The Association between Characteristics of Audit Committee Accounting Experts, Audit Committee Chairs, and Financial Reporting Timeliness

Abstract

We investigate the association between audit committee (AC) members’ financial expertise and financial reporting timeliness, and extend the discussion by investigating how the source of accounting expertise (e.g., public accounting or CFO) differentially influences financial reporting timeliness. We predict and find that AC accounting financial expertise is associated with timelier accounting information. Further, we find that accounting expertise gained from public accounting experience is associated with timelier financial reporting; however, accounting expertise gained from CFO experience is not. We also find AC chairs (ACCs) with accounting expertise from public accounting experience are significantly associated with timelier financial reporting while ACCs with CFO-sourced accounting expertise are not. Our results are important for two reasons. First, our results suggest that AC accounting financial expertise contributes to AC effectiveness by improving the timeliness of financial information. Second, our findings highlight how personal characteristics of accounting financial experts influence contributions toward AC effectiveness.

Keywords: Audit Committee, Audit committee chair, accounting expertise, audit report lag, earnings announcement lag