Accounting for Transparency: a Framework and Three Applications in Tax, Managerial, and Financial Accounting

Jannis Bischof (), Joachim Gassen (), Anna Rohlfing-Bastian (), Davud Rostam-Afschar and Caren Sureth-Sloane ()
Additional contact information
Jannis Bischof: University of Mannheim
Joachim Gassen: Humboldt University of Berlin
Anna Rohlfing-Bastian: Goethe University Frankfurt
Caren Sureth-Sloane: Paderborn University

Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, 2024, vol. 76, issue 4, 573-611

Abstract: Abstract This article presents how the Collaborative Research Center TRR 266 Accounting for Transparency understands and studies transparency in organizations and markets. Starting from our transparency definition, which is rooted in a sender/receiver framework, we discuss how accounting, taxation, and their regulation affect transparency and illustrate selected economic consequences of transparency. We use three analyses to exemplify our research approach. These analyses illustrate that (i) firms use tax literacy and tax advice as substitutes in their strategies to cope with signals sent by tax regulators about complex tax regulations, (ii) trade-offs between tighter management controls and employee motivation lead firms to design hybrid work environments that facilitate information exchange within the firm, and (iii) managers’ understanding of how financial statement users benefit from firm disclosures affects the managers’ assessments of disclosure regulation. Overall we argue that transparency is context-specific, hard to achieve, and often has ambiguous consequences. We conclude by highlighting selected transparency-related questions that interdisciplinary work with a particular emphasis on institutional details can meaningfully address.

Keywords: Transparency; Financial accounting; Managerial accounting; Business taxation; Disclosure; Hybrid work; Management controls; Tax advice; Tax complexity; Tax literacy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D82 H25 H32 J24 L21 M12 M41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s41471-024-00200-7 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sjobre:v:76:y:2024:i:4:d:10.1007_s41471-024-00200-7

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.springer.com/journal/41471

DOI: 10.1007/s41471-024-00200-7

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().