Business

Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 83
  • (2018) Emanuel, Carmel
    Thesis
    This 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

  • (2019) Li, Jingduan
    Thesis
    My thesis examines the changes to debt covenants associated with the mandatory adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). I first examine the change in the use of accounting covenants after the mandatory adoption of IFRS. Then I investigate whether other factors such as the differences between local Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and IFRS, and cross-country enforcement differences, can also affect the use of accounting debt covenants. I also examine the use of non-accounting covenants after the mandatory IFRS adoption. The sample I use is new private debt issues between 2001 and 2010 in 18 IFRS-adopting countries (treatment group) and in 16 non-IFRS countries (control group), consisting of 290 and 1,199 firm-year observations for IFRS and non-IFRS countries, respectively. Employing a difference-in-difference specification that controls for firm and debt issue characteristics, I find a significant decline in the use of accounting-based debt covenants in IFRS-adopting countries after IFRS adoption, but not in non-IFRS adopting countries. This reduction is more pronounced in countries with a high level of difference between IFRS and prior local GAAP. In addition, I find that among these high difference countries, the significant decrease only exists in strong enforcement countries. I also find that the use of non-accounting covenants increases after IFRS adoption. My results are robust with respect to a variety of tests. Collectively, the results suggest that the mandatory adoption of IFRS increases the uncertainty and volatility of accounting numbers in debt contracts, and thereby reduces debt contractibility. How extensively local GAAP and IFRS differ is the main reason for the uncertainty that is injected into accounting numbers in debt covenants. In addition, the results suggest that only in those countries with strong enforcement do the effects of IFRS in fact occur. Increased non-accounting covenants use suggests that lenders rely on other kinds of covenants to protect themselves when accounting covenants become less useful. Therefore, the observed reduction in accounting-based debt covenants is not due to increased transparency inherent in IFRS. The results suggest that financial statements prepared under IFRS have potential limitations for debt contracting.

  • (2019) Jiranaphawiboon, Abhisit
    Thesis
    Public concerns about potential harms of violent video games are often based on a positive association between exposure to video game violence and aggression found in psychology experiments. Whether this aggressive tendency manifests itself in terms of actual criminal behavior seems unclear. In this paper, I utilize temporal variation in aggregated violence exposure using data containing weekly unit sales of the top 30 game titles in the United States from 2005-2014, and analyze the impact of this exposure on assaults committed by young males. I find that weeks with high intensely violent video game sales have a lower number of assaults. The effect becomes more noticeable during the 9 P.M. – 12 A.M. time window over the weekend. One million additional sales of intensely violent games reduces assaults by 2.15% during that time period. I interpret this finding as a product of time substitution, where people play games that they have recently bought for longer hours, which draws them away from risky outdoor activities. As a result, crime drops in response to the absence of proactive criminals on the streets. A highly pronounced impact among young males can be explained through self-selection: they disproportionately commit impulsive crimes, and also identify as frequent purchasers and avid players of intensely violent games. In further evidence of the time substitution hypothesis, crime rates are higher in the week preceding a new release, when gamers are likely to reduce their playing hours of old games in anticipation of beginning the new game. The presence of time substitution in this natural experiment reconciles with the opposite findings from the lab. Gamers cannot commit crimes spurred on by their heightened aggressive tendencies while simultaneously gaming.

  • (2017) Zhang, Xiaoyue
    Thesis
    Both 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.

  • (2014) Shaffakat, Saba
    Thesis
    Decision 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.

  • (2012) Huang, Xuxing
    Thesis
    This 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.

  • (2014) Zhang, Xueting
    Thesis
    Using 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.

  • (2017) McDaid, Emma
    Thesis
    Technologies 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.

  • (2015) Fu, Yi
    Thesis
    To 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.

  • (2015) Singh, Mandeep
    Thesis
    Classical 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.