MAKE MOST OF THE KNOWLEDGE NETWORK, JOIN ACADEMIC RESEARCH FOUNDATION

The Brazilian audit market case can represent different aspects of audit market competition because our market structure and institutional environment of an emergent country. The objective of this study is to observe whether the audit fees are affected during the audit firm changes in the period of 2010 and 2014 in Brazil. More specifically, this research tried to discover the effects of the mandatory and voluntary changes in the audit fees and their consequences in the audit market competition. The sample was set based on non financial companies in BM & FBOVESPA, resulting in 354 companies.From the model of fixed effects, it was noticed that the discount in the audit fees in mandatory audit firm changes and the lateral changes in the initial year of the relationship. This result is possible because of the competition among firms, once there is a coincidence in the firm change period (2012). There was no significance in the voluntary changes, which may be a consequence of the circumstances that they occurred, and they may be motivated by misunderstandings with the auditing firm, by the search of better quality in the services. On the other hand, our results in non Big Four to Big Four and Big Four to non Big Four switches demonstrate that audit quality doesn’t influence the audit firm switch and what really matters is the competition in the market.

Keywords: Audit firm changes. Audit fees. Mandatory audit rotation.

This paper investigates whether corporate size, profitability, leverage, management efficiency, liquidity and tax can explain the level and quality of social and environmental disclosure (SED) in the Nigerian oil and gas industry. Timeseries crosssection (TSCS) data for a sample of eight listed Nigerian oil and gas companies are collected for the period 2004–2013. We use word count and complianceoriented content analysis to measure the quantity and quality of SED respectively. We use pooled ordinary least squares (OLS) with panel corrected standard errors to examine the relationship between SED quantity and quality, on the one hand, and the six regressors, on the other hand. Results documented show that listed companies in the Nigerian oil and gas industry make low disclosures on few Gloabal Reporting Initiative (GRI) items which exhibit low quality. While the low nature of the disclosure quantity is explained by size and to some extent management efficiency, the poor disclosure quality is jointly and individually explained by corporate size, management efficiency and liquidity. The paper provides empirical evidence showing that listed Nigerian oil and gas companies are exploiting the vulnerabilities of Nigeria as a resourcerich lessdeveloped country. Furthermore, our findings imply that legitimacy theory is useful in explaining SEDs in Nigeria through the extent of management efficiency and liquidity.

Keywords: Legitimacy theory, Social and environmental disclosure, Vulnerability, Exploitability, Oil and gas industry, less developed countries, Nigeria.

This study examines the impact of the change in accounting standards, i.e. the transition to IFRS, on the quality of accounting information. As this is a multidimensional concept, we have decided to refer to a particular aspect of accounting information, namely accounting timely loss of recognition. Indeed, our study focuses on the French context, more particularly the SBF 120 companies, which offers the advantage of translating the situation of the French financial market in the most transparent way possible. Our study covers the period from 2002 to 2012. After empirical validation, we noted that whatever the approach used, the timely loss of recognition no longer plays its role as a mechanism to combat asymmetricv information in the socalled postadoption phase of IFRS. Following the transition to IFRS, timely loss of recognition has not been a mechanism for improvement for the effectiveness of investment policies.

Keywords: IFRS, accounting information, quality, timely loss of recognition, efficiency, investment policies.

This study empirically investigates whether shareholders of corporations that are publicly held and traded in Saudi Arabia’s capital market are engaged as the owners of the corporations in which they have invested their wealth?. We conducted a content analysis of the annual reports and financial statements of 62 such corporations to discern the tone of the top management and board of directors. The study finds that the board of directors and top management both situate shareholders as owners. Financial statements and annual reports are prepared in line with the proprietary view of the firm. Nevertheless, there is a need to improve corporate reporting in Saudi Arabia in terms of company risks and related mechanisms. Because analysis was limited to 62 companies and no inferences were made regarding the texts, the findings must be generalized with caution. Saudi Arabia’s corporate reporting might be improved by addressing the risks companies face and related approaches to risk management. This study may be replicated for Saudi corporate reports in the years following the IFRS adoption with an eye for comparing the results of the two periods to further examine the nuances of corporate communications with shareholders.

Keywords: Corporations. Proprietary Theory; Shareholder Communication; Corporate Governance. Corporate Reporting, Board of Directors; Saudi capital market.

Saudi Arabia is a unique case as it is one of the largest economies in the Middle East region. According to the Ministry of Trade and Investment, the total number of companies and institutions in Saudi Arabia amounted to 1.13 million by the end of 2018. All of these companies and institutions need the services of certified public accountants, whether to audit the financial statements, to approve Zakat and tax reports or other accounting and consulting services. Until the beginning of 2019, the total number of certified public accountants in Saudi Arabia is 958, which is very low when compared with the level of public accountant’s needs in the market. Therefore, this study aims to examine the desire of accounting students in Saudi universities to work as CPA, factors affecting accounting students to pursue CPA and challenges facing them in achieving their desire to work as CPA.Based on a questionnaire distributed to 101 students in three Saudi universities, the findings suggest that the majority of the accounting students in Saudi universities have the desire to work as CPA. The finding also revealed that the most important factors that affect accounting students to pursue CPA are: financial gains, professional development opportunities and opportunities to be independent. However, students have expressed some challenges that present difficulties in achieving their desire. These challenges include difficultyof professional exam, high costs of training programs and failure of the accounting and auditing curricula in Saudi universities to include IFRS and international auditing standards.

Keywords: Saudi Arabia, CPA, Accounting students , Accounting Challenges.

Nigeria has been considered among the nations in the world with high debt profile. The sources of revenue generated to finance the debt profile have not been fully harness, most especially the tax revenue among others that can be used to relief the debt and enhance economic growth. This has been a great source of concern by the academia, policy maker, and government. This study is aim at determining the extent to which changes in direct taxes as a sources of revenue as it is in developed nation can be generated to settle the Nigerian debt burden. However, there is limited or no studies on the relationship between the direct taxes and debt burden in Nigeria. This is the focus of this study. The study is a new way to look at crucial factors effecting direct taxation and debt burden in Nigeria. The methodology used in this study is descriptive that review the literature on direct taxes and debts. The study is also limited to literature review that needs further research by proposing a conceptual fram work on the relationship between taxation and debt profile in Nigeria. The conclusion of the study is that taxation as a source of revenue in Nigeria have been underutilized even though, it has the capacity to generated huge revenue to reduce and even pay off debt burden of the Nigerian government, and expenditure to promote economic growth. Hence, taxation need to be harness properly, as it is in other developed world, to enable government finance and pay offits debts, expenditure and promote economy growth and development.

Keywords: Debt, Direct tax, Indirect tax, Nigeria, Revenue.