Audit committee effectiveness and earnings conservatism : an Australian analysis

The overarching objective of this study is to examine the association between audit committee effectiveness and the level of earnings conservatism exhibited by Australian publicly listed firms. Studying the audit committee effectiveness/earnings conservatism linkage is both important and timely give...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Sultana, Nigar
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: Curtin University 2010
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/2128
_version_ 1848743867084439552
author Sultana, Nigar
author_facet Sultana, Nigar
author_sort Sultana, Nigar
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description The overarching objective of this study is to examine the association between audit committee effectiveness and the level of earnings conservatism exhibited by Australian publicly listed firms. Studying the audit committee effectiveness/earnings conservatism linkage is both important and timely given the deterioration in reported earnings by firms. This study measures audit committee effectiveness based on four prime components underlying its effectiveness (i.e., independence; financial expertise; experience; and diligence) and earnings conservatism is measured following Basu (1997) and Ball and Shivakumar (2005). Using a sample of 494 firm-year observations for the period 2004 to 2008, overall results show that there is no significant association between audit committee effectiveness and earnings conservatism. Further analysis, however, indicates that firms with audit committees comprising financially qualified, experienced and more diligent members are associated with higher earnings conservatism levels. Results from this study have wide-ranging implications for regulators, investors, firms/corporate management and scholars.
first_indexed 2025-11-14T05:52:23Z
format Thesis
id curtin-20.500.11937-2128
institution Curtin University Malaysia
institution_category Local University
language English
last_indexed 2025-11-14T05:52:23Z
publishDate 2010
publisher Curtin University
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling curtin-20.500.11937-21282017-02-20T06:38:47Z Audit committee effectiveness and earnings conservatism : an Australian analysis Sultana, Nigar earnings conservatism financial expertise diligence independence experience an Australian analysis Audit committee effectiveness The overarching objective of this study is to examine the association between audit committee effectiveness and the level of earnings conservatism exhibited by Australian publicly listed firms. Studying the audit committee effectiveness/earnings conservatism linkage is both important and timely given the deterioration in reported earnings by firms. This study measures audit committee effectiveness based on four prime components underlying its effectiveness (i.e., independence; financial expertise; experience; and diligence) and earnings conservatism is measured following Basu (1997) and Ball and Shivakumar (2005). Using a sample of 494 firm-year observations for the period 2004 to 2008, overall results show that there is no significant association between audit committee effectiveness and earnings conservatism. Further analysis, however, indicates that firms with audit committees comprising financially qualified, experienced and more diligent members are associated with higher earnings conservatism levels. Results from this study have wide-ranging implications for regulators, investors, firms/corporate management and scholars. 2010 Thesis http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/2128 en Curtin University fulltext
spellingShingle earnings conservatism
financial expertise
diligence
independence
experience
an Australian analysis
Audit committee effectiveness
Sultana, Nigar
Audit committee effectiveness and earnings conservatism : an Australian analysis
title Audit committee effectiveness and earnings conservatism : an Australian analysis
title_full Audit committee effectiveness and earnings conservatism : an Australian analysis
title_fullStr Audit committee effectiveness and earnings conservatism : an Australian analysis
title_full_unstemmed Audit committee effectiveness and earnings conservatism : an Australian analysis
title_short Audit committee effectiveness and earnings conservatism : an Australian analysis
title_sort audit committee effectiveness and earnings conservatism : an australian analysis
topic earnings conservatism
financial expertise
diligence
independence
experience
an Australian analysis
Audit committee effectiveness
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/2128