The critical global role of audit firms, combined with the scarcity of qualified staff and downward pressure on fees, has increased the importance of understanding efficiency in this industry. This article examines the technical and allocative inefficiencies of audit firm staffing using data from 165 audit engagements performed by a Big 4 international certified public accountant (CPA) firm. Prior research has shown that the technical inefficiency of audit engagements leads to lower billing realization rates on audit engagements. We complement and extend this research by examining whether there are inefficiencies in allocating staff for audit engagements in addition to technical inefficiency, and whether each of these inefficiencies leads to lower billing realization rates. We find that there are differences in both technical and allocative inefficiencies across audit engagements, and that both inefficiencies lead to lower billing realization rates after controlling for other characteristics that could affect the realization rates of the audit engagements.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of independent directors in reducing firms’ information asymmetry. Moreover, the authors enrich this investigation by differentiating the effectiveness of independent directors in an intriguing comparative setting of family vs non-family firms. Family firms are used to represent an interesting environment where controlling insiders (i.e. firms’ founding families) have dominant control over corporate decisions. This study addresses the question of whether controlling-insiders dominate independent directors. Design/methodology/approach The authors manually collect firms’ founder information to identify family firm status in a sample of S&P 500 firms. Following a large literature in capital market research, the authors proxy information asymmetry by trading volume, bid-ask spread and price volatility. The authors employ multivariate regression with two-stage least square analysis, instrumental variable method, Heckman selection model and Hausman–Taylor model to address the issue of endogenous selection of board of director and family firm status. Findings The authors find a negative relation between the board independence and information asymmetry, suggesting independent directors are effective in reducing information asymmetry. Furthermore, the authors find this negative relation is stronger in family firms. These results are robust after controlling for the endogenous issues using various models. Research limitations/implications Our results suggest that independent directors in family-controlled firms are more successful in reducing information asymmetry than their counterparts in non-family firms. The authors provide direct evidence to support the existing theoretical arguments from Rediker and Seth (1995) and Anderson and Reeb (2004) that founding families and independent boards might be a powerful combination for aligning the interest of insider and diffused shareholders. The findings ease a prevalent concern that the role of independent directors might be compromised in an environment with controlling shareholders, and advocate regulations promoting board independence for various business practices. Originality/value A number of studies concentrate on the practice of corporate disclosure of firm’s performance and governance and how corporate disclosure mitigates information asymmetry (Leuz and Verrecchia, 2000; Ali et al., 2007; Chen et al., 2008). To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to examine the impact of independent directors in reducing information asymmetry. The research adds to understanding the incentives of board members and supports recent findings that different types of investors have heterogeneous incentives for corporate disclosure (Srinidhi et al., 2014).

As globalization increases and companies expand their foreign operations, their reported results, such as earnings per share, are increasingly affected by the volatility of daily foreign currency exchange (FX) rate fluctuations. The case provides a series of requirements to alert students to the effect that FX rate fluctuations have on reported operating results of a hypothetical company whose accounting records are kept in multiple currencies. The hypothetical company is based on a composite of four comparable real companies. Subsidiaries are located in the Euro Zone and China to highlight the difference between a floating currency experiencing volatility and a managed currency. These currencies allow students to address the uncertainties of sovereign debt crises and changing currency policies by governments. Students research applicable standards, obtain disclosures from Form 10-Ks, obtain FX rates, complete Excel worksheets to translate monthly income into U.S. dollars, observe how reported net income changes with the pattern of monthly income and FX rates, discuss the usefulness of the mandatory disclosure on foreign exchange exposure, address the risk factors affecting future FX rates, compute debt covenant requirements, and assess how the variations of FX rates affect the company's compliance with these debt covenants and its ability to implement its business strategy.