About

Bradley Hendricks is an Associate Professor of Accounting at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School. He is an expert in corporate disclosure, financial regulation, initial public offerings, and entrepreneurship. He teaches courses on financial reporting and the foundations of business thought to both graduate and undergraduate students, and also works with executive audiences. Dr. Hendricks is an award-winning teacher, having received the Weatherspoon Award for Teaching Excellence multiple times. His research has been published in leading accounting and management journals, including the Journal of Accounting Research, The Accounting Review, Review of Accounting Studies, Management Science, Organization Science, Strategic Management Journal, and Journal of Applied Psychology. He also publishes in Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review. His work has been recognized with the Bullard Faculty Research Impact Award, which honors a professor whose research has had a significant impact on business practice. Dr. Hendricks serves as a board member of the Private Company Council, advising the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) on private company issues, helping to shape accounting standards affecting private companies. He also serves on the Luther Hodges Scholars Board of Mentors and has previously been a board member for Carolina for the Kids, North Carolina's largest student-run philanthropy. Prior to his academic career, he worked as an accountant for a start-up technology company and as a CPA at Ernst & Young. He holds a PhD in business administration from the University of Michigan’s Stephen M. Ross School of Business, and earned his MAcc and BA in accounting from the University of Utah, graduating with high honors.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Business
• Accounting
• Artificial Intelligence
• Economics
• Sociology
• Political Science
• Social Science
• Psychology
• Marketing
• Mathematics education
• Econometrics
• Mathematics
• Engineering
• Law
• Management
• Art history
• Actuarial science
• Finance
• Public relations
• History
• Monetary economics
• Financial economics

Selected publications

• Accounting Basis and Verification: Survey Evidence from U.S. Private Firms

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2026-01-01

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Finding an Alternative Disclosure Path: IPO Business Model Targets

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• When founders falter: A second-in-command attenuates the effect of founder identification on unethical pro-organizational behavior.

  Journal of Applied Psychology · 2025-12-08

  articleSenior author

  Research on upper echelons theory often portrays founders as stewards who act in their organizations' best interests, requiring less oversight than hired executives. We challenge this view by examining a potential dark side of founder leadership: leader-directed unethical pro-organizational behavior, in which founders direct subordinates to engage in unethical actions to benefit the firm. Integrating social identity theory with social cognitive theory, we shed light on both when and why founder identification leads to this form of unethicality. Specifically, in the absence of effective corporate governance, singularly identified founders may develop a bottom-line mentality as they struggle for their organization to succeed. Subsequently, they may experience moral disengagement, leading them to rationalize directing subordinates to engage in questionable tactics. However, we argue that the presence of a "second-in-command" can act as a key safeguard that attenuates the relationship between founder identification and bottom-line mentality, thereby reducing founder moral disengagement and leader-directed unethical pro-organizational behavior. We find converging support for our hypothesized model using an archival panel data set as well as a three-wave field study of founders. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

  PublisherDOI

• The Voluntary Production and Use of Management Accounting Information: Evidence from U.S. Private Firms

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• MIT Survey of Private Firm CFOs: Results Summary

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Entrepreneurs and Corporate Social Irresponsibility

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2024-07-09

  articleSenior author

  Prior literature suggests many benefits stemming from founders’ strong identification with their firms. We suggest, however, that there is also a potential dark side. We argue that founders can become overidentified with their organizations, making them more likely to engage in irresponsible behavior that protects the firm but harms others, as moral and societal norms are viewed as obstacles to fulfilling an organization’s goals. However, we also argue that the presence of a “second-in-command” can act as a key safeguard against founder CEOs’ overidentification by reigning in some of the founders’ worst impulses. We find support for our predictions using panel data with over 4,000 firm-years. Collectively, our findings offer fresh contributions to the literatures on organizational identification, founder leadership, and corporate social irresponsibility.

  PublisherDOI

• The ChatGPT Artificial Intelligence Chatbot: How Well Does It Answer Accounting Assessment Questions?

  Issues in Accounting Education · 2023 · 114 citations

  • Computer Science
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Accounting

  ABSTRACT ChatGPT, a language-learning model chatbot, has garnered considerable attention for its ability to respond to users’ questions. Using data from 14 countries and 186 institutions, we compare ChatGPT and student performance for 28,085 questions from accounting assessments and textbook test banks. As of January 2023, ChatGPT provides correct answers for 56.5 percent of questions and partially correct answers for an additional 9.4 percent of questions. When considering point values for questions, students significantly outperform ChatGPT with a 76.7 percent average on assessments compared to 47.5 percent for ChatGPT if no partial credit is awarded and 56.5 percent if partial credit is awarded. Still, ChatGPT performs better than the student average for 15.8 percent of assessments when we include partial credit. We provide evidence of how ChatGPT performs on different question types, accounting topics, class levels, open/closed assessments, and test bank questions. We also discuss implications for accounting education and research.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Pitch: Managers’ Disclosure Choice during Initial Public Offering Roadshows

  The Accounting Review · 2022-06-09 · 42 citations

  article

  ABSTRACT We examine firm disclosure choice during the initial public offering (IPO) roadshow presentation to understand the informativeness of a management presentation designed to attract investors. Although firms submit a comprehensive registration filing during the IPO, managers also prepare a roadshow presentation, which is shorter and typically allows managers more autonomy to select the information released and how it is discussed. We find that IPO roadshows have significantly more positive, less negative, and less uncertain language than the SEC filing. Using machine learning to classify roadshow sentences into five major topics from the registration statement, we find that roadshows differ in both the topics selected and the language used within each topic. We then examine the predictive ability of the roadshow language, finding that roadshow language predicts future accounting performance, whereas filing language does not. These results highlight the informational role of management presentations, despite the flexibility they grant managers. JEL Classifications: M41; G10; M13.

  PublisherDOI

• Anticipatory Effects around Proposed Regulation: Evidence from Basel III

  The Accounting Review · 2022-04-29 · 5 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  ABSTRACT Regulation is often proposed, developed, and finalized over a lengthy rule-making period prior to its adoption. We examine the period over which banking authorities discussed, adopted, and implemented Basel III to understand how firms respond to proposed regulation. We find evidence to suggest that affected banks not only lobbied rule-makers against it but also made strategic financial reporting changes and altered their business models in ways that reduced their exposure to the proposed rule prior to rule-makers finalizing the regulation. Further, our results indicate a sequential response, with banks responding through lobbying and strategic financial reporting prior to making business model changes. These findings highlight the interplay among firms’ financial reporting, business model, and political choices in response to proposed regulation and indicate that the appropriate date for an event study may be the regulation’s announcement date rather than its adoption or implementation dates. JEL Classifications: G14; G21; G28; M41; M48.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• A Hard Look at SPAC Projections

  Management Science · 2022 · 54 citations

  • Business
  • Econometrics
  • Economics

  Firms’ use of special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) to go public has increased dramatically, leading to market and regulatory debate about their use of projections. Examining SPAC mergers from 2004 through 2021, we find that 80% of firms provide projections for four years ahead on average, with approximately one-quarter of recent projections extending more than five years. For the sample of SPAC mergers with observable postmerger revenue, we find that only 35% of firms meet or beat their projections. This proportion declines for forecasts that are longer horizon, and nonserial SPAC sponsors miss forecasts by greater percentages. When we compare SPAC projected revenue growth with benchmark samples of firms completing an initial public offering (IPO) and matched firms, the SPAC projections are approximately three times larger on average than benchmark firms’ actual revenue growth, with even greater differences for long-term projections. After the merger, firms reduce their use of projections, providing them at statistically similar rates as benchmark firms. Overall, the evidence supports concerns that the SPAC merger includes highly optimistic projections. This paper was accepted by Suraj Srinivasan, accounting.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Travis Howell

  Arizona State University

  10 shared

• Gregory S. Miller

  Ross School

  9 shared

• Christopher D. Williams

  Ross School

  9 shared

• Elizabeth Blankespoor

  8 shared

• Catherine Shakespeare

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  7 shared

• Wayne R. Landsman

  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  3 shared

• Chris B. Bingham

  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  3 shared

• Jed J. Neilson

  Pennsylvania State University

  3 shared

Awards & honors

• Weatherspoon Award for Teaching Excellence
• Bullard Faculty Research Impact Award