We use a novel dataset extracted from the Society of Information Management’s (SIM) survey of chief information officers (CIOs) and top information technology (IT) executives to examine organizations’ most critical IT management issues during 2014-2017 and their effect on firm profitability. According to the SIM surveys, the top two IT issues management prioritizes are security/cybersecurity/privacy and IT alignment with the business. We find that firms that prioritize these two IT management issues exhibit higher profitability than firms that do not. Our study contributes to the Information Systems (IS) and Accounting Information Systems (AIS) literature on IT business value by providing empirical evidence on IT-business alignment – and to some extent, IT security – positively affecting firm financial performance.

In 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump announced his intention to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement. Although there were concerns that the exit would impede the global effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the environmental performance of U.S. firms in carbon‐intensive sectors improved after the announcement at a significantly higher pace than firms in other sectors. Moreover, our findings are concentrated among firms exposed to higher public attention. One implication is that firms under greater public scrutiny used the United States' departure from the agreement as an opportunity to credibly signal their commitment to combating global climate change.

Although information technology (IT) plays an essential role in financial reporting, many companies today lack sufficient human capabilities to utilize IT competently. We examine the association between a firm's access to IT‐capable labor and financial reporting quality (FRQ). We proxy for access to IT‐capable labor using workforce measures in the metropolitan statistical area (MSA) where the firm operates, including (1) the number of IT‐related college degrees relative to the total active workforce, (2) the level of education of IT graduates, (3) the income level of IT graduates, and (4) a composite measure. We find that firms in MSAs with a higher IT‐competent labor force are associated with fewer financial reporting misstatements and internal control issues. This study contributes to the emerging literature stream examining the influence of geographic labor characteristics on firm‐level outcomes and the research on the impact of IT capability on financial reporting processes. We also inform the current movement of integrating IT knowledge into the education curriculum.

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