نوع مقاله : مقاله علمی پژوهشی
نویسندگان
1 استادیار گروه حسابداری، دانشکده مدیریت، اقتصاد و حسابداری، دانشگاه پیام نور، ایران.
2 استادیارحسابداری، گروه اقتصاد، مدیریت و حسابداری، دانشگاه پیام نور، ایران.
3 کارشناسی ارشد، گروه اقتصاد، مدیریت و حسابداری، دانشگاه پیام نور، ایران.
چکیده
کلیدواژه‌ها
موضوعات
عنوان مقاله [English]
نویسندگان [English]
Objective: According to agency theory, it is assumed that managers’ emphasis on personal interests and efforts to cover up their poor performance impose direct and indirect agency costs on companies. On the other hand, opportunistic behavior theory also highlights that managers, under persistent pressure from investors to achieve higher profits, may manipulate financial reports. In fact, the existence of conflicts of interest between management and owners strengthens the theory that managerial reports may lack honesty and accuracy. This is because management typically tends to disclose positive performance while hiding the weaknesses of the company. Accordingly, the choice of tone in reporting provides an opportunity for managers to influence users’ decisions without fear of potential lawsuits. Thus, financial distress can be considered a significant factor affecting the financial reporting behavior of managers. It is possible that managers, when faced with poor financial conditions, alter the tone of their explanatory reports to influence users’ perceptions of the information. In this context, auditors, as representatives of the owners, can play an effective role in controlling and preventing biased reporting by improving audit quality. Therefore, the aim of this study is to examine the moderating effect of audit quality on the relationship between financial distress and the tone inconsistency of managers’ explanatory reports.
Methodology: This research is applied in terms of purpose and descriptive-correlational in terms of execution method. It falls under the category of descriptive-post-event research. To test the hypotheses, panel data from 133 companies listed on the stock exchange over a 10-year period (2013–2022) has been used. The research models were estimated using multivariate regression methods.
Findings: The findings of the study indicate that financial distress has a direct and significant impact on the tone inconsistency of managers’ explanatory reports. This means that managers of financially distressed companies are more inclined to influence users’ perceptions through biased explanatory reports. Additionally, the results showed that audit quality can mitigate the effect of financial distress on the tone inconsistency of managers’ explanatory reports. In fact, improving audit quality is an effective way to control and prevent biased reporting by management, as the detection of material misstatements plays an important role in alerting users to opportunistic managerial behaviors. Furthermore, high-quality audits enhance the accuracy of the information provided by the company, and increasing users’ trust in the information.Therefore, the appropriate strategy is to acknowledge the honest statement of the annual reports of the managers by the auditors in the audit reports.
Conclusion: The results of this study provide a different perspective on the role of financial distress in managers’ behavior regarding explanatory reports. It also offers valuable insights to enrich the existing literature on the role of detecting audit misstatements and the importance of audit quality.
کلیدواژه‌ها [English]
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