世新大學圖書館

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 61-11, Section: A, page: 4448.

Chair: Jamie Pratt.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, 2000.

In a paper-based environment, a firm's audited financial statements are physically distinct from subsequent unaudited disclosures. In contrast, hyperlinking the audited and unaudited reports in a Web-based environment blurs their physical boundaries and facilitates a blending of the information from the two reports. In such environments, I predict that financial report users will have difficulty classifying information as having originated in the audited or unaudited document and that their judgments will be influenced more by the unaudited information than will the judgments of users who view the same information in a paper-based format. I further predict that providing subjects with an “AUDITED/NOT AUDITED” notification aid will reduce the effect hyperlinking information has on individual judgments.

These predictions are tested in an experiment where MBA students, acting as potential investors, evaluate the earnings potential of a firm by using the firm's audited financial statements and a letter to shareholders from the firm's management that contains optimistic proforma information. The results show that participants who viewed the hyperlinked materials on the Web classified less information correctly, judged the firm's earnings potential to be greater, and perceived the credibility of the information to be higher than did participants who viewed paper-based materials. Providing Web participants with a notification aid diminished these effects.

The results suggest to financial report users, auditors, regulators, and standard setters that firms have the ability to influence the perceptions of financial report users by hyperlinking unaudited information to information in their audited financial statements, and that a simple disclosure rule reduces this ability.

School code: 0093.