TY  - THES
A1  - Schneider, Moritz
T1  - Top Executives and Accounting Wrongdoing
N2  - Conducting four separate studies, this dissertation investigates the associations between chief
executive officer (CEO) and chief financial officer (CFO) antecedents of accounting wrongdoing.
First, Manuscript 1 employs five distinct machine learning algorithms on publicly listed firm years
in the United States of America (U.S.) and provides evidence of the predictive value of isolated
CEO characteristics and their combination with established raw financial items (FIN) on
accounting wrongdoing. In particular, it demonstrates the importance of a CEO’s network size,
age, and duality and suggests non-linear associations with accounting wrongdoing. Interestingly,
the results imply that CEOs of a higher age who do not serve as chairman of the board and high
network CEOs of high inventory firms show a larger likelihood of accounting wrongdoing. Second,
Manuscript 2 systematically reviews 64 articles on CFOs’ accounting wrongdoing antecedents,
discusses CEO and CFO similarities, and provides future research avenues. First and foremost, the
study highlights that studies predominantly investigate CFO antecedents of isolated fraud
dimensions, especially rationalization. Although CEO and CFO antecedents appear necessary for
accounting wrongdoing, CFOs demonstrate more substantial incentives, similar opportunities,
similar or stronger rationalization, and a slightly wider capacity for accounting wrongdoing than
CEOs. Moreover, the type of accounting wrongdoing committed by CFOs and CEOs varies with
context-related factors. Third, Manuscript 3 examines the associations among U.S. publicly listed
CFOs’ individualism and uncertainty avoidance levels, derived from their country of origin, and
their firms’ accounting wrongdoing likelihood. Interestingly, the study only suggests significantly
negative associations between a CFO’s individualism and accounting wrongdoing. The CEO’s
individualism seems to enhance this relationship. However, Manuscript 3 cannot find similar
results for the CFO’s and CEO’s uncertainty avoidance dimension. Lastly, Manuscript 4 draws on
publicly listed U.S. CFOs and CEOs and investigates their absolute power, the relative power gap,
and distinct relative power constellations related to accounting wrongdoing. The results suggest
that a CFO’s power is significantly positively associated with accounting wrongdoing, unlike the
CEO’s power. Moreover, an increasing CEO-CFO power gap, a low power gap, and a high power
gap are negatively, positively, and negatively related to accounting wrongdoing. These studies
suggest that CEOs’ and CFOs’ backgrounds are essential antecedents for accounting wrongdoing.
This necessitates future scholars to research both actors and their relationship to understand and
detect accounting wrongdoing.
KW  - Accounting wrongdoing
KW  - CEO
KW  - CFO
KW  - Characteristics
KW  - Upper echelons
Y1  - 2025
UR  - http://opus.escpeurope.de/opus4/frontdoor/index/index/docId/224
ER  -