Dennis Sundvik

Hanken School of Economics · Department of Accounting and Commercial Law

The allocation of resources among different stakeholders is an ethical dilemma for chief executive officers (CEOs). In this study, we investigate the association between CEO power and workplace injuries and illnesses. We use an establishment-level dataset comprising 31,924 establishment-year observations between 2002 and 2011. Our main result shows...

In this study, we investigate how country-level long-term orientation affects managers' willingness to engage in earnings management and choice of earnings management strategy. Using a comprehensive dataset of 47 countries for the period from 2003 to 2015, we find that firms in long-term-oriented cultures rely relatively more on earnings management...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore whether principles-based vs rules-based accounting standards have an effect on measures of financial reporting quality and earnings management strategies. Design/methodology/approach This study uses a firm-year-specific variable that captures the extent to which firms’ accounting and operating behavi...

This study analyzes real earnings management among privately held versus publicly listed firms. Our first finding is that public firms engage in more earnings management through operating activities. When a clear incentive to manage earnings in a specific direction is present we continue to find that public firms manage their earnings more than pri...

This study investigates the association between private company auditing and intertemporal income shifting. Using a large reduction in the Finnish corporate tax rate as a strong incentive for income shifting and financial statement data coupled with proprietary information from the tax authorities, we analyse accruals and cost stickiness of small p...

In this paper, we investigate the link between corporate culture and workplace safety. Using a machine learning based measure of corporate culture and data on employee- and safety-related violations, we find that firms with stronger corporate culture are less likely to be penalized, incur lower regulatory fines, and have a reduced number of violati...

This study investigates whether and how the amount of firm-specific information incorporated into stock prices changes when there is more quarterly, rather than semi-annual, reporting in the peer group. Using a sample of 33,338 European firm-year observations from 2004 to 2017, we find a significantly negative relationship between stock price synch...

In this study, we examine the relationship between employee effort within the firm and earnings management, using data on working hours and discretionary accruals. With higher employee effort, we find less earnings management among U.S. firms. This result is stronger when earnings are more predictable and persists after we control for endogeneity....

This study investigates whether and how the amount of firm-specific information incorporated into stock prices changes when there is more quarterly, rather than semi-annual, reporting in the peer group. Using a sample of 33,338 European firm-year observations from 2004 to 2017, we find a significantly negative relation between stock price synchroni...

In this study, we investigate how country-level long-term orientation affects managers’ willingness to engage in earnings management and choice of earnings management strategy. Using a comprehensive dataset of 47 countries for the period from 2003 to 2015, we find that firms in long-term oriented cultures rely relatively more on earnings management...

In this study, we investigate cost behavior of companies in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member countries before corporate tax rate cuts become effective. We consider such events to generate strong incentives for intertemporal cost shifting. We analyze the time period between 2011 and 2016, which includes 32 tax red...

In this paper, I present a review of tax accounting research with a specific focus on earnings management in response to changes in the corporate tax rate. While prior surveys of the tax accounting literature have a broad scope and focus primarily on publicly listed firms, I concentrate on studies examining private firms. These firms have stronger...

Purpose The aim of this study is to examine three different responses to the Finnish 2005 tax reform that, among other things, reduced the corporate tax rate and hiked dividend taxation. Focus lies on the factors influencing the decision to change the fiscal year-end and whether earnings management is more prevalent when the decision is not taken....

This study explores the link between earnings management and jurisdictional differences in book-tax conformity. A dataset of national reforms lowering the corporate tax rate is used to estimate the effect of conformity on private firm’s earnings management behavior when a specific incentive to manage earnings downward exists. Total and discretionar...

This study explores whether the financial reporting quality of small firms differs between firms that outsource accounting tasks and firms that perform these tasks internally. Using accruals quality as a measure for the financial reporting quality and a sample of small Finnish limited liability firms, we find that the quality among the firms is pos...

ABSTRACTThe aim of this article is to investigate if small firms react to a national corporate tax rate reduction by managing their taxable income. In contrast to previous studies, we also analyse whether outsourcing of accounting tasks affects the magnitude of the reaction. Based on a sample of Finnish firms and measures of earnings management, ev...

Prior literature considers a change in the national corporate income tax (CIT) rate as a strong firm incentive to manage earnings. This article examines the link between two recent CIT reforms in Sweden and earnings management with a large dataset of private firms. The effects of tax rate cuts are estimated on aggregate measures as well as on decom...

This study introduces self-organizing maps as a clustering approach for several measures in accounting that rely on local linear regression-based estimation models with an initial and essential clustering phase. Clustering by industry is the most frequently used approach in prior literature when estimating measures such as real activities manipulat...

This paper analyses real earnings management among private versus public firms. Using accounting data of British firms, we find that public firms overall engage in more earnings management through real operating activities. Furthermore, when clear incentives to manage earnings in a specific direction are present, such as to beat earnings targets, w...

A growing body of literature is examining the concept of real activities manipulation in various contexts. In these studies, the researcher typically models abnormal real activities and draws inferences based on the output measures. Thus, the results of the studies hinge critically on the underlying models. We contribute by examining alternative ap...