Date of Award

2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

PhD in Accountancy

Department

Department of Accountancy

First Advisor

Jay C. Thibodeau

Second Advisor

Kerri-Ann Sanderson

Third Advisor

Jacob Rose

Abstract

This three-paper dissertation investigates two mechanisms by which accountants can share their narrative and express the truth: data visualization and whistleblowing. The first paper is a comprehensive literature review of the quantitative data visualization research in accounting. We find that accounting research is highlighting data visualization usage for performance management, financial disclosure, system design, risk assessment, impression management, and fraud and forensics. While the existing contributions to data visualization research are substantive and important to accounting practice, many opportunities for data visualization remain under-or unexplored. The second paper investigates how accountants make the decision to blow the whistle and share their narrative. This study details two surveys, one completed by accounting professors and one completed by accountants from across the United States, to explore whether accountants contact accounting professors for advice when faced with unethical behavior in the workplace. Twenty-six percent of professors and twenty-four percent of accountants have engaged in this form of mentorship. Fifty-nine percent of professors and seventy-three percent of accountants report that consulting with the professor was the first course of action. The overwhelming majority of those professors (ninety-one percent from the professor sample and ninety-three percent from the accountant sample) provided accountants with advice. Overall, accountants are satisfied with both the professor’s advice and the professor’s mentorship. The third paper investigates a nascent outlet for external whistleblowing (i.e., social media) that enables accountants to expose their narrative expeditiously. I conduct a 2 X 2 between-participants experiment with 357 nonprofessional investors. I find that both perceived income inequity and perceived CEO incentive affect the firm’s reputation with investors through fairness and trust, in serial mediated models. However, investors’ subsequent investment activity is only impacted by perceived income inequity and perceived CEO incentive through trust. While most investors deem social media whistleblowing to be somewhat credible, this relationship is amplified in the presence of perceived CEO greed, such that CEO greed enhances the credibility investors attribute to online allegations. Taken together, these papers broaden our understanding of how accountants disseminate the truth and their narrative, and the implications of doing so.

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