The authors, HBS professor Francois Brochet and doctoral candidate Kyle Welch, obtained the employment histories of CFOs and CEOs of 1,616 publicly listed non-financial services U.S. firms between 2002 and 2009, corresponding to a single accounting regime for . Their findings show that the decision of whether to impair goodwill is likely to be influenced by the particular expertise areas of these executives.

On average, the authors find, former auditors are significantly more likely to be involved when goodwill is impaired. Further investigation revealed that former auditors and investment bankers were more likely to be involved with goodwill impairment when their "reputation concerns" are low, suggesting that those executives are subject to their own opportunistic motives.

Also, the greater propensity of former auditors and investment bankers to report goodwill impairments is concentrated in firms that have a board member with a similar background. Additionally, former investment bankers were found more likely than other executives in the study to disclose pro forma earnings excluding goodwill impairment.

The executives with CPA backgrounds primarily charged off goodwill in their first year as CEO or CFO, driven by "reputation concerns," both to "signal the poor performance of the predecessor's acquisitions" and to reduce the likelihood of future impairments.

CEOs and CFOs with investment banking experience, on the other hand, are more likely to try to obscure damages to reputation by including a tabulation of pro-forma earnings that excludes goodwill impairment, at least in the view of this report. These executives -- along with those having a private equity/venture capital background -- are also significantly more likely to divest assets.