This study examines the effect of financial reporting opacity and audit quality on stock price crash risk using listed firms in Japan. This study is the first research to examine the effect of financial reporting opacity on crash risk using a Japanese listed company. Furthermore, the effect of audit quality on crash risk is verified. High level auditors can mitigate crash risk by playing a role as a corporate governance device mechanism to reduce agency costs. We use a logistic regression and linear regression model to test whether financial reporting opacity and audit quality affect crash risk using listed firms in the Japanese stock exchange market during the fiscal years 2015 January through 2017 February. The results of this study suggest that the financial reporting opacity variable shows a positive relationship with CRASH, which states that a firm with more opaque financial reporting increases crash risk. The results suggest also that the firms audited by Big4 auditors experience less crash risk, implying that the audit quality in Japan can be one of the factors mitigating firm's crash risk. This study provides implications for financial reporting and audit quality to external stakeholders who wants to avoid losses.

Purpose : This study examines The impact of human resource investment in internal control on stock price crash risk. Effective internal control ensures that information provided is complete and accurate, financial statements are reliable. By overseeing management, internal control systems can reduce agency costs between management and outside parties. In Korea, firms have to disclose information about internal control systems. The working experience of human resources in internal control systems is also provided for interested parties. If a firm hires more experienced internal control personnel, it can better facilitate the disclosure of information. Prior studies reported that information asymmetry between managers and investors increases future stock price crash risk. Therefore, the longer working experience internal control personnel have, the lower probability stock crashes have. Research design, data and methodology : This study analyzed the association between the working experience of internal control personnel and crash risk using regression analysis on KOSPI listed companies for fiscal years 2016 through 2017. The sample consists of 1 ,034 firm-years of non-financial firms whose fiscal year end on December 31. Career spanning data of internal control personnel was collected from internal control reports. The professionalism(IC_EXP) was measured as the logarithm of the average working experience of internal control personnel in months. Negative conditional skewness(NSKEW) and down-to-up volatility (DUVOL) are used to measure firm-specific crash risk. Both measures are based on firm-specific weekly returns derived from the expanded market model. Results : We find that work experience in internal control environment is negatively related to stock price crashes. Specifically, skewness(NSKEW) and volatility (DUVOL) are reduced when firms have longer tenure of human resources in internal control division. The results imply that firms with experienced internal control personnel are less likely to experience stock price crashes. Conclusions : Stock price crashes occur when investors realize that stock prices have been inflated due to information asymmetry. There is a learning effect when internal control processes are done repetitively. Thus, firms with more experienced internal control personnel could manage their internal control more effectively. The results of this study suggest that firms could decrease information asymmetry by investing in human resources for their internal control system.

Corporate social responsibility is a self-regulating business model that helps a firm be socially accountable to the public. By practicing corporate social responsibility, firms can be conscious of the kind of impact they are having on all aspects of society, including economic, social, and environmental. Corporate social responsibility activities are not directly linked to increasing corporate performance and corporate value, but rather involve spending expenses. Based on these facts, this study verifies whether the effects of corporate social responsibility activities differ depending on the firm's situation. Research design, data and methodology: This study analyzed the effect of market competition on corporate social responsibility activities using logistic regression analysis on listed companies in the KOSPI and KOSDAQ for fiscal years 2014 through 2016. In this study, market competition was measured using the Herfindahl-Herschman Index(HHI). Higher HHI value can be interpreted as a lower degree of market competition. We also measured corporate social responsibility activities using the KEJI Index published by the Korea Economic Justice Institute (KEJI). If a firm-year is included in the top 200 companies of the KEJI Index, it is classified as a good corporate social responsibility activity firm. Results: We find that companies in less competitive market were not included in the KEJI Index. This result indicates that firms in the market with lower market competition perform less corporate social responsibility activities that incur costs. An additional analysis showed that there was a significant negative relationship between the market competition and the corporate social responsibility activity scores published by the KEJI Index. These result adds robustness to the result of the hypothesis that firms that have a monopolistic place in the market practice passive corporate social responsibility activities. Conclusions: The results show that managers of a firm in the lower market competition have a lower incentive to use limited resources for projects that are not directly related to revenue. The results of this study imply that corporate social responsibility activities vary according to the position of the business. Therefore, this study suggests that market investors should consider the degree of competition in the market when they evaluate corporate social responsibility activities.