Research Program

Under the main topic „information and expectation forming” we can characterize our field of research by the following four aspects:

1. Our research questions deal with the determinants and consequences of financial reporting regulation and behavior in accounting, business analysis and auditing, such as:

• Earnings management and accounting choice;
• financial reporting properties such as conservatism, matching, quality, comparability, value relevance and information content;
• disclosure choices; and
• audit quality.

2. We are interested in generating economically relevant and scientifically substantiate and valid statements. This claim is decisive for our choice of the real economic situations and settings, in which we conduct our research.
Depending on the specific question we look at:

• actors (e.g. corporations, shareholders, financial analysts or auditors);
• events (e.g. regulatory changes, earnings announcements or the introduction of IFRS);
• sectors (e.g. real estate industry or privately held corporations); and
• regions (e.g. the European or the US capital market).

3. Our research projects contribute to the scientific understanding and a practical embodiment of substantive topics. Among others, crucial topics are:

• Fair value accounting;
• business combinations and goodwill;
• pension obligations;
• impairment; and
• voluntary disclosure.

4. Who do we want to reach with our research? Our research activities have implications for e.g. the following group of recipients:

• academics with similar research focus;
• preparers of financial statements;
• investors, financial analysts and other users of financial reporting;
• auditors; and
• standard setters and regulators.