USF St. Petersburg campus Faculty Publications

Does graph design matter to CPAs and financial statement readers.

SelectedWorks Author Profiles:

Todd M. Shank

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2008

Abstract

We asked CPAs and financial statement readers if they believe distorted graphs influence judgments and if they think there is a need for standards governing their presentation and attestation in annual reports. We consider these important questions because decades of studies document that distorted graphs commonly appear in annual reports even though there is considerable evidence that such graphs influence readers’ judgments. Our results show that professionals are aware of the potential influence of graphical distortion, believe that standards are needed to assist in preparing graphs of financial information to be included in annual reports, and agree that auditors should be required to provide assurance about the accuracy of such graphs.

Comments

Full-text article is also available at the Journal of Business & Economics Research, (2008) 6(5), 111-124. Members of the USF System may access the full-text of the article through the authenticated link provided.

Language

en_US

Publisher

Western Academic Press

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

burgess_dilla_steinbart_shank_2008.pdf (226 kB)
Author Manuscript

Share

COinS