers, policy makers and stakeholders, and provide the basis for strengthening its infrastructure and developing a culture of reporting erroneous actions. On the other hand, due to the importance and impact of knowledge of internal auditors about their role, responsibility for Whistle blowing, recommended that professional institutions and set standards for reporting wrongdoing and whistle blowing by internal auditors and increase the awareness of internal auditors.

The purpose of this study is to answer the question of whether the four management attitudes toward risk, which is related to the Cumulative Prospect Theory, is effective in the occurrence of fraudulent financial reporting or not.

To determine the role of cumulative perspective theory in the occurrence of fraudulent financial reporting, two hypotheses were tested and for this purpose, the annual data of 127 companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange during the period 2009 to 2018 were analyzed through ranked logistic regression analysis.

The findings of this study confirm the first and second hypotheses of the research on the effect of management's attitude towards risk in the occurrence of fraudulent financial reporting. Overall, the findings of this study show that fraudulent financial reporting follows four patterns of risk attitude, in other words, when the probability of reference profit or the probability of reference loss is high, the probability of fraudulent financial reporting increases, but if the probability of reference profit is high or The lower the probability of reference losses, the lower the likelihood of fraudulent financial reporting.

If the probability of change in profit or loss is small, the manager's attitude towards risk can change direction. In other words, if the probability of profitability increases, the manager reduces his risk-taking slightly instead of changing his attitude from risk-taking to risk-aversion. Therefore, it can be argued that the likelihood of fraudulent financial reporting can change "without changing the manager's attitude towards risk" (from risk-taking to risk-aversion)

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between the position of companies in the social network of Iranian stock market companies and accrual earnings management.

This research is a quantitative research based on the type of data collected and analyzed. The statistical population is all the companies in the Iranian capital market. In the period 2014-2017, the data were collected and analyzed.

The research findings show that the variables of degree centrality and closeness are inversely and directly related to the accrual earning management, respectively. In the structure of the social network of Iranian stock market companies, with the increase in the degree of centrality, companies have less absolute value of accruals and the use of accruals earnings management practices is reduced, which is influenced by legislators' supervision and political cost considerations for this group of companies. On the other hand, companies with higher proximity centrality, which also have more influence in the network, have a higher absolute value of accruals. Also, the results of the control variables show that the variables of asset rate of return and size of the company have a positive and significant effect on accruals.

So far, there is little knowledge about the network-based approach in order to understand the behavior of companies' earning management due to their position in the social network structure of companies in the Iranian stock market. Therefore, the present study shows that due to the network structure of companies in the Iranian stock market, which has a central core and a semi-dense structure around the core, there is an inverse relationship between the degree of centrality of the company and the management of accruals by them. But moving away from the network center in companies with a higher proximity centrality increases the use of bold tools in accrual earnings management

Whistleblowing is one of the most important and effective fraud discovery mechanism; therefore, recognizing key factors affecting whistleblowing intention should be more considered by regulators; and they must try to encourage employees to whistle the blow. As whole, this research aim to modeling accountant whistleblowing intention.

Moral intuition, theory of planed behavior and fraud triangle are three theoretical approaches that can be merged for modeling accountant intention to whistleblowing or not to whistle the blow. Thus, research model that designed on these approaches, is examined by several statistical tests include Delphi content analysis, Shannon entropy and structural equation model. Also, Swara technique is used for evaluating internal and external whistleblowing intention.

According to results, research model is approved and, also, interviewers intend to internal whistleblowing specially to chairman of board more than external whistleblowing.

Accountants can play important role in reporting organizations fraud, so, managers should mange organization environment in a way that accountant intend to whistle the blow. Also, Legislators should make and sanction laws and regulations that support whistleblower hip-and-thigh

The purpose of this study is to use a meta-analysis approach to analyze and combine inconsistent results of past researches on the impact of the auditor and audit-related features on the audit report lag. These variables include the auditing firm size, auditor industry specialization, auditor change, the audit tenure, type of auditor report and auditor busy season

in order to achieve the purpose of the research using Lipsey & Wilson (2000) method  and also Cochran’s Q test and Egger test, a total of 75 studies including 20 internal studies during 2010 Up to 2019 and 55 foreign studies during the years 1989 to 2019 were reviewed. In these researches audit report lag was considered as a dependent variable and the characteristics of the audit firm as an independent variable.

The results show that there is no significant relation between audit firm size and the auditor tenure with audit report lag. While auditor change, type of auditor report, and auditor busy season have a positive relation with audit report lag. Finally, there is a negative relation between auditor industry specialization and audit report lag.

The specialized auditors in companies can speed up the audit process and make financial reports available to users with less audit lag. also to reduce audit report lag, firms should reduce the auditor change and first-year audit and Provide the necessary infrastructure to reduce material misstatements in corporate financial statements and the publishing of qualified report by auditors, which leads to Timely publish of financial statements that enriches the content of information.

This research aims to investigate the effect of quality costs on firm brand equity and ditto how green innovation affects the relationship.

The period of study is from 2009 to 2020 and the selected sample consists of 104 companies listed in Tehran Stock Exchange. To measure the quality costs, the modified quality balance has been used, and for three dimensions of the market, financial, and accounting have been considered to calculate brand equity. Finally, to measure green innovation, of variables, green management innovation, and the modified green technology innovation has been used.

The results of the study show that there is a significant reverse relationship between quality costs and brand equity; that by decreasing the quality cost of a company, the credit of its brand equity is significantly increased. Also, there is a significant reverse relationship between quality costs and green technology innovation; that by reducing the quality costs of a product, using released resources, and manufacturing of products or services fitted by the green technology innovation can be increased. Additionally, there isn’t any relation between quality costs and green management innovation; also, there is a significant direct relationship between green technology innovation and brand equity; by increasing green technology innovation, the brand equity value increases. However, there is a negative and significant reverse relationship between green management innovation and brand equity; when a firm engages more in green management innovation; the value of brand equity reduces. The mediating role of green technology innovation on the relationship between quality costs and brand equity was not rejected, but green management innovation has no mediating effect between quality costs and brand equity.

To have a strong brand, a business unit must produce goods with competitive manufacturing advantages and market, Suppliers who can offer products with similar quality and functionality but at lower prices will snatch the lead from other competitors and increase their market share. According to the concept of a "quality improvement chain", organizations can increase their competitiveness by improving quality. This will reduce quality costs by eliminating waste and reprocessing. Organizations often face recession due to a lack of internal and external financial resources. On the other hand, improving quality has more benefits than reducing costs. In the absence of product defects and as a result, there is no need to correct those defects, resources are released that can be used to produce new and innovative products. Therefore, the reduction of quality costs can lead to an increase in brand equity value given investors and customers as well as the release of resources for the implementation of green technology.

The weaknesses of economic theories in explaining individual judgment and decision making (JDM) has led to the development of psychological theories. Our paper examines the effect of past debt financing (for purchasing an asset) on managers’ decisions about keeping or replacing an asset. We also study the possibility of costly decision errors in the case of using mental accounting by managers.

We have used an experimental method applying two 2×2 between subjects factorial designs. Our experiment manipulates debt magnitude and debt security. Dependent variables for two factorial designs, are participants’ capital investment decision and past benefit perception. To explore the role of “past benefit perception" variable, as a mediator, between the unpaid principal and the capital investment decision, the regression patterns of Baron and Kenny (1986) have been used. Participants consist of 80 students and professionals assigned to one of four groups through random assignment.

Our results suggest that greater unpaid principal causes managers to be more reluctant to part with the asset. As the unpaid principal decreases, individuals’ willingness to replace the asset increases. We also find that participants' perceptions about the past benefits realized from the asset mediate the relation between the unpaid principal balance and participants' investment decision. So, individuals’ reluctance to dispose the asset in the case of high level of unpaid principal is related to the past benefits perceptions. In addition, our findings show that the level of security has no effect on manages’ capital investment decision. From a cognitive perspective, the onerous thought of a large lump sum principal payment (when the debt is secured) or an ongoing stream of future debt service payments (when the debt is unsecured) without any matching benefits appears to overwhelm the economic benefits of replacing the machine.

Our study shows that a psychological factor may cause managers to forego investments that they should invest according to the capital budgeting techniques. This cognitive bias arised from the formation of mental accounts reduces JDM quality. Being aware of such cognitive biases contributed to the accounting literature through providing valuable information for capital budgeting studies. It is highly recommended that affiliated Finance, Business and Accounting faculties allocate specific modules in mental accounting and related cognitive biases for post graduate students. In terms of future research directions, it is recommended to study the effect of different debasing techniques such as instruction on the JDM quality in future research