Department of Accountancy

The Impact of Identified Wasteful Spending and Government Response on Taxpayer Attitudes and Compliance

Tax compliance is not determined by enforcement alone—it is deeply shaped by perceptions of fairness, trust, and reciprocity. When citizens believe their tax dollars are misused, compliance may erode; conversely, corrective government actions could restore trust and willingness to comply. This project will provide timely insights into the psychological and behavioral mechanisms that underlie taxpayers’ perceptions in light of increased public scrutiny of government spending. By experimentally examining taxpayer reactions to both waste revelations and remedial government actions, the study will generate evidence with direct implications for tax policy, public communication, and governance practices. Ultimately, this research aims to help policymakers strengthen voluntary compliance by fostering transparency, accountability, and trust in the tax system.

Going-Private Announcements and Strategic Disclosure of Peer Firms

As a growing phenomenon, going-private deals are inherently coercive, since buyers often have an information advantage over selling shareholders. Research suggests a firm’s disclosures are useful in valuing other firms in the industry. This study investigates whether a firm’s decision to go private gives peer firms in the industry (i.e., non-GP firms) a strategic incentive to alter their voluntary disclosures. We expect that non-GP firms will issue more optimistic earnings forecasts after rivals announce plans to go private, consistent with the motive to increase the perceived value and, thus, the going-private costs of their rivals. We also plan to perform cross-sectional tests to examine whether this behavior is attributable to strategic cost-benefit considerations. Overall, this study aims to shed light on whether going-private transactions have an overlooked peer effect of prompting non-GP firms to exploit information spillovers of voluntary disclosures to their advantage.

How do public benefit corporations and accountability influence auditors’ going concern judgments?

A new niche of organizations, known as public benefit corporations, are emerging in the capital markets and blend profit motives with social missions. Unlike traditional organizations, public benefit corporations are legally required to consider the impact of their decisions on various stakeholders, including employees and their communities, while also still focusing on financial returns. The limited research in this area shows that when auditors are aware that a client provides a civic benefit, they are more lenient, and that one way to reduce such biased audit judgments is through accountability. Our experimental research study will provide theory and evidence of auditors’ judgments and decisions while auditing public benefit corporations, and whether different forms of accountability reduce biased auditor judgments. Our findings will have important implications for practice, regulations, and standard setters.

Accounting education literature review

NOTE–this is a continuing study–the prior year paper (published in 2024 in Journal of Accounting Education) won the American Accounting Association Teaching, Learning and Curriculum Accounting Education Research Paper award for 2025.

This project reviews over 100 articles published during 2025 in five premiere accounting education journals. The articles are organized and summarized into five sections: (1) curriculum and instruction, (2) instruction by content area, (3) educational technology, (4) students, and (5) faculty. Each section describes the techniques used in each study and provides suggestions for future education research. The goal is to both provide a resource for accounting faculty across the world and to inspire new education-based research.

The effect of agentic artificial intelligence versus subject matter experts and estimate aggressiveness on jurors’ judgments of auditor negligence

This project uses a psychological theory lens to examine how jurors, who are non-experts, view recommendations from subject matter experts, compared to recommendations generated by algorithms. In our setting, jurors assess the damages to be awarded to plaintiffs by public accounting firms that supported overly aggressive estimates by their clients. Psychology theory predicts that as laypeople, jurors will view audit evidence and estimates presented by an AI agent more favorably compared to the same estimates developed by audit firm subject matter experts. 

This study is co-authored by Brian Ballou, Jon Pyzoha, and two professors from Baylor University and Auburn University.