Family Matters: Exploring the Link Between Parental and Executive Financial Misconduct

Jenni Kallunki, Juha‐pekka Kallunki, Wayne Landsman, Emma‐riikka Myllymäki () and Lasse Niemi
Additional contact information
Emma‐riikka Myllymäki: Audencia Business School

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: ABSTRACT Using a novel data set of misconduct records for Finnish CEOs and directors and their parents, we explore whether corporate executives' financial misconduct is associated with similar behavior by their parents. Controlling for various other factors of executive financial misconduct, we find that executives are significantly more likely to engage in financial misconduct, including accounting, tax, and other financial offenses, if their parents have a history of financial misconduct. This intergenerational association is stronger when the parental misconduct is more severe. Additional findings reveal that growing up in high‐misconduct municipalities and cohabiting with spouses who engage in financial misconduct are also associated with a higher likelihood of executive misconduct, indicating that such behaviors may be shaped by broader socialization processes that extend beyond the immediate family. Although our analyses do not establish causal relationships, the collective evidence presented in this study offers insights into why some corporate executives engage in misconduct while others do not.

Keywords: executive financial misconduct; accounting fraud; social norms; intergenerational correlation; family environment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-05
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-05447148v1
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published in Journal of Accounting Research, 2026, 64 (2), pp.561-632. ⟨10.1111/1475-679X.70028⟩

Downloads: (external link)
https://hal.science/hal-05447148v1/document (application/pdf)

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:hal:journl:hal-05447148

DOI: 10.1111/1475-679X.70028

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().