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(2018)ThesisThis thesis investigates the factors associated with the quantity of related party transaction disclosures by large publicly listed firms in the emerging markets of Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa (BRIS) using a checklist of disclosure requirements from IAS 24 Related Party Disclosures across three years; 2001, 2006 and 2014. Using four proxies of disclosure, each measuring a different aspect of disclosure, the thesis addresses whether disclosure level is associated with: IFRS adoption; across-time learning effects; audit committee; auditor type; foreign listing; outstanding capital market debt; and ownership concentration. Data are hand-collected from the English-language annual reports of 151 constant firms (453 firm-years) in each of the three sample years. The results suggest that the firm-specific factors examined influence each country’s compliance in different ways. Overall, the findings show that in Brazil and South Africa, the level of related party disclosure is positively associated with the mandatory adoption of IFRS. Across-time learning effect and the existence of outstanding capital market debt matters only in India. In Brazil, a higher level of related party disclosure is associated with the existence of an audit committee whereas in Russia, a positive association exists if firms are audited by a big 4 or 5 auditor. Ownership concentration, on the other hand, is associated with related party disclosure in Russia, India and South Africa. When all countries are combined and controlled for, IFRS adoption, learning effect and the existence of an audit committee are the only factors systematically related to related party disclosure
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(2017)ThesisBoth international (ISA 240) and U.S. (SAS No. 99) accounting standard-setters require audit firms to organise a discussion session/ brainstorming session at the audit planning stage for each audit, in order to discuss how and where a company’s financial statements might be susceptible to material misstatement due to fraud. This study introduces a structured interacting electronic brainstorming platform into the audit context and examines whether it improves auditors’ fraud brainstorming performance in the fraud hypotheses generation task when compared with the non-structured interacting electronic brainstorming platform which has been investigated in prior literature. In the structured interacting electronic brainstorming platform, idea inputs are shown by categories rather than in chronological sequence on a computer screen. Understanding the comparative effect of different forms of electronic brainstorming and exploring the most appropriate interacting electronic brainstorming method are important since it is likely to improve the effectiveness of brainstorming sessions in audit firms. The structured interacting electronic brainstorming platform has been found to be useful in improving users’ productivity and creativity in psychology. However, this study finds that the structured interacting electronic brainstorming platform has no effect on the brainstorming performance of the three-person hierarchical audit groups. Moreover, the use of the structured interacting electronic brainstorming platform has no effect on fraud brainstorming performance and mental simulations of seniors, but it even has a negative effect on the fraud brainstorming performance and mental simulations of managers. Furthermore, this study finds that there is no significant correlation between auditors’ brainstorming performance in the fraud hypotheses task and changes in their fraud risk assessments.
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(2014)ThesisDecision makers are confronted by a range of emotions, ambiguities and uncertainties in attempting to understand and make sense of change. This exploratory study aims to analyse strategic decision-making, focusing on the meanings attributed by managers during organizational change, in complex environments. The sensemaking literature has been applied because of its association with decision-making and in order to assess how sensemaking in decision-making could be examined. Organizational agents make sense through the mental maps, or schemata that they draw on when dealing with ambiguity. Framed within social constructivist paradigm, this research employs qualitative research design to explore the experiences of managers when making decisions. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews with senior managers in two complex contexts; a university in Australia and a construction company in India. After raw data were captured, documents were analysed using categorical aggregation to establish themes or patterns. The decision makersâ responses revealed four themes that helped them to prepare the organization for potential changes. The common themes that emerged from both the cases were rational approaches to decision-making, politics and processes and organizational context. Recognizing the complexity of environments, this research suggests recommendations that may assist the change management community to improve decision making and to share traits, tools, and practices of effective change leaders.
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(2012)ThesisThis study evaluates the short-term valuation impact of U.S. class action lawsuits by focusing on both sued and non-sued foreign companies listed in the United States. Using a comprehensive database that includes stock- and company-level information in both the U.S. and local home markets, I examine how private U.S. securities litigations affect the market value of both sued foreign companies and peer foreign firms not accused of wrongdoing. I find that during the event period surrounding the lawsuit-filing date, there is a significant negative stock price reaction for the sued foreign companies. Moreover, investors also tend to react negatively towards non-sued foreign issuers during this period. The logistic regression results also suggest that the determinants of lawsuit propensity are similar for foreign firms cross-listed in the U.S. and U.S. domestic companies. Finally, certain firm-, lawsuit-, and country-level characteristics can explain the degree of stock market reactions. The overall results provide evidence that private class action lawsuits in the U.S. have economically significant impact on cross-listed foreign issuers, thus playing an important role in overseeing and disciplining foreign companies.
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(2014)ThesisUsing a sample combining various datasets over the period 2000 to 2012, this paper examines the relationship between media coverage and payout policy in US public firms. I find that media coverage is negatively associated with a firm’s likelihood of paying dividends and positively associated with the decisions to cut and omit dividends. Firms with high media coverage also have a lower level of dividend smoothing. These findings are based on a relatively representative sample and persist after accounting for contemporaneous repurchasing activities, different combinations of firm characteristic control variables, and industry, time and firm fixed effects. Moreover, I also find that investors react less negatively to the dividend cut announcements of high coverage firms. Overall, my results suggest that, as higher media coverage attracts more potential investors to a stock, managers become less conservative regarding dividend policy.
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(2017)ThesisTechnologies of online ratings and reviews have recently emerged as mechanisms to facilitate transparency and accountability in the provision of goods and services. While online ratings have been shown to create trust in systems, trust in ratings by users has been largely neglected by researchers, despite the relationship between trust and reviews that has been posited in many accounts. Drawing on 30 field interviews with Airbnb guests and hosts and analysis of a range of secondary materials, I found that users are largely sceptical towards the information content of Airbnb s ratings and reviews. Scepticism is driven by initial perceptions of online ratings as being too high, and also by the face-saving practices adopted by users in the process of reviewing. Employing face-saving practices, users are found to adopt three distinct strategies (1) use of private messenger channels, (2) creation of tactful reviews that camouflage reality and (3) abstinence from reviewing entirely when leaving ratings and reviews on Airbnb. Trust in Airbnb s online ratings and reviews is found to be fragile, and users need support through other mechanisms to become informed. In addition to affecting trust, these three strategies combine to create illusory accountability in Airbnb s online ratings. This new form of accountability is conceptualised as crowd-sourced accountability and is found to survive without genuine engagement by users. These findings raise important questions about the efficacy of online ratings and reviews as a mechanism for self-regulation in the sharing economy.
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(2015)ThesisTo better understand how audit firms are governed, Australia has mandated the preparation and release of transparency reports by audit firms in 2013 with a focus on the disclosure on audit firm internal governance systems. These reports promote increased transparency regarding issues which are believed to contribute to audit quality. My thesis includes two empirical studies based on transparency report disclosures. In the first study, using the first-time disclosures in audit firm transparency reports, I summarise the governance and other information for the 21 leading Australian audit firms as disclosed in their first-time 2013 transparency reports. I find that audit firms meet the minimum transparency report disclosure requirements, but have different approaches to governance in the areas which may impact audit quality. I identify specific areas where transparency reports may give rise to future research opportunities. In the second study, I use disclosures from first-time mandatory audit firm transparency reports to investigate the association between the design features of partner remuneration schemes and audit quality. Specifically, I examine the influence of four features of partner remuneration schemes: the inclusion of performance-based compensation components, whether partner remuneration is linked to internally assessed measures of audit quality, whether partner remuneration is linked to client retention and acquisition and the size of profit sharing pool. Using the issuance of going-concern opinion and discretionary accruals as audit quality proxies, I find evidence of differences in audit quality related to partner remuneration schemes. I find that the inclusion of a link between partner remuneration and internally assessed measures of audit quality is associated with higher audit quality proxied by the issuance of going concern report and discretionary accruals. I also document that the inclusion of client retention and growth in partner remuneration schemes is associated with higher audit quality. However, I find mixed evidence of the role of performance-based components in partner remuneration schemes and find no evidence that the size of the profit sharing pool is associated with audit quality. My findings inform regulators and the profession that partner remuneration design features are associated with differences in audit quality.
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(2015)ThesisClassical consumption-based asset pricing models typically imply the existence of only one common factor in household consumption growth |aggregate consumption growth. This study examines whether there are multiple common factors in household consumption growth using a novel dataset and methodology. We find that i) there is a significant cross-sectional variation in household consumption growth, and ii) the cross-sectional variation is partially explained by exposure to multiple common factors orthogonal to aggregate consumption growth. Further, household exposure to the most pervasive common factor after aggregate consumption growth is related to the amount of human capital such as labor income, education and age, and their ability to hedge idiosyncratic shocks using borrowing collateral such as the housing wealth and liquid investments. This suggests that the source of additional common factors in consumption is related to an incomplete market for consumption insurance of households.
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(2014)ThesisAbstract After several postponements, the Malaysian Goods and Services Tax (GST) has finally been scheduled to commence in April 2015. Since the GST Bill was first announced in 2005, the private sector and the Government of Malaysia have conducted various information sessions and GST seminars to educate Malaysian business taxpayers. However, little is known about business taxpayers’ concerns and their readiness for the implementation of the GST. This study attempted to examine some of the major issues and concerns business taxpayers perceive as key challenges in preparing for the GST. More specifically, four broad issues were investigated, namely: (i) businesses readiness to implement the GST, (ii) the GST compliance burden imposed on businesses, (iii) business taxpayers’ perceptions of the Royal Malaysian Customs Department (RMCD) to provide financial and non-financial assistance and (iv) to determine whether or not business perceptions are related to business characteristics. From April 2013 to June 2013 a survey was conducted with a sample of 1,500 business taxpayers; 426 survey responses were received representing a satisfactory response rate of over 28%. The survey results indicated that business taxpayers are overall poorly prepared for the implementation. Only nine percent of respondents claimed to be substantially ready. With respect to computer system readiness, only 22% of the respondents perceived to be ready. A worrying finding was that over 25% of respondents who are eligible to register for GST stated they would not register for GST. Over 74% of respondents felt the GST would place an additional compliance burden on them. Only 24% of respondents stated that they were confident they would get the required assistance from RMCD for GST implementation. Further statistical analyses reveals larger businesses are better prepared for GST overall and smaller businesses felt more stressed about GST. It is concluded Malaysian businesses were poorly prepared in 2013 and do require additional assistance. A number of measures are suggested to alleviate businesses compliance burden. They include compensation for GST set-up costs, more free training and simplification of GST reporting. In particular, the RMCD should strive to build a closer relationship with business taxpayers to iron out the major issues so that business taxpayers are encouraged to register and comply with GST laws and regulations.
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(2015)ThesisDespite the positive effects of the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) noted in the literature, standard-setters have recently issued reports suggesting that the required disclosures in IFRS have become too burdensome and should be reduced. One such report, “Losing the Excess Baggage” (2011; also referred to as “Excess Baggage”), issued by professional accounting bodies from Scotland and New Zealand, classifies current IFRS disclosure requirements into three categories: retain; delete; and disclose only if the item is material. The thesis empirically examines whether the items targeted for deletion, retention or reduction based on materiality by Excess Baggage are disclosed differently, linked differently to firm characteristics, and have different value relevance in an Australian setting. Findings indicate that items marked retain are disclosed most, followed by material, then by delete items. Firm characteristics, such as US listing status, and ownership dispersion, are positively associated with disclosure levels. In addition, while only the material disclosure items are value relevant, the presence of disclosures based on all categories has a moderating effect on value relevance of book value of equity.