We conduct interviews with valuation specialists (specialists) employed by accounting firms (in North America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region) to understand how they work with auditors to evaluate the reasonableness of fair value measurements (FVMs) for financial instruments. The rapid growth of FVMs and complex estimates reported in the financial statements requires that auditors increasingly rely on specialists to perform these evaluations. Informed by coopetition theory from management and organizational science, we develop a framework to examine the tensions in the auditor-specialist alliance (the coopetitive alliance) and how those tensions can impact FVM audit quality. Our framework considers five factors that contribute to tensions in the coopetitive alliance -organizational structure, economic independence and stressors, project goals, group identity, and knowledge sharing. We find that tensions around the economic independence of the specialist unit, auditor delays in engaging the specialist, and specialists' perceptions that auditors do not respect their expertise and contribution to the FVM audit, lead specialists to distrust auditors and to respond in ways that threaten audit quality. Further, we show that firm-level choices in the organizational structure and policies governing the use of specialists can impact the perceived quality of the specialist unit and the quality of audited FVMs. Our research complements recent studies examining the role of specialists in audit engagements with significant complex estimates and provides new insights to academics, regulators, and professionals.

This paper summarises the contents of a comment letter produced by a working group of 12 academics in response to the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) Discussion Paper on principles of disclosure. The comment letter was submitted by the Financial Reporting Standards Committee (FRSC) of the European Accounting Association (EAA). The work includes reviews of relevant academic literature of areas related to the various questions posed by the IASB in the Discussion Paper, including the 'disclosure problem' and the objective of the project, the suggested principles of effective communication, the roles of the primary financial statements and notes, the location of information and the use of performance measures. The paper also discusses the disclosure of accounting policies, the objectives of centralised disclosure, and the New Zealand Accounting Standards Board staff's approach to disclosure.

SUMMARY On May 28, 2015 the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (hereafter, the Board) issued Staff Consultation Paper No. 2015-01 (hereafter, the Staff Consultation Paper) to seek information and input on the potential need to improve standards related to the auditor's use of the work of specialists. The Board requested input from investors, accounting firms, specialists, companies, and others (such as academics) about (1) current practices, (2) the potential need for changes, and (3) possible alternative regulatory approaches, and any associated economic implications, for potential improvement in standards related to oversight and assessing the objectivity of employed and engaged specialists. The comment period ended July 31, 2015. This commentary summarizes the contributors' views on selected questions posed in the Staff Consultation Paper. Data Availability: The invitation to comment (through July 31, 2015), with links to the Consultation Paper, is available at: http://www.pcaobus.org/Standards/Pages/SCP_Specialists.aspx

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There is an ongoing debate about whether executives receive excessive compensation, and if so, how to control it. Several countries have instituted say-on-pay rules (shareholders' right to vote on executive compensation) to reduce excessive compensation. However, determining the effectiveness of say-on-pay is difficult because its tenets vary by country due to political, institutional, cultural, economic, and social factors. Policy issues like say-on-pay are complex, ill-structured problems without definitive assumptions, theories, or solutions. Existing say-on-pay research is inconclusive, since some studies find no change in CEO compensation around its adoption, whereas other studies show that say-on-pay lowers CEO pay or changes its composition. This paper chronicles the history of say-on-pay, compares its implementation by groups (e.g. shareholders-initiated versus legislated and binding versus advisory), discusses the complexities of using say-on-pay to address excessive executive compensation, and recommends future research directions.