Research finds female leadership in accounting delivers transparency

By Jessica Salerno-Shumaker, OSCPA senior content manager  

One professional’s Big Four experience inspired her to research gender differences in accounting, and her findings revealed the impact of having a woman in a leadership role.  

“At a high level, a company benefits by having a female within a CEO, CFO or audit partner role, because the financial statements are more likely to be transparent,” said Ceara Hintz, management consulting manager at Accenture.  

In addition to working at Accenture, Hintz is an adjunct professor within the School of Accountancy at the University of Denver and recently completed her Ph.D. research.  

Earlier in her career, when Hintz worked at one of the Big Four, she observed the differences between the male and female audit partners’ decision-making, and eventually how her own decision differed from that of her male peers. She used this as the foundation for her Ph.D. research.  

She noticed there was no audit partner data, unlike CEO or CFO data, which is more readily available. She spent about three months collecting thousands of data points through firm websites, LinkedIn, Google and more.  

The model that Hintz created and ran proved that accounting conservatism is higher among female audit partners. She says accounting conservatism is defined as not overstating net assets. Ideally, companies want higher accounting conservatism to remain transparent.  

“I was able to show that females were less likely to overstate net assets than their male counterparts,” she said. “And more specifically, the outcome of overstating your assets results in financial restatements, so you're less likely to have financial restatements with a female audit partner.”  

Hintz will present her research — “Numbers don't lie: Women's value in leadership and where to go from here”— at OSCPA’s Women, Wealth and Wellness Conference on July 18. “Numbers don't lie: Women's value in leadership and where to go from here.”  

This information is beneficial to business stakeholders who use financial statements to make decisions about the company, such as purchasing stock, and helps those decisions be more transparent. Hintz said it would be informative for stakeholders to know if all males hold the CEO, CFO and audit partner position at an organization.  

“Women are of tremendous value in the workplace, and they are making a difference,” she said. “The numbers show it.”  

Register for the Women, Wealth & Wellness Conference today to hear Ceara Hintz and more dynamic speakers at ohiocpa.com/www.