IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mag/wpaper/07006.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Corporate Governance, Reputation Concerns, and Herd Behavior

Author

Listed:
  • Barbara Schöndube-Pirchegger

    (Faculty of Economics and Management, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg)

Abstract

This paper offers an explanation for audit committee failures within a corporate governance context. We consider a setting in which the management of a firm sets up financial statements that are possibly biased. These statements are reviewed/audited by an external auditor and by an audit committee. Both agents report the result of their audit, the auditor acting first. The auditor and the audit committee use an imperfect auditing technology. As a result of their work they privately observe a signal regarding the quality of the financial statements. The probability for a correct signal in the sense that an unbiased report is labelled correct and a biased one incorrect, depends on the type of the agent. Good as well as bad agents exist in the economy. Importantly, two good agents observe identical informative signals while the signal observed by a bad agent is uninformative and uncorrelated to those of other good or bad agents. The audit committee as well as the auditor are anxious to build up reputation regarding their ability in the labor market. Given this predominate goal they report on the signal in order to maximize the market’s assessment of their ability. At the end of the game the true character of the financial statements is publicly learned and the market uses this information along with the agents’ reports to update beliefs about the agents’ type. We show that herding equilibria exist in which the auditor reports based on his signal but the audit committee .herds. and follows the auditor’s judgement no matter what its own insights suggest.

Suggested Citation

  • Barbara Schöndube-Pirchegger, 2007. "Corporate Governance, Reputation Concerns, and Herd Behavior," FEMM Working Papers 07006, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Faculty of Economics and Management.
  • Handle: RePEc:mag:wpaper:07006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ww.uni-magdeburg.de/fwwdeka/femm/a2007_Dateien/2007_06.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2007
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Demski, Joel S., 2002. "Enron et al.--a comment," Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 129-130.
    2. Revsine, Lawrence, 2002. "Enron: sad but inevitable," Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 137-145.
    3. Hermalin, Benjamin E & Weisbach, Michael S, 1998. "Endogenously Chosen Boards of Directors and Their Monitoring of the CEO," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(1), pages 96-118, March.
    4. Scharfstein, David S & Stein, Jeremy C, 1990. "Herd Behavior and Investment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(3), pages 465-479, June.
    5. Lucian Arye Bebchuk & Jesse M. Fried, 2003. "Executive Compensation as an Agency Problem," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(3), pages 71-92, Summer.
    6. Mark L. Defond & Rebecca N. Hann & Xuesong Hu, 2005. "Does the Market Value Financial Expertise on Audit Committees of Boards of Directors?," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(2), pages 153-193, May.
    7. Richard M. Cyert & Sok-Hyon Kang & Praveen Kumar, 2002. "Corporate Governance, Takeovers, and Top-Management Compensation: Theory and Evidence," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 48(4), pages 453-469, April.
    8. Benston, George J. & Hartgraves, Al L., 2002. "Enron: what happened and what we can learn from it," Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 105-127.
    9. Welch, Ivo, 2000. "Herding among security analysts," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(3), pages 369-396, December.
    10. Arya, Anil & Mittendorf, Brian, 2005. "Using disclosure to influence herd behavior and alter competition," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(1-3), pages 231-246, December.
    11. Ozerturk, Saltuk, 2005. "Board independence and CEO pay," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 260-265, August.
    12. Bebchuk, Lucian A. & Fried, Jesse M., 2003. "Executive Compensation as an Agency Problem," Berkeley Olin Program in Law & Economics, Working Paper Series qt81q3136r, Berkeley Olin Program in Law & Economics.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wolfgang Drobetz & Pascal Pensa & Markus M. Schmid, 2007. "Estimating the Cost of Executive Stock Options: evidence from Switzerland," Corporate Governance: An International Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(5), pages 798-815, September.
    2. HaiYan Yang & Daifei (Troy) Yao & Xin Qu, 2022. "How does independent directors’ reputation influence pay‐for‐performance? Evidence from China," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 62(1), pages 959-1007, March.
    3. Burak Güner, A. & Malmendier, Ulrike & Tate, Geoffrey, 2008. "Financial expertise of directors," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 323-354, May.
    4. Broye, Géraldine & François, Abel & Moulin, Yves, 2017. "The cost of CEO duality: Evidence from French leadership compensation," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 336-350.
    5. Barbara Schondube-Pirchegger & Jens Robert Schondube, 2010. "On the Appropriateness of Performance-Based Compensation for Supervisory Board Members - An Agency Theoretic Approach," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(4), pages 817-835.
    6. Fedaseyeu, Viktar & Linck, James S. & Wagner, Hannes F., 2018. "Do qualifications matter? New evidence on board functions and director compensation," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 816-839.
    7. Hwang, Byoung-Hyoun & Kim, Seoyoung, 2009. "It pays to have friends," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(1), pages 138-158, July.
    8. Qiu, Buhui & Trapkov, Svetoslav & Yakoub, Fadi, 2014. "Do target CEOs trade premiums for personal benefits?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 23-41.
    9. Kato, Takao & Kim, Woochan & Lee, Ju Ho, 2007. "Executive compensation, firm performance, and Chaebols in Korea: Evidence from new panel data," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 36-55, January.
    10. Neupane, Biwesh & Thapa, Chandra & Marshall, Andrew & Neupane, Suman & Shrestha, Chaman, 2024. "Do foreign institutional investors improve board monitoring?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    11. Ahmed, Shaker & Ranta, Mikko & Vähämaa, Emilia & Vähämaa, Sami, 2023. "Facial attractiveness and CEO compensation: Evidence from the banking industry," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    12. Palmberg, Johanna, 2012. "Family Control and Executive Compensation," Ratio Working Papers 186, The Ratio Institute.
    13. Sualihu, Mohammed Aminu & Rankin, Michaela & Haman, Janto, 2021. "The role of equity compensation in reducing inefficient investment in labor," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    14. Elsayed, Mohamed & Elshandidy, Tamer & Ahmed, Yousry, 2022. "Corporate failure in the UK: An examination of corporate governance reforms," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    15. Dow, James, 2013. "Boards, CEO entrenchment, and the cost of capital," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(3), pages 680-695.
    16. Graham, John R. & Kim, Hyunseob & Leary, Mark, 2020. "CEO-board dynamics," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(3), pages 612-636.
    17. Chongwoo Choe & Gloria Tian & Xiangkang Yin, 2008. "Managerial Power, Stock-Based Compensation, And Firm Performance: Theory And Evidence," Monash Economics Working Papers 21/08, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    18. Bereskin, Frederick L. & Cicero, David C., 2013. "CEO compensation contagion: Evidence from an exogenous shock," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(2), pages 477-493.
    19. Lucian Bebchuk, 2005. "The Growth of Executive Pay," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 21(2), pages 283-303, Summer.
    20. Naeem Tabassum & Satwinder Singh, 2020. "Corporate Governance and Organisational Performance," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-030-48527-6, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    corporate governance; audit committee; game theory; herding;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:mag:wpaper:07006. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Guido Henkel (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fwmagde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.