Main Content

Main Areas of Research

"Accounting is an integral part of the structure of every organization."
^{(M. C. Jensen, in: The Accounting Review, Vol. LVIII, No. 2, 1983, p. 319)}

Research @Financial Accounting

The central research and work focus of the professorship includes the areas of financial accounting, auditing, business valuation and corporate governance.

In the area of ‘Financial Accounting’ – in addition to the discussion of selected individual issues – our research includes in particular the status and implications of accounting-oriented empirical capital market research, the empirical analysis of the information content of accounting (e.g. intra-year disclosure, corporate social responsibility reporting or segment reporting) and the ‘rating relevance’ of accounting. In addition to a differentiated consideration of the quantity and quality of information, these studies always also involve embedding disclosure outcomes in the associated corporate governance context and possibly analyze potential selection biases. 

In the area of ‘Auditing’, we deal with the economic analysis of special audits according to corporation law requirements as well as questions of empirical audit research (motivation of auditors and behavioral effects of the regulation of auditing markets). Furthermore, audit-related problems are examined from a purely analytical (behavioral) perspective using the real options approach.

The focus of our work in the area of ‘Business Valuation’ is, on the one hand, on questions of determining risk-adequate cost of capital (e.g., the problem of multi-period settings) and, on the other hand, on various aspects of value-oriented management schemes (e.g., research and development projects, sequential investments, venture capital). In addition, valuation problems are analyzed in a legal context (e.g., debt/equity swaps).

Another central focus of our research is the examination of national and international ‘Corporate Governance’. In this context, the relationship between accounting/auditing and corporate governance (e.g. credit ratings and governance structures, financing patterns and financial accounting, corporate governance and earnings management) is of particular interest.