We examine whether the reputation incentives of audit committee members are associated with their effectiveness in monitoring the financial reporting process. Prior research assumes that audit committee members allocate their effort proportionately across all memberships on which they serve. However, our findings suggest that audit committee members with multiple audit committee memberships tend to focus their attention on the memberships that provide them with the greatest reputation incentives. Specifically, firms with a larger proportion of audit committee members where the membership is the most prominent are associated with higher financial reporting quality and more effective monitoring of internal control. Additional tests reveal that audit committee members’ reputation incentives are driving our results rather than independent non‐audit committee members’ reputation incentives. We conclude that reputation is a strong incentive for audit committee members, such that it influences their monitoring effectiveness over the financial reporting process.

We link the reputational incentives of independent directors in the labor market to firms' corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance. We show that when a larger fraction of a firm's independent directors considers the firm more prominent, the firm has better CSR performance. This association is more pronounced for firms that are more visible and those that face greater external CSR pressure. Such firms are also more likely to (1) issue CSR reports and obtain independent assurance on those reports; (2) include CSR items in annual general meeting agendas; (3) invest in the optimal level of CSR. Finally, we show that an independent director is more likely to gain directorships if the CSR performance of their most prominent board improves. Our results are robust to controlling for firm fixed effects and when using plausibly exogenous shocks to the reputational incentives of independent directors. Overall, our results are consistent with our conjecture that the reputational incentives of independent directors have a positive influence on firms' CSR performance.

We examine the association between corporate reputation and the timeliness of external audit and earnings announcement. Changes in financial reporting regulation have resulted in longer audit delay, leading to an increase in the number of firms that announce earnings prior to audit completion, both of which have implications for the quality and usefulness of financial information. We find that corporate reputation is negatively associated with audit report lag, earnings announcement lag, and the likelihood of firms announcing earnings after audit completion. Our results are robust to a variety of sensitivity tests. We document important benefits in the form of timelier audits and earnings announcements derived from developing and maintaining a good corporate reputation. Our findings have implications for client firms and auditors, particularly given the challenges faced by auditors in terms of more onerous audit requirements and shorter filing deadlines, as well as demands for timelier information faced by firms.

We examine the election of directors to corporate social responsibility (CSR) committees and whether shareholder votes influence CSR committee effectiveness. Our study is motivated by the importance that shareholders place on CSR and the responsibilities of the board in overseeing a firm's CSR practices. We find that CSR committee members receive greater shareholder support than other directors.We further find that among CSR committee members, those who are more experienced and skilled receive greater shareholder support. Furthermore, when a firm's CSR performance is poorer (better), CSR committee members receive lower (greater) shareholder support compared with other directors. Finally, we find that through voting, shareholders can increase the efficacy of the CSR committee, leading to improvements in CSR committee structure and performance. Overall, our results suggest that shareholders value the services and expertise of CSR committee members and hold them accountable for CSR performance. Shareholder votes are also effective in enhancing CSR performance.

We investigate whether climate change disclosures in initial public offering (IPO) prospectuses affect the information environment in the IPO market. We find that climate change disclosures are associated with lower IPO underpricing. Further analyses reveal that reputable underwriters and the Securities Exchange Commission's Commission Guidance Regarding Disclosure Related to Climate Change enhance the information role of climate change disclosures in the IPO market. We demonstrate that firms with more extensive climate change disclosures provide stronger hedging benefits against climate change risks in the post-IPO period. Overall, our results support the crucial role of climate change disclosures in improving the information environment of the IPO market. K E Y W O R D S analysts' forecasting properties, bid-ask spread, climate change disclosure, climate change risk, IPO underpricing