Changling Chen

Associate Professor, Financial Reporting
Changling Chen

Office: Hagey Hall 174B

Email: clchen@uwaterloo.ca

Education and certifications

  • Ph.D., University of Wisconsin, Madison
  • M.A., Beijing University
  • B.A., Central University of Finance and Economics
  • Chinese Institute of Certified Public Accountants (CICPA; Inactive)

Brief biography

Professor Changling Chen’s research focuses on capital market issues in financial reporting, with interests spanning corporate disclosure, accounting conservatism, executive compensation, goodwill valuation, and the effects of ESG performance on firm transparency. Her work has appeared in leading journals including Contemporary Accounting Research, Review of Accounting Studies, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Journal of Corporate Finance, among others.

Selected publications

  • "CEO Compensation and Earnings Smoothing through R&D," (co-authored with Rachel Tang at Grenoble Ecole de Management, and Li Yao at Concordia University), Accounting and Business Research, forthcoming. 
  • “Financial Statement Placement, Note Disclosure, and Value Relevance: Evidence from ASU 2011-05” (co-authored with Matthew C. Cedergren, Santa Clara University, Kai Chen, Wilfrid Laurier University, and Victor X. Wang student at California State University, Long Beach), Journal of Financial Reporting 2025
  • “The Implication of Unrecognized Intangible Assets on the Relation between Market Valuation and Debt Valuation Adjustment,” (co-authored with Matthew C. Cedergren at University of Pennsylvania, and Kai Chen at Wilfrid Laurier University), Review of Accounting Studies, Volume 24, June 2019, Pages 426-455.
  • “Earnings Smoothing: Does It Exacerbate or Constrain Stock Price Crash Risk? (co-authored with Jeong-bon Kim at SAF, and Li Yao at Concordia University), Journal of Corporate Finance, Volume 42, February 2017, Pages 36–54. Included in the CFA Institute's Selections issue-CFA Digest Volume 47, No. 12, December 2017.
  • “The Predictive Ability of Investment Property Fair Value Adjustments under IFRS and the Role of Accounting Conservatism” (co-authored with Sati Bandyopadhyay and Mindy Wolfe at Arizona State University), Advances in Accounting, Volume 38, September 2017, Pages 1-14.
  • “Target Ownership Plans and Earnings Management” (co-authored with Duane Kennedy at SAF, and Kareen Brown at Brock University), Advances in Accounting, Volume 36, March 2017, Pages 87-101.
  • "Mandatory Audit Partner Rotation, Audit Market Concentration, and Audit Quality: Evidence from China" (with Sati P. Bandyopadhyay and Yingmin Yu), Advances in Accounting, incorporating Advances in International Accounting, Volume 30, Issue 1, June 2014, pp. 18-31. 
  • "Time-Varying Earnings Persistence and the Delayed Stock Return Reaction to Earnings Announcements" Contemporary Accounting Research, Volume 30, Issue 2, Summer 2013, pp. 549-578.
  • "Idiosyncratic Return Volatility and the Information Quality Underlying Managerial Discretion", (with Alan Guoming Huang, and Ranjini Jha), Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Volume 47, Issue 4, Aug. 2012, pp. 873-899.
  • "The Role of IT Capability on a Firm's Ability to Recover from Losses: Evidence from the Recession of the Early 2000s", (with Jee-Hae Lim and Theophanis C. Stratopoulos), Journal of Information System, Volume 25, Issue 2, Fall 2011, pp. 117-144.
  • "Accounting Conservatism and the Temporal Trends in Current Earnings' Ability to Predict Future Cash Flows versus Future Earnings: Evidence on the Trade-off between Relevance and Reliability", (with Sati P. Bandyopadhyay, Alan G. Huang, and Ranjini Jha), Contemporary Accounting Research, Volume 27, Issue 2, Summer 2010, pp. 413-460.
  • "Goodwill Valuation Effects of the Initial Adoption of Statement of Financial Accounting Standards (SFAS) 142" (with Mark Kohlbeck and Terry Warfield), Advances in Accounting, Volume 24, Issue 1, June 2008, pp. 72-81.

Working papers

  • “Technological Overlap and the Accounting Recognition of Technology-Related Intangibles: Evidence from Mergers and Acquisitions” (co-authored with Ivee Che, Daniel Jiang, Jonathan Yuan, and Mingyue Zhang). Working paper, accepted by the 2026 CAAA annual conference. SSHRC IDG grant.
  • “Hidden Ties: How Poor ESG Performance Drives Concealment of Major Customers,” (co-authored with Ivee Che, Alan Huang, and Yifei Kuang). Presented at the 2023 AAA and CAAA annual conferences, and 2024 EAA annual congress. 
  • "Political Leanings and COVID-19 Disclosures," (with Ivee Che, and Victor Wang), accepted by 2022 CAAA annual conference
  • "Do firms provide informative disclosures in an environment of extreme uncertainty? Evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic", (with Theo Stratopoulos, Victor Wang, and Betty Xing)                       
  • "Debt Covenant Violations, Credit Default Swap Pricing, and Borrowing Firms’ Accounting Conservatism", (with Jeong-bon Kim and Chunmei Zhu), accepted by 2019 CAAA annual conference.
  • "The Impact of Debt Covenant Violation on Credit Default Swap Spreads", (with Jeong-bon Kim and Chunmei Zhu), accepted by 2017 EAA annual conference.
  • "Earnings management in the context of fair value accounting: Adjusting the Modified Jones Model to fair value accounting" (with Corinna Ewelt-Knauer, University of Muenster, Germany)
  • Copies of working papers can be obtained from SSRN.

Courses taught

  • AFM 212 – Financial Analysis and Planning
  • AFM 391 – Intermediate Accounting II
  • AFM 401 – Accounting Theory
  • AFM 491 – Advanced Accounting
  • AFM 492 / AFM 609 – Financial Statement Analysis
  • ACC 701 – Financial Accounting Research Doctoral Seminar

Awards

  • Outstanding Research Fellowship, School of Accounting and Finance, University of Waterloo, 2012, 2013-2017, 2019-2022, 2023-2024
  • Outstanding Leadership Fellowship, School of Accounting and Finance, University of Waterloo, 2017, 2018-2021, 2022-2024

Editorial Board

  • Contemporary Accounting Research, Editorial Board Member (2014-2022)
  • Asia-Pacific Journal of Accounting & Economics, Associate Editor (2016-present)

Funding

  • SSHRC, Insight Development Research Grant, 2025-2027, $52,759, co-investigator
  • SSHRC, Insight Research Grant, 2023-2026, $86,300, co-investigator
  • SSHRC Insight Research Grant $97,000 2021-2024 (Primary Investigator)
  • CPA Canada—CAAA Research Program $6,000, co-investigator
  • SSHRC Insight Research Grant $83,000 (Primary Investigator)
  • SSHRC Standard Resarch Grant $69,000 (Co-investigator)
  • University of Waterloo SSHRC seed grant $5,500 (Primary Investigator)
Links
Contact information: Changling Chen