Charalambos Spathis | Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (original) (raw)
Papers by Charalambos Spathis
Auditor selection can be regarded as a matter of audit quality. Research studies aiming to model ... more Auditor selection can be regarded as a matter of audit quality. Research studies aiming to model the auditor choice employ statistical techniques. Here we employ three techniques derived from the Data Mining domain to build models capable of discriminating cases where companies choose a Big 4 or a Non-Big 4 auditor. Significant factors associated with the auditor choice are revealed. The three models are compared in terms of their performances. According to 10-fold cross validation bagging increases significantly the performance of one classifier.
This study assesses factors influencing Internal Audit Quality (IAQ) in Greece. Hand-collected da... more This study assesses factors influencing Internal Audit Quality (IAQ) in Greece. Hand-collected data were obtained from 2013 and 2014 annual financial reports from companies such as food industries, beverage –and their subcategoriesindustries as well as fishing and distillation, listed in Athens Stock Exchange (ASE). Previous literature was chosen in order to highlight significant independent variables. Linear regression analysis examines the association between Internal Audit Compliance (IAC) and seven principal factors. In order to define IAC we consider the compliance of an internal audit function analyzing in operational aspects such as the Segmentation of Duties and the Professional Competence and Knowledge Adequacy. The results found indicate Internal Audit Compliance, on a sample of Greek listed firms; have significant associations between the degrees of compliance to some external audit variables.
This study’s objective is to assess the factors that influence disclosure of internal audit (IA) ... more This study’s objective is to assess the factors that influence disclosure of internal audit (IA) in Greece. The data was hand collected and obtained from 2014 annual financial reports from 173 companies listed in Athens Stock Exchange (ASE). We assess the internal audit disclosure in terms of internal audit operations, corporate governance, and quantity of disclosure. Previous literature was chosen so as to highlight significant independent variables that are related to external audit. Linear regression analysis examines the association between internal audit operations (IAO), corporate governance code (CGC) and number of words (NW), and seven principal factors. In attempt to define IA Disclosure (IAD), we consider the disclosure of an internal audit function analyzing in operational and procedural aspects and at the same time with aspects of annual report text content. The results indicate internal audit disclosure, on the main sample of Greek listed firms, as well as the existence...
Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, 2012
The mandatory adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) on January 1, 2005 a... more The mandatory adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) on January 1, 2005 aimed to improve the quality of financial reporting in Greece, which had been regularly criticized for the practice of earnings management and the ineffectiveness of external auditing. However, the unusual characteristics of the economic environment and institutional setting of code-law oriented Greece, has made the attempt even more challenging. To investigate the role of auditors in potentially approving managers' opportunistic behaviour in the post-IFRS period, we examine the relationship between earnings management, measured by signed discretionary accruals, and auditor reporting, measured by audit firm size (Big 4 vs. non-Big 4) and audit opinion type (unqualified vs. qualified). Using a sample of firms listed on the Athens Stock Exchange over a five-year period, we find that the size of the audit firm does not affect the level of earnings management, and the audit opinion qualification is not issued in response to management's opportunistic behaviour. The interpretation of the results is conditional on the Greek context, where the economic bonding of auditors with their clients is strong, investor protection is low, enforcement mechanisms are weak and there is low litigation and reputation loss, even in the post-IFRS period.
Accounting Forum, 2014
This study examines the relationship between audit opinions and earnings management, as measured ... more This study examines the relationship between audit opinions and earnings management, as measured by discretionary accruals, for listed firms on the Athens Stock Exchange (ASE). We divide the qualified audit opinions into two categories: qualified for the going-concern uncertainty and qualified for other reasons. The results indicate that audit opinions are not related to earnings management. Client financial characteristics, such as profitability and size are determinants of the going-concern audit opinion decision. The decision of auditors to issue qualified opinions for other reasons is explained by the type of audit opinion issued in the previous year.
Advances in Accounting Education: Teaching and Curriculum Innovations, 2012
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON BUSINESS & ECONOMICS OF THE HELLENIC OPEN UNIVERSITY 2021, Apr 10, 2021
This paper explores the effectiveness of Data Mining (DM) classification techniques in detecting ... more This paper explores the effectiveness of Data Mining (DM) classification techniques in detecting firms that issue fraudulent financial statements (FFS) and deals with the identification of factors associated to FFS. In accomplishing the task of management fraud detection, auditors could be facilitated in their work by using data mining techniques. This study investigates the usefulness of Decision Trees, Neural Networks and Bayesian Belief Networks in the identification of fraudulent financial statements. The input vector is composed of ratios derived from financial statements. The three models are compared in terms of their performances. The results identify the model with the best accuracy rate and highlight the importance of variables in fraudulent financial statement detection. They also indicate that the investigation of financial information can be of use in the identification of FFS and underline the importance of financial ratios.
Journal of Information & Knowledge Management
Recently internal controls, corporate governance and risk management have received a great deal o... more Recently internal controls, corporate governance and risk management have received a great deal of attention. Regarding internal control, several research studies address the issue of internal audit quality. Noteworthy, according to Sarbanes–Oxley (SOX) the internal controls over financial reporting are assessed by the auditors and the management. In the present study, we assess internal controls over financial reporting by employing Text Mining techniques. We analyse the annual reports of 133 publicly traded Greek Companies. The textual parts of the annual reports that refer to internal audit mechanism are extracted. We adopt a Vector Space model and the term-document matrix records the occurrence frequencies of the terms. By applying feature selection, a set of significant keywords, which are used as predictors, is extracted. The Linear Regression model developed explains the variance of the data and highlights significant predictors. The model manages to successfully assess the i...
Managerial Auditing Journal
Purpose This paper aims to assess internal audit quality (IAQ) by using automated textual analysi... more Purpose This paper aims to assess internal audit quality (IAQ) by using automated textual analysis of disclosures of internal audit mechanisms in annual reports. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses seven text mining techniques to construct classification models that predict whether companies listed on the Athens Stock Exchange are audited by a Big 4 firm, an auditor selection that prior research finds is associated with higher IAQ. The classification accuracy of the models is compared to predictions based on financial indicators. Findings The results show that classification models developed using text analysis can be a promising alternative proxy in assessing IAQ. Terms, N-Grams and financial indicators of a company, as they are presented in the annual reports, can provide information on the IAQ. Practical implications This study offers a novel approach to assessing the IAQ by applying textual analysis techniques. These findings are important for those who oversee internal ...
Journal of Applied Accounting Research, 2016
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the value relevance of accounting information b... more Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the value relevance of accounting information before and after mandatory International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) adoption as well as the ensuing relationship between conditional conservatism and value relevance. The authors probe the above relationship by considering a number of institutional parameters, such as the accounting origin of each European country, the degree of differentiation between domestic standards and IFRS, and the level of each country’s enforcement. Design/methodology/approach – The authors run panel data regressions for banks listed in 15 European countries using both the price and the return model. The authors partition the total sample in conservative and non-conservative banks – based on Khan and Watts (2009) – and in other institutional clusters based on prior highly acclaimed studies. Value relevance is then gauged by the corresponding adjusted R2. Findings – The results provide evidence that IFRS...
Euro and Profitability of Greek Banks. Author info | Abstract | Publisher info | Download info | ... more Euro and Profitability of Greek Banks. Author info | Abstract | Publisher info | Download info | Related research | Statistics. ... The impact of the EURO on Greek Banks is explained through a cost-benefit analysis, by providing a perspective of the anticipated costs, benefits and ...
Page 1. Event study methodologies in information systems research Yaniv Konchitchki 1, Daniel E. ... more Page 1. Event study methodologies in information systems research Yaniv Konchitchki 1, Daniel E. O'Leary ⁎ University of Southern California, United States articleinfo abstract Article history: Received 19 August 2010 Received ...
This study examines the relationship between the value relevance of accounting information and th... more This study examines the relationship between the value relevance of accounting information and the conditional conservatism of the European banking sector. Using a bank data set from 15 European countries we study the value relevance of accounting information before and after mandatory IFRS adoption, as well as the extent to which conditional conservatism and value relevance coexist in this context. Our findings suggest that conditional conservatism is positively (negatively) related to value relevance prior to (post) mandatory IFRS adoption. This finding validates the IASB's objectives of higher value relevance and lower conservatism. Additional analyses provide evidence that country-specific features not only affect the potential increase in accounting quality, but also the relationship between value relevance and conditional conservatism.
Journal of Enterprise Information …, Jan 1, 2011
PurposeThe purpose of this article is to provide a selective and comprehensive literature review... more PurposeThe purpose of this article is to provide a selective and comprehensive literature review based on previous research within auditing and enterprise systems (ES). This is done to identify research gaps, propose directions for future research and guide ...
Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, 2012
The mandatory adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) on January 1, 2005 a... more The mandatory adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) on January 1, 2005 aimed to improve the quality of financial reporting in Greece, which had been regularly criticized for the practice of earnings management and the ineffectiveness of external auditing. However, the unusual characteristics of the economic environment and institutional setting of code-law oriented Greece, has made the attempt even more challenging. To investigate the role of auditors in potentially approving managers' opportunistic behaviour in the post-IFRS period, we examine the relationship between earnings management, measured by signed discretionary accruals, and auditor reporting, measured by audit firm size (Big 4 vs. non-Big 4) and audit opinion type (unqualified vs. qualified). Using a sample of firms listed on the Athens Stock Exchange over a five-year period, we find that the size of the audit firm does not affect the level of earnings management, and the audit opinion qualification is not issued in response to management's opportunistic behaviour. The interpretation of the results is conditional on the Greek context, where the economic bonding of auditors with their clients is strong, investor protection is low, enforcement mechanisms are weak and there is low litigation and reputation loss, even in the post-IFRS period.
Auditor selection can be regarded as a matter of audit quality. Research studies aiming to model ... more Auditor selection can be regarded as a matter of audit quality. Research studies aiming to model the auditor choice employ statistical techniques. Here we employ three techniques derived from the Data Mining domain to build models capable of discriminating cases where companies choose a Big 4 or a Non-Big 4 auditor. Significant factors associated with the auditor choice are revealed. The three models are compared in terms of their performances. According to 10-fold cross validation bagging increases significantly the performance of one classifier.
This study assesses factors influencing Internal Audit Quality (IAQ) in Greece. Hand-collected da... more This study assesses factors influencing Internal Audit Quality (IAQ) in Greece. Hand-collected data were obtained from 2013 and 2014 annual financial reports from companies such as food industries, beverage –and their subcategoriesindustries as well as fishing and distillation, listed in Athens Stock Exchange (ASE). Previous literature was chosen in order to highlight significant independent variables. Linear regression analysis examines the association between Internal Audit Compliance (IAC) and seven principal factors. In order to define IAC we consider the compliance of an internal audit function analyzing in operational aspects such as the Segmentation of Duties and the Professional Competence and Knowledge Adequacy. The results found indicate Internal Audit Compliance, on a sample of Greek listed firms; have significant associations between the degrees of compliance to some external audit variables.
This study’s objective is to assess the factors that influence disclosure of internal audit (IA) ... more This study’s objective is to assess the factors that influence disclosure of internal audit (IA) in Greece. The data was hand collected and obtained from 2014 annual financial reports from 173 companies listed in Athens Stock Exchange (ASE). We assess the internal audit disclosure in terms of internal audit operations, corporate governance, and quantity of disclosure. Previous literature was chosen so as to highlight significant independent variables that are related to external audit. Linear regression analysis examines the association between internal audit operations (IAO), corporate governance code (CGC) and number of words (NW), and seven principal factors. In attempt to define IA Disclosure (IAD), we consider the disclosure of an internal audit function analyzing in operational and procedural aspects and at the same time with aspects of annual report text content. The results indicate internal audit disclosure, on the main sample of Greek listed firms, as well as the existence...
Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, 2012
The mandatory adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) on January 1, 2005 a... more The mandatory adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) on January 1, 2005 aimed to improve the quality of financial reporting in Greece, which had been regularly criticized for the practice of earnings management and the ineffectiveness of external auditing. However, the unusual characteristics of the economic environment and institutional setting of code-law oriented Greece, has made the attempt even more challenging. To investigate the role of auditors in potentially approving managers' opportunistic behaviour in the post-IFRS period, we examine the relationship between earnings management, measured by signed discretionary accruals, and auditor reporting, measured by audit firm size (Big 4 vs. non-Big 4) and audit opinion type (unqualified vs. qualified). Using a sample of firms listed on the Athens Stock Exchange over a five-year period, we find that the size of the audit firm does not affect the level of earnings management, and the audit opinion qualification is not issued in response to management's opportunistic behaviour. The interpretation of the results is conditional on the Greek context, where the economic bonding of auditors with their clients is strong, investor protection is low, enforcement mechanisms are weak and there is low litigation and reputation loss, even in the post-IFRS period.
Accounting Forum, 2014
This study examines the relationship between audit opinions and earnings management, as measured ... more This study examines the relationship between audit opinions and earnings management, as measured by discretionary accruals, for listed firms on the Athens Stock Exchange (ASE). We divide the qualified audit opinions into two categories: qualified for the going-concern uncertainty and qualified for other reasons. The results indicate that audit opinions are not related to earnings management. Client financial characteristics, such as profitability and size are determinants of the going-concern audit opinion decision. The decision of auditors to issue qualified opinions for other reasons is explained by the type of audit opinion issued in the previous year.
Advances in Accounting Education: Teaching and Curriculum Innovations, 2012
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON BUSINESS & ECONOMICS OF THE HELLENIC OPEN UNIVERSITY 2021, Apr 10, 2021
This paper explores the effectiveness of Data Mining (DM) classification techniques in detecting ... more This paper explores the effectiveness of Data Mining (DM) classification techniques in detecting firms that issue fraudulent financial statements (FFS) and deals with the identification of factors associated to FFS. In accomplishing the task of management fraud detection, auditors could be facilitated in their work by using data mining techniques. This study investigates the usefulness of Decision Trees, Neural Networks and Bayesian Belief Networks in the identification of fraudulent financial statements. The input vector is composed of ratios derived from financial statements. The three models are compared in terms of their performances. The results identify the model with the best accuracy rate and highlight the importance of variables in fraudulent financial statement detection. They also indicate that the investigation of financial information can be of use in the identification of FFS and underline the importance of financial ratios.
Journal of Information & Knowledge Management
Recently internal controls, corporate governance and risk management have received a great deal o... more Recently internal controls, corporate governance and risk management have received a great deal of attention. Regarding internal control, several research studies address the issue of internal audit quality. Noteworthy, according to Sarbanes–Oxley (SOX) the internal controls over financial reporting are assessed by the auditors and the management. In the present study, we assess internal controls over financial reporting by employing Text Mining techniques. We analyse the annual reports of 133 publicly traded Greek Companies. The textual parts of the annual reports that refer to internal audit mechanism are extracted. We adopt a Vector Space model and the term-document matrix records the occurrence frequencies of the terms. By applying feature selection, a set of significant keywords, which are used as predictors, is extracted. The Linear Regression model developed explains the variance of the data and highlights significant predictors. The model manages to successfully assess the i...
Managerial Auditing Journal
Purpose This paper aims to assess internal audit quality (IAQ) by using automated textual analysi... more Purpose This paper aims to assess internal audit quality (IAQ) by using automated textual analysis of disclosures of internal audit mechanisms in annual reports. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses seven text mining techniques to construct classification models that predict whether companies listed on the Athens Stock Exchange are audited by a Big 4 firm, an auditor selection that prior research finds is associated with higher IAQ. The classification accuracy of the models is compared to predictions based on financial indicators. Findings The results show that classification models developed using text analysis can be a promising alternative proxy in assessing IAQ. Terms, N-Grams and financial indicators of a company, as they are presented in the annual reports, can provide information on the IAQ. Practical implications This study offers a novel approach to assessing the IAQ by applying textual analysis techniques. These findings are important for those who oversee internal ...
Journal of Applied Accounting Research, 2016
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the value relevance of accounting information b... more Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the value relevance of accounting information before and after mandatory International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) adoption as well as the ensuing relationship between conditional conservatism and value relevance. The authors probe the above relationship by considering a number of institutional parameters, such as the accounting origin of each European country, the degree of differentiation between domestic standards and IFRS, and the level of each country’s enforcement. Design/methodology/approach – The authors run panel data regressions for banks listed in 15 European countries using both the price and the return model. The authors partition the total sample in conservative and non-conservative banks – based on Khan and Watts (2009) – and in other institutional clusters based on prior highly acclaimed studies. Value relevance is then gauged by the corresponding adjusted R2. Findings – The results provide evidence that IFRS...
Euro and Profitability of Greek Banks. Author info | Abstract | Publisher info | Download info | ... more Euro and Profitability of Greek Banks. Author info | Abstract | Publisher info | Download info | Related research | Statistics. ... The impact of the EURO on Greek Banks is explained through a cost-benefit analysis, by providing a perspective of the anticipated costs, benefits and ...
Page 1. Event study methodologies in information systems research Yaniv Konchitchki 1, Daniel E. ... more Page 1. Event study methodologies in information systems research Yaniv Konchitchki 1, Daniel E. O'Leary ⁎ University of Southern California, United States articleinfo abstract Article history: Received 19 August 2010 Received ...
This study examines the relationship between the value relevance of accounting information and th... more This study examines the relationship between the value relevance of accounting information and the conditional conservatism of the European banking sector. Using a bank data set from 15 European countries we study the value relevance of accounting information before and after mandatory IFRS adoption, as well as the extent to which conditional conservatism and value relevance coexist in this context. Our findings suggest that conditional conservatism is positively (negatively) related to value relevance prior to (post) mandatory IFRS adoption. This finding validates the IASB's objectives of higher value relevance and lower conservatism. Additional analyses provide evidence that country-specific features not only affect the potential increase in accounting quality, but also the relationship between value relevance and conditional conservatism.
Journal of Enterprise Information …, Jan 1, 2011
PurposeThe purpose of this article is to provide a selective and comprehensive literature review... more PurposeThe purpose of this article is to provide a selective and comprehensive literature review based on previous research within auditing and enterprise systems (ES). This is done to identify research gaps, propose directions for future research and guide ...
Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, 2012
The mandatory adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) on January 1, 2005 a... more The mandatory adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) on January 1, 2005 aimed to improve the quality of financial reporting in Greece, which had been regularly criticized for the practice of earnings management and the ineffectiveness of external auditing. However, the unusual characteristics of the economic environment and institutional setting of code-law oriented Greece, has made the attempt even more challenging. To investigate the role of auditors in potentially approving managers' opportunistic behaviour in the post-IFRS period, we examine the relationship between earnings management, measured by signed discretionary accruals, and auditor reporting, measured by audit firm size (Big 4 vs. non-Big 4) and audit opinion type (unqualified vs. qualified). Using a sample of firms listed on the Athens Stock Exchange over a five-year period, we find that the size of the audit firm does not affect the level of earnings management, and the audit opinion qualification is not issued in response to management's opportunistic behaviour. The interpretation of the results is conditional on the Greek context, where the economic bonding of auditors with their clients is strong, investor protection is low, enforcement mechanisms are weak and there is low litigation and reputation loss, even in the post-IFRS period.