Founder Succession and Accounting Properties*
研究香港、新加坡和台湾231家公司董事长更替对会计实务的影响，发现继任后公司应计利润减少、损失确认更及时，且创始人继任时会计变化更显著。
Using a sample of 231 firms in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan, we examine the changes in firms' accounting practice around leadership successions-the turnovers of chairmen. We find that the successions are associated with reduction in the firms' unsigned discretionary accruals and an increase in timely loss recognition. We argue that the incumbent chairmen cannot transfer most of their unique assets, such as reputation and political/social networks, to their successors, resulting in reduced relationship-based contracting post succession. This change from relationship-based to market-based contracting also shifts the firms to a less insider-based accounting system. Moreover, we find that the extent of the shift in accounting is larger in founder successions ( turnovers of chairmen that are founders) than in subsequent ( non-founder) successions, possibly because the loss of unique assets is more pronounced in the first succession than in subsequent successions.