Account. Audit., Volume 1, Issue 2 (September 2025) – 2 articles

The rapid developments in technology have brought about significant changes regarding accounting information extraction as a tool for optimized administrative and strategic decisions. The implementation of electronic bookkeeping as a dynamic application, combined with the continuous renewal of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), has modified accounting functions. The impacts of technology, the imposition of innovative reforms in the public administration system, the effects of COVID-19 and the continuous need for accounting reforms, shaped in Greece an economic and accounting system of particular research interest. The research approaches accounting management, the impacts of digitalization and the main advantages and obstacles of the ever evolving technological transition. The aim of this paper is to create a tool that utilizes the existing levels of technological training and correlate it with digitization’s weaknesses and opportunities discerning an optimized approach of modern technologies in accounting administration. Results highlight the positive response to the updates of digitization demonstrated in accounting, with the simultaneous resistance to change due to increasing workloads. In the aforementioned economic environment, focused monitoring of both methods and rate of utilizing an evolving technology, combined with the human factor could enable a smoother transition of accounting digitalization and optimized administrative decisions. Full article

Past studies have observed that the low (high) accrual portfolio in the accrual anomaly consists of firms with high (low) credit risk, and have suggested that the abnormal return in the accrual anomaly arises from buying (selling) stocks with high (low) credit risk. In this paper, I first investigate whether the low accrual portfolio is indeed dominated by firms with higher credit risk. I find that this claim is not necessarily true. Next, I regress the abnormal return on both the level of accrual and credit risk. The regression is repeated using both decile ranking and actual values. In both cases, I find that the level of accrual is always statistically significant and negative. Finally, I investigate the claim that the abnormal return in the accrual anomaly is due to taking a long (short) position in stocks with high (low) credit risk. In each year, to control for credit risk, I first rank all firms by both their level of accrual and credit risk. The ranking for accrual and credit risk are independently determined. I require that in each year, the long position (in the low accrual decile) and short position (in high accrual decile) are equally weighted within each credit risk decile. After controlling for credit risk, I find that the abnormal return from Sloan’s accrual trading strategy is still positive, statistically significant and economically significant. I conclude that the accrual anomaly cannot be explained by credit risk. All findings in this paper are robust as to whether credit risk is measured using Altman’s z-score or the Standard & Poor’s credit rating. Full article