Description
A Master of Science thesis in Finance by Farah Ghazi Radaideh entitled, “Structural Hole Theory, Audit Committee Member Gender, and Financial Restatements”, submitted in August 2022. Thesis advisor is Dr. Kimberly Catherine Gleason. Soft copy is available (Thesis, Approval Signatures, Completion Certificate, and AUS Archives Consent Form).
Abstract
Audit committees ensure the independence of auditors from a firm’s management in order to minimize principal-agent conflict. The strength and independence of an audit committee is important for the effectiveness of corporate governance. Audit committees provide oversight of financial reporting, internal control, the audit process, and compliance and it is their responsibility to create an open and trusting environment for transparent discussions between external auditors and management. Research indicates that financial restatements are costly for the company. It is found that restatements increase the cost of equity capital and debt financing for the restating firm (Park & Wu, 2009). Also, financial restatements can affect the future earnings of the firm negatively (Hribar & Jenkins, 2004) and increase information risk (Kravet & Shevlin, 2009). Given that restatements imply failures in financial reporting, the implication of these tends to be worse if initiated externally, as opposed to the firm’s management. Female representation on audit committees, and female audit committee chairs, have been demonstrated to lower audit fees. This has been seen as a result of females’ better communication skills, which in turn reduces the perception of audit risk by external auditors, their enhancement of the integrity of the financial reporting process, and more efficient and effective internal monitoring (Ittonen, Miettinen & Vahamaa, 2010). At the same time, the strength of a director’s connections or social networks, known as “connectedness”, can be linked to the efficiency of running the firm. Board connectedness has also been shown to decrease the cost of debt for companies. Research has shown that financial reporting quality is better if the board members are more connected (Park & Wu, 2009). Structural hole theory argues that highly connected people with strong social ties, known as “social brokers”, are especially valuable due to their increased social capital. Therefore, I argue that it is not only the gender of the audit committee members that affects the probability of restatements, but also the social capital of these members. Given the prior research related to gender and connectedness, and the theoretical link to restatements provided by structural hole theory, I focus on how “connected” women on audit committees affect the probability of financial restatements.