Faculty Mentor(s)

Dr. Stan Tuttle

Project Type

EdD Colloquium - ONU

Scholarship Domain(s)

Scholarship of Discovery

Presentation Type

Presentation

Abstract

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 established the role of the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) over financial reporting in public companies. Prior research had demonstrated that the CFO of a company who was a CPA, female, had industry experience, or had prior CFO experience had implications on the quality of the company’s financial reporting. This quantitative study examined the relationship of these characteristics between the existing audit committee members (N = 331) and a newly-hired CFO (N = 93) in public healthcare companies. The extent to which audit committee members’ characteristics may have influenced the hiring of a new CFO to have had the characteristics of CPA designation, female, prior industry experience, or prior CFO experience could have been helpful to public healthcare companies and regulators in determining the composition of audit committees. The public healthcare companies were selected from an archival database where a new CFO was hired during the period between 2012 and 2016. Data was collected from the archival database and from public documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Data analysis included descriptive statistics, independent samples t-tests, and regression analyses. The results of the study identified only one statistically significant relationship, prior healthcare experience, between the audit committee members and a newly-hired CFO in a publicly held healthcare company. This statistically significant relationship should be helpful to a board of directors when selecting audit committee members at a public healthcare company.

Permission Type

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Share

COinS
 
Apr 6th, 8:10 AM Apr 6th, 8:30 AM

The Relationship Between Audit Committee and New Chief Financial Officer Characteristics in Publicly Traded Healthcare Companies

Wisner Auditorium

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 established the role of the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) over financial reporting in public companies. Prior research had demonstrated that the CFO of a company who was a CPA, female, had industry experience, or had prior CFO experience had implications on the quality of the company’s financial reporting. This quantitative study examined the relationship of these characteristics between the existing audit committee members (N = 331) and a newly-hired CFO (N = 93) in public healthcare companies. The extent to which audit committee members’ characteristics may have influenced the hiring of a new CFO to have had the characteristics of CPA designation, female, prior industry experience, or prior CFO experience could have been helpful to public healthcare companies and regulators in determining the composition of audit committees. The public healthcare companies were selected from an archival database where a new CFO was hired during the period between 2012 and 2016. Data was collected from the archival database and from public documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Data analysis included descriptive statistics, independent samples t-tests, and regression analyses. The results of the study identified only one statistically significant relationship, prior healthcare experience, between the audit committee members and a newly-hired CFO in a publicly held healthcare company. This statistically significant relationship should be helpful to a board of directors when selecting audit committee members at a public healthcare company.