Firms with more complicated transactions likely have a greater chance for a disconnect in the financial reporting process, and thus a material weakness. Therefore, all else being equal, firm disclosures of material weaknesses are likely to be positively associated with business complexity. We use two measures of business complexity: the number of operating segments reported in the 10-K and the existence of a foreign currency translation (Compustat Data Item #150).
Table 4 provides descriptive statistics of these two variables for two subgroups, all firms that disclosed a material weakness and a benchmark group of 2003 Compustat firms that are not in our material weakness subgroup. Both of our complexity measures are statistically greater for the subgroup of firms that disclosed a material weakness. Thus, the evidence suggests that firm complexity and the disclosure of material weaknesses are positively associated.