Dr Roman Lanis

Richardson, G. & Lanis, R. 1998, 'The influence of culture on tax administration practices' in Evans, C; Greenbaum, A (eds), Tax Administration: Facing the Challenges of the Future, Prospect Media Pty Ltd, NSW, Australia, pp. 231-247.

Lanis, R. & Richardson, G. 2013, 'Corporate social responsibility and tax aggressiveness: A test of legitimacy theory', Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, vol. 26, no. 1, pp. 75-100.
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Askary, S., Goodwin, D. & Lanis, R. 2012, 'Improvements in audit risks related to information technology frauds', International Journal of Enterprise Information Systems, vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 52-63.
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In this paper, the authors examine how different types of fraud in most Information Technology (IT) environments affect an audit risk model from 2001 through 2008. Variations in IT fraud are questionable for determining the audit risks that affect audit quality and report. The data sources in this study came from the Computer Crime and Security Survey report (CSI) 2008. By relating different IT fraud to audit risk components through trend analysis in IT fraud improvements from 2001 to 2008, the authors measured declined percentages for control risks, inherent risks, and detection risks. They found that an improvement in control risks has been achieved up to 52.80%, 43% for detection risks, and 14% for inherent risks. An overall improvement in audit risk is 47.5%, which is a considerable development in audit quality. The study shows that progress in detecting IT fraud positively reduced audit risks and has significantly increased the audit quality since 2001.

Lanis, R. & Richardson, G. 2012, 'Corporate social responsibility and tax aggressiveness: An empirical analysis', Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, vol. 31, no. 1, pp. 86-108.
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This study examines the association between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate tax aggressiveness. Based on a sample of 408 publicly listed Australian corporations for the 2008/2009 financial year, our regression results show that the higher the level of CSR disclosure of a corporation, the lower is the level of corporate tax aggressiveness. We find a negative and statistically significant association between CSR disclosure and tax aggressiveness which holds across a number of different regression model specifications, thus more socially responsible corporations are likely to be less tax aggressive in nature. Finally, the regression results from our additional analysis indicate that the social investment commitment and corporate and CSR strategy (including the ethics and business conduct) of a corporation are important elements of CSR activities that have a negative impact on tax aggressiveness.

Wells, P.A., Waller, D.S. & Lanis, R. 2012, 'TV Licenses in Australia: Barriers to competition, big bucks and the impact of new media', Australian Journal of Communication, vol. 39, no. 2, pp. 59-72.
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Commercial television licences are awarded to television companies by the Federal Government and are the mechanism through which the industry is regulated in Australia. Major considerations in the design of this regulation system are that the industry should be 'financially viable' and, for reasons of maintaining 'cultural identity', encourage the production of local content. However, restricting the availability of television licences also represents a significant barrier to competition within the industry, which has resulted in high returns to the owners of the licences, although this has changed significantly with the growth of new media. This study considers the television licensing system in Australia, and how this is changing in the new media environment

Farook, S.Z., Hassan, M. & Lanis, R. 2011, 'Determinants of corporate social responsibility disclosure: the case of Islamic banks', Journal of Islamic Accounting and Business Research, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 114-141.
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Purpose + The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a theoretical model of the determinants of Islamic banks+ social disclosures. In testing the hypotheses, the level of social disclosure in Islamic banks+ annual reports is gauged based on a benchmark derived from Islamic principles.

Lanis, R. & Richardson, G.F. 2011, 'The effect of board of director composition on corporate tax aggressiveness', Journal Of Accounting And Public Policy, vol. 30, no. 1, pp. 50-70.
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This study considers the effect of board of director composition on corporate tax aggressiveness. Our logit regression results for a choice-based sample of 32 corporations comprising 16 tax-aggressive corporations and 16 non-tax-aggressive corporations s

Richardson, G. & Lanis, R. 2009, 'The impact of the Ralph Review Tax Reform on corporate capital investment in Australia', Australian Tax Forum: a journal of taxation policy, law and reform, vol. 24, no. 3, pp. 261-279.
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This study analyzes the impact of tax reform on corporate capital investment in Australia stemming from the Ralph Review of Business Taxation reform. Based on panel data spanning the Ralph Review tax reform, our regression results indicate that corporate capital investment decreased in Australia because of the tax reform. We find that that the negative effects of the removal of accelerated depreciation exceeded the positive effects of the reduction in the corporate tax rate, so there was a decline in corporate capital investment. Our findings are robust to several robustness checks

Waller, D.S. & Lanis, R. 2009, 'Corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure of advertising agencies: An exploratory analysis of six holding companies annual reports', Journal Of Advertising, vol. 38, no. 1, pp. 109-121.
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The corporate annual report has become more than a mandatory financial report for public companies, with many companies also using it as an important marketing tool. As corporate social responsibility (CSR) is an issue of growing interest in the business world, many publicly listed companies, including advertising agencies, are voluntarily disclosing information regarding their CSR activities in their annual reports. While there is criticism of the ethical values of advertising, some advertising agencies can use CSR to promote a positive side of the agency's business. This descriptive study analyzes the annual reports of the top six holding companies in the global advertising industry to promote discourse and theory development in the area. This will be done by observing which advertising companies disclose their CSR activities and what activities they undertake, as well as the development of a CSR disclosure index for advertising agencies. The results indicate that some advertising companies do engage in CSR activities and disclose them in their annual reports, but the level of these CSR disclosures is different between the organizations.

Richardson, G. & Lanis, R. 2008, 'Corporate effective tax rates and tax reform: Evidence spanning Australia's Ralph Review of Business Taxation Reform', Australian Tax Forum: a journal of taxation policy, law and reform, vol. 23, pp. 109-123.
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Our study analyzes corporate effective tax rates of Australian firms for two periods: the years preceding the Ralph Review of Business Taxation reform (1996-99), and the years following the tax reform (2001-04). We investigate differences in both the level and variation of corporate effective tax rates during these periods, and also identify firm-specific characteristics that explain the changes in corporate effective tax rates over these periods. Evidence is presented which shows that the Ralph Review tax reform caused a significant reduction in both the level and variation of corporate effective tax rates. Moreover, our regression results indicate that corporate effective tax rates are related to some major firm-specific characteristics in Australia before and after the tax reform, including capital intensity, inventory intensity and R&D intensity. Our results suggest that while one of major objectives of the Ralph Review was to promote equity in Australia+s corporate tax system, it still appears inequitable at least regarding several of the firm-specific characteristics considered in this study.

Richardson, G. & Lanis, R. 2007, 'Determinants of the variability in corporate effective tax rates and tax reform: Evidence from Australia', Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, vol. 26, no. 6, pp. 689-704.
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This study examines the determinants of the variability in corporate effective tax rates in Australia spanning the Ralph Review of Business Taxation reform. Our results indicate that corporate effective tax rates are associated with several major firm-specific characteristics, including firm size, capital structure (leverage) and asset mix (capital intensity, inventory intensity and R&D intensity). While the Ralph Review tax reform had a significant impact on many of these associations, corporate effective tax rates continue to be associated with firm size, capital structure and asset mix after the tax reform. -® 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Groen, B. & Lanis, R. 2004, 'The saga of a disallowed accounting standard', Australian Accounting Review, vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 56-63.
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Lanis, R. & McFarling, B.R. 2004, 'Healthy economics healing autistic accounting theory: visiting a neglected area of institutional economics', Journal Of Economic Issues, vol. 38, no. 1, pp. 59-83.
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Pike, R.V. & Lanis, R. 2003, 'Hyperlinking audited financial statements to unaudited information in the presence of the WebTrust logo: Hodge's Model revised', International Journal of Auditing, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 143-154.

Richardson, G. & Lanis, R. 2001, 'The influence of income taxes on the use of debt held by publicly listed Australian corporations', Australian Tax Forum: a journal of taxation policy, law and reform, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 3-31.

Richardson, G. & Lanis, R. 1996, 'Harmonizing taxation law within APEC: A fiscal and cultural analysis', Bulletin for International Fiscal Documentation, vol. October, pp. 430-439.
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Over the past few years, there has been a pronounced acceleration in the trend towards economic integration in different regions of the world. The completion of the single European Market, the introduction of the United States-Canada Free Trade Agreement and its subsequent expansion into the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the projected completion of fhe Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) free trade region (AFTA) by the year 2003, and the declaration of the objective by the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) to accomplish free trade and investment in the Asia and Pacific region by the year 2020 provide recent examples of this trend.

Waller, D.S. & Lanis, R. 2009, 'CSR disclosure: An exploratory study of the leading media organizations', American Marketing Association Summer, Chicago, USA, August 2009 in 2009 AMA Educator's Proceedings: Enhancing Knowledge Development in Marketing, ed Kamins, M and Martin, I.M., American Marketing Association, Chicago, USA, pp. 1-8.
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Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is an issue of growing interest in the business world, and many large, multinational companies, including media organizations, are voluntarily disclosing information regarding their CSR activities. While there is criticism of the ethical values of +the media,+ some media organizations are using CSR to promote a positive side of their business. This exploratory study observes what the leading media organizations are doing in terms of CSR activities to propose a CSR disclosure index for the media industry, and discusses some implications for other organizations.

Bairstow, G.C., Brown, P.J. & Lanis, R. 2008, 'The impact incentive types on organisational performance in anglo cultures: a reply to Drake, Haka and Ravenscroft (1999)', Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand Conference, Sydney, Australia, July 2008 in 2008 AFAANZ/IAAER Conference website papers, ed Hay, D; Moroney, R, AFAANZ, Sydney, Australia, pp. 1-48.
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Experimental research suffers from biases introduced by experiment design choices, such as the choice of alternative incentive and reward structures. We propose that framing rewards in a broader typology when researchers make decision about which reward structures to use in an experiment will minimise the potential for a false choice bias. To highlight this problem we replicate Drake, Haka and Ravenscroft+s (1999) incentive structure experiment using a simpler, more theory driven design. Drake et al (1999) propose that organisational performance maybe be better if group compensation is given in preference to individualistic compensation, within the context of an information rich environment (using activity based costing). In particular, Drake et al (1999) apply an experimental research design to test that proposition using U.S. MBA students. Their results suggest that, ceteris paribus, given a group in preference to an individualistic incentive scheme, innovation, efficiency and profitability may improve. We argue that this conclusion is inconsistent with the incentive structure choices faced by managers, the societal values of the U.S., culture and agency theories in general. A possible explanation for Drake et al+s (1999) result is the use of a tournament incentive scheme as the basis for individual compensation. As such, we replicate the Drake et al (1999) experiment using Australian university students and an individual profit incentive scheme as the basis for individual compensation. Our results, in contrast to Drake et al. (1999), indicate that given an individual in preference to group incentive scheme, task performance improves in an information rich environment. This experiment highlights the false choice bias that reduces the generalizability of experimental research in general and highlights the value of propositions couched in a broader reward typology.

Richardson, G. & Lanis, R. 2008, 'Corporate effective tax rates and tax reform: evidence from Australia', Annual Congress of European Accounting Association, Rotterdam, Netherlands, April 2008 in 31st Annual Congress European Accounting Association Conference Website papers, ed Hartmann, F.G.H., European Accounting Association (EAA), Europe, pp. 1-10.
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The Ralph Review of Business Taxation, which submitted its recommendations to the Australian Government on 30 July 1999, represented an important event in the corporate tax reform process in Australia (Cooper et al., 2002, p. 20; Gilders et al., 2004, p. 16). Some of its key recommendations were designed to promote equity in the corporate tax system by removing several major tax incentives (Ralph, 1999, p. 15). For example, accelerated depreciation, which favors capital intensive firms, was recommended for removal. The Ralph Review also recommended a phased-in reduction of the corporate tax rate as trade-off to firms for the removal of accelerated depreciation. The Australian Government implemented these key Ralph Review recommendations, and they came into law in the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997, applying from the 1999/2000 tax year.

Waller, D.S. & Lanis, R. 2008, 'An Analysis of Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure by Advertising Agencies', Australian New Zealand Communications Association Annual Conference, Melbourne, July 2007 in Communications, Civics, Industry: Proceedings of ANZCA 2007, ed Tebbutt, J, Australia and New Zealand Communication Association and La Trobe University, Melbourne, pp. 1-9.
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The corporate annual report has become more than a mandatory financial report for public companies, with many companies also using it as an important marketing communication tool. As corporate social responsibility (CSR) is an issue of growing interest in the business world, many publicly listed companies, including advertising agencies, are voluntarily disclosing information regarding their CSR activities in their annual report. This descriptive study analyses the annual reports of the top six holding companies in the global advertising industry, in order to observe which advertising companies disclose their CSR activities and what activities they undertake, and the development of a CSR disclosure index for advertising agencies. The results indicate that some advertising companies do engage in CSR activities and disclose them in the annual report, but the level of these CSR disclosures is different between the organisations.

Richardson, G. & Lanis, R. 2007, 'The impact of tax reform on corporate capital investment: Evidence from Australian panel data', Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand Conference, Gold Coast, Australia, July 2007 in 2007 AFAANZ Conference, ed Stewart, J; Hay, D, AFAANZ, Gold Coast, Australia, pp. 1-22.
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We examine the impact of tax reform on corporate capital investment in Australia spanning the Ralph Review of Business Taxation reform. Based on panel data, our results indicate that corporate capital investment reduced because of the tax reform. The negative effects of the removal of accelerated depreciation exceeded the positive effects of the decrease in the corporate tax rate, hence corporate capital investment declined. Moreover, the decline was broad-based as it occurred across all major industry sectors. These findings remain robust to an alternate measure of corporate capital investment.

Waller, D.S. & Lanis, R. 2007, 'Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure: An Exploratory Study of the Top 10 Media Organisations', Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy Conference, Dunedin, New Zealand, December 2007 in Proceedings of the 2007 ANZMAC Conference 3Rs: Reputation, Responsibility and Relevance, ed Thyne, M.; Deans, K.; Gnoth, J., Otago University, Dunedin, New Zealand, pp. 2847-2854.
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Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is an issue of growing interest in the business world, and many large, multinational companies, including media organisations, are voluntarily disclosing information regarding their CSR activities. While there is criticism of the ethical values of the media , some media organisations are using CSR to promote a positive side of their business. This exploratory study observes what the leading media organisations are doing in terms of CSR activities to propose a CSR disclosure index for the media industry, and discusses some implications for other organisations.

Farook, S.Z. & Lanis, R. 2005, 'Banking on Islam? Determinants of corporate social responsibility disclosure', Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand Conference, Melbourne, Australia, July 2005 in 2005 AFAANZ Conference Proceedings, ed Faff, R, AFAANZ, Melbourne, Australia, pp. 1-45.
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Katselas, D., Lanis, R. 2004, 'A comparative study into the effectiveness of corporate reporting governance dimensions in reducing inter-company disclosure variation: the challenges facing international accounting standards-setters', International Accounting Conference, Padova, Italy, June 2004 in 2004 International Accounting Conference: "Emerging Issues in International Accounting & Business", ed -, University of Padova, Padova, pp. 1-33.
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