2017/04/25 by CHARLES HAM, Charles Ham, Mark H. Lang +5 · 426 citations
Business, Management and Accounting · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Psychology · #Accounting #Auditing, Earnings Management, Governance #Business #Corporate Finance and Governance #Earnings #Earnings management #Finance #Financial Markets and Investment Strategies #Narcissism #Overconfidence effect #Psychology #Quality (philosophy) #Social psychology
paper · doi:10.1111/1475-679x.12176
published in Journal of Accounting Research 55(5), 1089-1135 (Wiley)
openalex publication_date 2017/04/25 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04
ABSTRACT We investigate the effect of CFO narcissism, as measured by signature size, on financial reporting quality. Experimentally, we validate that narcissism predicts misreporting behavior, and that signature size predicts misreporting through its association with narcissism. Empirically, we examine notarized CFO signatures and find CFO narcissism is associated with more earnings management, less timely loss recognition, weaker internal control quality, and a higher probability of restatements. The results are consistent for within‐firm comparisons focusing on CFO changes and are robust to controlling for CFO overconfidence and CEO narcissism. The results highlight the importance of CFO characteristics in the domain of financial reporting decisions.