1.Although it is important to note that CFOs may influence the quality of financial reporting, the accounting background of CFOs is only one of many factors that ultimately impact financial reporting quality.
2.In 1998, Arthur Levitt, the SEC Chairman, expressed concerns about the lack of financial expertise among members of audit committees in his famous speech ‘‘The Numbers Game’’ (Levitt 1998). In response, the NYSE and the NASD formed the Blue Ribbon Committee on Improving the Effectiveness of Corporate Audit Committees (BRC). The BRC recommendation that effective audit committees must be composed of at least one member who possesses accounting or related financial management expertise (BRC 1999) was approved by the SEC and adopted by the three major stock exchanges.
3.Under Section 407 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, an audit committee member may acquire financial expertise through experience as ‘‘a principal financial officer, principal accounting officer, controller, public accountant or auditor,’’ by supervising such functions, by ‘‘monitoring the auditing or evaluation of financial statements,’’ or through other relevant experience (Scarpati 2003, 32).
4.In contrast to the growing amount of research on restatements, prior CFO research has been fairly limited. In a study of the replacement and succession of chief financial officers, Mian (2001, 144) notes, ‘‘while the theory and practice of corporate finance has attracted considerable attention from the academic finance profession, we know little about the individuals who hold these positions.’’ Mian’s (2001) main finding is that companies that changed CFOs experienced a decline in their financial performance, especially before the departure of CFOs for reasons other than retirement.