In an effort to restore investor confidence in the wake of recent financial reporting scandals, the Sarbanes‐Oxley Act of 2002 mandates that audit committees be fully independent and have at least one financial expert. The SEC adopted rules implementing these Sarbanes‐Oxley provisions. This paper contributes to the literature on the association between audit committee characteristics recommended by SOX and the likelihood of fraud in two ways. First, we focus on audit committee composition and the extent of the underlying nature of the firm (e.g., firm size, growth) and the contracting environment (e.g., managerial ownership, leverage) of the firm on the likelihood of fraud. In particular, we find that the likelihood of fraudulent financial reporting is negatively related to audit committee independence, number of audit committee meetings and managerial ownership and positively related to firm size and firm growth opportunities. Second, we separately examine firms with totally independent audit committees and fraudulent financial reporting. This sample is interesting because these are firms that had good corporate governance and yet still had fraudulent financial reporting. By separately examining firms with totally independent audit committees, we find that the likelihood of fraudulent financial reporting given a totally independent audit committee is inversely related to the level of managerial ownership and the number of audit committee meetings.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

Historically black colleges and universities (“HBCU”) provide an academic environment that contributes to increased student success and social mobility. However, this environment introduces unique working conditions for faculty members. The existing academic literature does not provide evidence about the motivation and job satisfaction of HBCU accounting faculty.  This study addresses that gap and provides survey evidence on this unique group's motivation and job satisfaction.  We find that respondents are motivated by helping others but are not satisfied with institutional operations, research resources, and compensation.  We also find that tenured faculty have lower job satisfaction than non-tenured faculty.  Demographically, we find that the respondents were older, tenured, and have significant practitioner experience.  Taken together, these findings identify opportunities for improvement in job satisfaction for HBCU accounting faculty.