Providing CEOs With Opportunities to Cheat
研究了行业和公司层面的复杂性导致的信息不对称如何增加CEO进行财务报告欺诈的可能性，并发现CEO股票期权和审计委员会监督在不同复杂性条件下对欺诈概率有不同影响。
Opportunities for financial reporting fraud arise because of information asymmetries—often labeled “lack of transparency”—between top managers and their diverse shareholders. We evaluate the relative contributions of information asymmetries arising from industry-level and firm-level complexities to the likelihood of top managers committing financial reporting fraud. Using a sample of 453 matched pairs of firms that have and have not been identified as having committed financial reporting fraud, we found that information asymmetries arising from industry- and firm-level complexities increase the likelihood of financial fraud. Moreover, more CEO stock options increase the likelihood of fraud when industry complexity is high, while aggressive monitoring by the audit committee reduces the likelihood of reporting fraud when firm-level complexity is high.