The effect of corporate governance on sustainability disclosure

Drawing on stakeholder theory, this paper examines the relationship of board composition, leadership and structure on sustainability disclosure. We discuss that good corporate governance and sustainability disclosure can be seen as complementary mechanisms of legitimacy that companies may use to dialogue with stakeholders. Specifically we claim that, as disclosure policies emanate from the board of directors, sustainability disclosure may be a function of the board attributes: we investigate the relationship between different characteristics of the board and sustainability disclosures among US and European companies. Our results show that in order to explain the effect of board composition on sustainability disclosure we need to go beyond the narrow and traditional distinction between insider and independent directors, focusing on the specific characteristics of each director.     

The influence of executive age,career horizon and incentives on pre-turnover earnings management

In this paper we hypothesize that CEOs will be motivated to manage earnings prior to a turnover decision. This motivation comes from the horizon problem for CEOs nearing retirement age and for CEOs whose profit-based bonus is a large portion of their total compensation. We find that firms in which CEOs are nearing retirement age have large discretionary accruals in the year prior to turnover. Although we find firms with a larger proportion of profit-based bonus pay have larger discretionary accruals, this result is not robust with the inclusion of control variables in the regressions.

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Management’s causal reasoning on performance and earnings management

We investigate the association between the intensity of causal reasoning on performance in a firm’s annual management commentary and its earnings management propensity. Anticipated earnings management concerns are argued to constitute a significant accountability predicament, bringing management to offer more intense causal reasoning in order to mitigate investors’ earnings management concerns. We use computer-intensive techniques to measure causal reasoning intensity as a generic disclosure quality in the management commentary of a large sample of US firms from 1999 to 2007. We find that accruals earnings management (signed discretionary accruals) is positively associated with causal reasoning intensity. The positive association holds for alternative specifications of accruals earnings management (an earnings management dummy model and an analyst expectations model) and in a change model. Our results are consistent with the assertion that firms strategically use causal reasoning on performance to establish appropriateness and cognitive legitimacy, increase perceived plausibility of reported performance and mitigate performance-related concerns of investors.     

The impact of related party transactions on earnings management: some insights from the Italian context

Related party transactions have become a key issue as a result of recent financial scandals. This study examines whether firms use related party transactions for earnings management, and then, whether they try to minimize detection through the format of related party transactions disclosure. Firstly, we analyze the association between related party transactions structure (types and parties involved) and the probability of reporting small earnings increase. Related party transactions may have significant impact on, and implications for, earnings management. According to the agency theory, related party transactions are used opportunistically, while the efficient transaction hypothesis argues that related party transactions meet the economic needs of the business. We next investigate the association between the probability of reporting small earnings increases through related party transactions and disclosure quality. Disclosure quality should be studied in relation to impression management and investor attention; this approach takes account of the idea that earnings management behavior may influence the quality of disclosure as a possible way of lowering conflict of interest. In line with the agency theory, our findings show that revenue related party transactions are more likely to be used to manage earnings than other types of transaction; related party transactions with ultimate parents are associated with lower probability of reporting small earnings increases compared to operations with other related parties. Lastly, our results confirm that the decision to engage in earnings management is related to lower disclosure quality.     

Engineering and management in French higher education. The case of the French engineering schools: A survey

A survey has been carried out concerning the present situation of engineering management curricula in French engineering schools. Results show that engineering management courses exist in nearly all institutions investigated. About one third of the institutions report having research activities and/or the existence of doctoral programs.     

A study of the determinants of environmental disclosure quality: evidence from French listed companies

Journal of Management and Governance - We examine the impact of various factors on the quality of environmental disclosure. Combining multi-theories in a unique framework, it focuses on factors...     

The impact of stochastic lead times on the bullwhip effect under correlated demand and moving average forecasts

We quantify the bullwhip effect (which measures how the variance of replenishment orders is amplified as the orders move up the supply chain) when both random demands and random lead times are estimated using the industrially popular moving average forecasting method. We assume that the lead times constitute a sequence of independent identically distributed random variables and the correlated demands are described by a first-order autoregressive process. We obtain an expression that reveals the impact of demand and lead time forecasting on the bullwhip effect. We draw a number of conclusions on the bullwhip behaviour with respect to the demand auto-correlation and the number of past lead times and demands used in the forecasts. We find maxima and minima in the bullwhip measure as a function of the demand auto-correlation.     

The tone of business model disclosure: an impression management analysis of the integrated reports

The rising emphasis on the business model (BM) as a reportable element reflects the view that it constitutes one of the key starting points for investors’ analysis. In spite of this, recent academic and professional studies describe current reporting on BMs as uninformative: too optimistic, generic and incomplete. The International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) claims that these limitations may be overcome by means of an “Integrated Report”, an innovative report which is expected to offer a complete and balanced representation of how organizations create value by mean of their BMs. The paper investigates the informativeness of BM disclosure questioning whether companies adopt impression management (IM) strategies by manipulating the tone of the BM disclosures provided in their reports. We perform a manual content analysis of all the reports identified in the IIRC website and a multivariate statistical analysis to assess if a positive tone of BM disclosure is significantly associated with weak corporate governance, bad performance and low verifiability of the disclosure itself. Our findings support the idea that managers use BM disclosure as an IM strategy. This evidence has relevant implications for both accounting scholars and practitioners, since it questions the role of integrated reporting in improving corporate reporting on BMs.     

不同发行制度下IPOs发行价格中会计信息含量

通过对审批制、核准制和固定市盈率发行方式下共226家上市公司进行逐步回归分析和Chw检验,得到主要结论有①与审批制相比,在核准制下发行价格中的会计信息含量明显加强.②与核准制相比,固定市盈率方式下发行价格中的会计信息含量发生显著变化,但由于受到样本数量的影响不能给出具体怎样变化.③得到了核准制下发行价格中不同会计指标的信息含量之高低次序.     

券商声誉、 制度环境与IPO公司盈余管理

基于成熟资本市场的研究表明,高声誉券商会抑制IPO公司的盈余管理.本文以2001-2011年处于中国制度环境下的IPO公司为样本,重新考察了券商声誉与IPO公司盈余管理之间的关系.研究发现,券商声誉越高,其所承销IPO公司的盈余管理程度也就越高,但券商声誉与IPO公司盈余管理程度之间的正向关系只有在投资者法律保护较差的地区才显著.进一步的研究还发现,高声誉券商纵容或协助IPO公司盈余管理的重要动因在于获取更高的经济收益.尽管高声誉券商确实能够降低IPO公司的抑价率,但这是通过提高IPO公司盈余管理程度的途径来实现的.本文的结论表明,要使我国资本市场中的券商声誉机制发挥作用,还需要大力提高券商机会主义行为所面临的法律风险.     

Substitution, availability and preferences in earnings management: empirical evidence from China

Our study analyzes financial reporting data on earnings management from a rapidly changing economy—the PRC. Some Chinese regulatory reforms allow for an easy identification of incentives to engage in both accounting and real earnings management activities. In addition, straightforward economic reasoning suggests that firms incur different costs for pursuing these strategies, which leads to the possibility of a hierarchy or ranking of different earnings management practices. Our results show that accounting and real earnings management activities were significantly higher for firms in danger of missing a regulation imposed performance threshold. After controlling for the availability of the different instruments, our results provide weak evidence for a ranking of different earnings management activities.

The disclosure of information by companies

The paper presents some results relating to the degree of disclosure of selected important items of information in company annual reports. The research involved deriving an index of disclosure and this was then applied to the annual reports of 100 stock exchange quoted companies. The general conclusion was that disclosure levels are very low and that there is a big demand for greater amounts of information to be released in annual reports.     

中国A股市场新股抑价现象的实证研究

首先定义了新股抑价水平,提出了影响抑价水平的可能因素,在此基础上确定了基本抑价模型、非受限抑价模型、受限抑价模型和对数抑价模型;随后描述了中国A股市场的新股抑价现象,并给出了各抑价模型实证研究结果;最后比较了四个模型在预测新股上市价格方面的优劣性.     

The impact of industry IPOs on acquisitions of new ventures: An information spillovers perspective

The announcements of initial public offerings (IPOs) in an industry can convey to potential acquirers information about the growth prospects of the rivals of ventures undertaking IPOs, thereby increasing their likelihood of being acquired. We investigate several information diffusion mechanisms to examine how information conveyed by industry IPOs shape such acquisitions. We also develop a contingency perspective on how the value of such information spillovers will vary across acquirers. Our empirical evidence indicates that information in the IPO market channeled via media coverage, analyst coverage, and IPO underpricing raises an acquirer's likelihood of acquiring a private venture. Thus, the information intermediated as a consequence of IPOs relaxes the constraints of an acquirer's information environment, and this is particularly the case for diversifying acquirers.     

Audit quality and earnings management in less developed economies: the case of Saudi Arabia

This paper aims to determine if significant associations exist between audit quality and earnings management in less developed economies, providing their various shortcomings and differences. Five different measures of audit quality (auditor size, auditor industry specialization, auditor opinion, auditor change and timeliness of auditor report) were examined based on a sample of 337 non-financial Saudi listed firms from 2006 to 2009. The absolute value of discretionary accruals is used as a proxy for earnings management by using a cross-sectional variation of the Kothari model. The results of this research indicate that only auditor opinion indicates earnings management practice. The results support the argument that auditors are powerless in front of managerial opportunistic activities. Issues that may impair audit quality in Saudi Arabia are discussed.     

The combination of forecasts in the trading of electricity from renewable energy sources

The legal support provided by the ‘Act on Granting Priority to Renewable Energy Sources’ (German Erneuerbare Energien Gesetz, EEG) and its precursor has in the last 20 years led to a marked growth in Germany in the use of renewable energies to generate electricity. As a result of the EEG amendment adopted in the summer of 2011 and in force since 1 January 2012, the market integration of electricity generated from renewable energy sources (RES-E) has become more important. Consequently, the economic importance of trading RES-E has also increased. A major role in determining costs in trading electricity from wind and solar energy on the wholesale markets plays the forecasting method used. If a forecast inaccurately predicts the amount of electricity actually generated, one result could be elevated costs in the trading process. In the beginning of this article we introduce the legal framework governing the trading of RES-E. Subsequently, we present a method for combining several individual forecasting methods. Finally, using empirical data, we show that in comparison to the best available individual forecast, the proposed combined forecast results in a clear improvement of forecasting quality as well as in a reduction in trading costs.     

Board diversity and earnings news dissemination on Twitter in the UK

Journal of Management and Governance - We examine corporate adoption of Twitter by UK firms and provide the first empirical evidence on the association between board diversity, as measured by the...