Avishek Bhandari

• Doctor of Philosophy
• University of Wisconsin–Whitewater

This study examines the effect of friendly boards on capital allocation efficiency. We provide evidence that firms with friendly boards have a positive and statistically significant effect on capital allocation inefficiency. We find our results robust to different measures of friendly boards and capital allocation inefficiency, alternative model sp...

ChatGPT, a language-learning model chatbot, has garnered considerable attention for its ability to respond to users' questions. Using data from 14 countries and 186 institutions, we compare ChatGPT and student performance for 28,085 questions from accounting assessments and textbook test banks. As of January 2023, ChatGPT provides correct answers f...

ChatGPT, a language-learning model chatbot, has garnered considerable attention for its ability to respond to users’ questions. Using data from 14 countries and 186 institutions, we compare ChatGPT and student performance for 28,085 questions from accounting assessments and textbook test banks. As of January 2023, ChatGPT provides correct answers f...

This study examines the role of financial misconduct of institutional investors on financial reporting quality of investee firms. We find that the firms held by institutional investors with disciplinary history (IDH) are more likely to engage in financial misreporting. Our results are not driven by institutional investor characteristics such as act...

Based on the social norms and structural theories of social capital, this study examines the relationship between community social capital and the firms’ capital allocation efficiency. We hypothesize and find that the community social capital of a firm's headquarter area has a negative and statistically significant impact on its capital allocation...

In this study, we examine firms' commitment to stock repurchase announcements as a proxy for trust within the investing community. Using a commitment-trust theory perspective, we show that firms with higher repurchase (share buyback) completion rates have higher financial reporting quality. We proxy financial reporting quality using a composite mea...

This study investigates the effect of employee financial stress on financial reporting outcomes. Anxiety related to stress results in emotional exhaustion and reduced job performance. The conservation of resources theory predicts that anxiety caused by financial stress decreases employees’ work quality because anxiety drains individuals’ physical,...

SYNOPSIS With the increased focus on corporate culture as an important determinant of organizational behavior and outcomes, we study how corporate culture affects firm financial reporting quality. Relying on the Competing Values Framework (CVF) to define four types of corporate culture, we find that collaboration- (competition-) oriented culture fi...

We investigate the association of related party transactions (RPTs) with the sensitivity of firm-level capital allocations. We examine whether opportunistic RPTs are associated with investment and external financing sensitivities to both Tobin's Q and internally generated cash flows. We expect the opportunistic nature of the RPTs dampens the Q sens...

This study investigates whether a CEO's personal political ideology, as captured by his or her political contributions, is associated with a firm's credit ratings. Republican CEOs, we find, are associated with higher credit ratings, especially when their firms are headquartered in conservative areas. In addition, the link between political ideology...

We investigate whether CEOs’ political ideology, as captured by their political contributions, is related to audit risk and, consequently, to audit pricing. We find that Republican CEOs are associated with lower inherent risk and control risk, which represent the two components of audit risk related to the firm, while their Democratic counterparts...

Debt-like compensation, referred to as inside debt, is prevalent in US firms and affects firm operating, investing and financial reporting activities. The amount of inside debt can be used to extract information that benefits analyst forecasting activities. This study finds that forecast accuracy increases, while forecast dispersion and revision vo...

We investigate whether or not a firm's corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities influence analysts' behavior. CSR is concerned with the positive and negative impacts of corporations' present actions on the ecosystems, societies, and environments of the future. Firms with more concerns than strengths (i.e., a lower degree of social responsib...

The study investigates whether CEOs’ external connections with other executives and directors are associated with enhanced financial reporting quality. We find that CEOs with larger connections have lower discretionary accruals and are less likely to have financial restatements and material internal control weaknesses. Further results show that lar...

We investigate the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and firm-level capital allocation efficiency. Using seminal investment-Q framework, we provide evidence that CSR distorts investment sensitivity to Q. We further determine that this effect of CSR is moderated by the assumed level of agency conflict, stakeholder engagement...

We investigate whether or not a firm’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities influence analysts’ behavior. CSR is concerned with the impact of corporations’ present actions on the ecosystems, societies, and environments of the future and includes both positive and negative attributes. Firms with a lower degree of social responsibility ac...