光华讲坛

主题：Dare to Say No? Externalities of Employee Employment Protection on Financial Misreporting  

勇敢说不？雇员雇佣保护对财务虚报的外部性

主讲人： 肯塔基大学  Hong Xie副教授

主持人： 会计学院 蔡利 教授

时间：2024-06-25 10:00-11:30

会议地点：西南财经大学柳林校区诚正楼650

主办单位：新时代中国特色财务与会计理论创新与方法体系研究团队 数字经济重大基础理论与实践创新研究团队 会计学院 科研处

主讲人简介：

Hong Xie副教授1998年获University of Iowa博士学位，目前是肯塔基大学Chellgren副教授。谢教授的研究曾在The Accounting Review，Review of Accounting and Finance，Review of Accounting Studies，Accounting Horizons等国际顶级期刊上发表。谢教授的研究兴趣覆盖公司避税、审计质量、信息披露等领域。

内容简介：

雇员中的基层员工经常屈服于经理的欺诈性命令，参与财务虚报计划。然而，我们对哪些因素能让员工抵制此类命令的理解仍然有限。美国许多州已经采用了错误解雇法案（WDLs），以增强员工对不公正解雇的保护。我们利用这一司法环境来研究雇员就业保护对财务虚报的影响。我们的研究结果显示，当某公司所在州有WDLs法案时，其财务虚报的可能性大大降低，而在无此法案的州的公司中则不存在这种现象。财务虚报可能性下降的结果在WDL采用后的一年内变得明显，并在随后的几年中持续存在。此外，我们证明了在受WDLs管辖的州边界一侧附近的公司，会比在没有WDLs的边界另一侧附近的公司更少出现会计违规行为。当员工通过强大的工会获得更多权力、员工面临较高的失业风险，或者经理有强烈的虚报动机时，这些缓解效应更加明显。总之，我们的研究结果强调了雇员就业保护对财务报告系统的积极外部性，为防止公司欺诈和促进财务报告诚信提供了有益因素。 

Rank-and-file employees often succumb to fraudulent directives from managers, participating in financial misreporting schemes. However, our understanding of the factors that empower employees to resist such directives remains limited. Many U.S. states have adopted wrongful discharge laws (WDLs) to enhance employee protection against unjust dismissals. We exploit this judicial setting to investigate the impact of employee employment protection on financial misreporting. Our findings reveal a substantial decrease in the likelihood of financial misreporting among firms operated in states with WDLs compared to those in other states. This decline becomes evident one year after WDL adoption and persists in subsequent years. Additionally, we demonstrate that firms near one side of a state border governed by WDLs exhibit lower tendencies for accounting irregularities compared to firms near the opposite side of the border without WDLs. These mitigating effects are more pronounced when employees are more empowered through strong labor unions, when employees face high unemployment risk, or when managers have strong incentives for misreporting. In summary, our results highlight the positive externalities of employee employment protection within the financial reporting systems, shedding light on an important factor that can deter corporate fraud and promote financial reporting integrity.